Plumbing 
Winners of the Bandera Soil and Water Conservation District’s arts and writing contests include (front, left to right) Kinsey Davis, Addilyn Cantu, Leighton Leavelle, (back) Hallie Moore and Kassidy Jernigan.
With the arrival of one of the favorite months of the year, the 22nd-annual Utopia Ranch Rodeo and dance is on the calendar for May 26 in the beautiful Utopia Park.
This event is always entertaining and often exciting to see some professional cowboys on various ranch teams.
Mike and Kristy Outhier sponsor the rodeo that offers some of the Outhier young bucking horses their first outing in front of a crowd.
Other Memorial Day activities will be happening in the area so make plans to check out the Hill Country area during this special holiday.
School happenings
This has been a most amazing spring for the Utopia Buffaloes as success has followed them on every turn.
The one-act play did a great job at the regional contest with Nicole Duke named to the regional all-star cast and Jacy Hardie received honorable mention. This was only the third Utopia play to ever qualify for regionals and, although the play did not advance to state, the students and directors can be very proud of their accomplishment.
The academic team returned from the regional contests in Brenham with Jacy Hardie winning fourth in ready writing, Thomas Golden sixth in social studies and Taylor Wiekamp eighth in number sense.
Pedro Enriquez received the reserve champion award in the Tractor Restoration division of the Texas A&M Kingsville Ag Mechanics show.
Taylor Wiekamp’s short story received first place in the Southwest Texas Junior College Literary Arts contest while Max Feller placed first with his essay. Ransom Harthcock was named overall literary category winner. Many additional ribbons came back to Utopia after awards night.
Jace Bennett performed at the Texas state track meet yesterday in pole vault and the ladies golf team leaves today for the state golf meet. We look forward to hearing good news from these contests.
Conservation
The Bandera Soil and Water Conservation District sponsored arts and writing contests with the theme of “May the Forest be with You Always.” For the second year, Addilyn Cantu won the poster contest for the third through sixth grades in the local contest and second in the area competition.
Kassidy Jernigan won first in both local and area contests in the senior division with her essay. Hallie Moore placed second.
In the junior division Kenzie Davis also won both local and area essay writing with Leighton Leavelle placing second.
These students were rewarded for their efforts with plain old cash and even the sponsoring teachers received a cash award. They are all invited to the Area Meeting in West coming up this week.
Around Town
Lots of events honoring our high school seniors are happening all around town. This year’s class of 22 is one of the largest in several years and will soon depart on a trip to Hawaii. They have worked hard to earn this trip and the Utopia community has blessed them with enormous support.
Almost the whole canyon received a wonderful rain during the last week of April and as hopes for more increase we just pray that our river can return for summer. It’s sad to see some centuries old cypress trees failing to put on leaves this spring. In previous years the Sabinal River had been dry on occasion but usually brought back in short order by a good rain. Currently it has been several years since it has flowed continuously and those good rains have been very scarce. Perhaps this beautiful month of May will bring our river back.
