It was a day of proclamations at the Wood County commissioners meeting Tuesday, Dec. 17. Proclamations honoring the Hawkins High School nationally-recognized FFA Queen Bee Program and Wood County country music star Kacey Musgraves were approved.

Hawkins agriculture teacher Matt Byrd introduced the team of four members from the Hawkins FFA Chapter, Jessica Henneous, Mackenzie Rutherford, Rachel Parish and Brooke Goddard. The girls established an apiary on the 2,700-acre grounds at Nestlé, hoping that the setup would encourage bees to vacate the plant and move into their new, more suitable homes. The plan worked. The first harvest yielded 50 pounds of honey, which was bottled and marketed under the name “4G Honey” to represent the four girls. Revenues from honey sales will be used to establish a scholarship fund for the FFA beekeepers.

The Hawkins FFA Chapter entered its beehive in the Houston Livestock Agriculture Mechanics Show and beat students from 500 other schools to earn overall reserve champion.

Musgraves was recognized for winning four Grammy Awards and the Academy of Country Music’s Female Artist of the Year and Album of the Year for which she was also honored by the Country Music Association. Musgraves’ grandparents, Darrell and Barbara Musgraves, and her mother, Karen, were on hand to receive the proclamation. 

In another matter, commissioners approved accepting bids on tax resale bids from the Mineola area on 14 properties. The bids had been approved by the city of Mineola and Mineola ISD. The largest amount of those bids went to Chad Daily, Charles Reed and Jack Powell on two properties with each bid being $5,001.

In three personnel matters, all in the Wood County Sheriff’s Dept., Cody Burge was moved from jailer to jailer-sergeant with Jennifer Phillips and George Hernandez added to the staff as jailers.

Commissioners approved library services contracts with Alba, Hawkins, Quitman and Winnsboro for $8,000 each.

They also approved inter-local agreements with Wood County cities for the development and implementation of the emergency management plan through the activities of the county coordinator. Each city contributed money based on their populations. Those amounts were Alba $693; Hawkins $2,136; Mineola $7,260; Quitman $3,189; Winnsboro $5,617; and Yantis $523.

The indigent burial rate was set at $650. Beaty Funeral Home of Winnsboro handles the indigent cases for the county.

Juvenile Probation Chief Melanie Whitehurst gave the commissioners an update on the activities of her department.

“No other department does what juvenile probation does,” she said. “My staff sees difficult situations and they handle those situations with minimal funding, but more heart than you can imagine,” Whitehurst said. “We work tirelessly for the broken and I feel I owe my Wood County residents the best service we can provide to change lives forever. We spend hours at hospitals, in doctor’s offices, at dentist appointments, have meetings with teachers, parents, CPS, and attend outcry interviews with law enforcement, provide victim’s services, report to the state, see children at schools, homes and in the office.”