At Prairie Valley, Mark Smith was hired a month ago to be the new girl’s athletic coach.
The previous coach abruptly resigned near the beginning of the basketball season which meant athletic director Seth Stephens was in the tough situation of coaching both boys’ and girls’ basketball teams in the same season.
Smith comes to Prairie Valley after teaching math for the last six years at charter school International Leadership High School in Grand Prairie.
His previous coaching experience before that came at schools of various sizes like 6A Byron Nelson as an assistant, 4A Lake Worth as a head coach, 2A Itasca as a head coach and 1A Advantage Academy in Waxahachie as a head coach. He started at 4A Kennedale and Spruce as an assistant.
Stephens said Smith impressed him and the administration with his emphasis on taking a program wide approach to coaching and trying to get girls to compete in as many things as possible.
“He has quite a bit of experience coaching,” Stephens said. “We thought with his personality, the way he wants to commit to not just focusing on one sport. He’s real calm and somebody we were looking for who could come in and give us some stability and consistency.”
Smith was attracted to the job since his daughter is about to enter the 10th grade and her previous school was starting to pressure athletes to start specializing.
Smith graduated from 1A high school Whiteface and wanted the small school experience for his daughter.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.

With baseball state tournament about to get under way this week, the district baseball honors were released for the district 10-2A which includes Nocona.
With the team missing the playoffs maybe the Indians were not as well represented as some other teams, but still some Nocona players were honored.
Wesley Murphey earned the highest honor as he was named second team all-district pitcher.
Fellow pitcher and brother Walker Murphey was named honorable mention along with outfielder Miguel Olivares and utility player Charlie Fuller.

To see photos of all four pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.

The Bowie BMX race park is hosting its busiest weekend of the year.
The park is scheduled to host three days of racing from June 10-12 with people from all over the state and even further expected to travel to Bowie to take part.
On June 10 is the Bob Warnicke scholarship race using single points format. Sign-ups start at 5 p.m. and go all the way up until races start at 7 p.m.
On June 11 is the Race for Life leukemia fundraiser and pro-am that will also be using single point format. Sign-ups start at 4 p.m. and will go until races start at 6 p.m.
June 12 is expected to be the busiest day as it will be at state championship qualifier races. Sign-ups begin at 9:30 a.m. and will go until 11 a.m. when the races will start.
Spectators are welcome to come free of charge with parking free as well. Concessions will be available for cold drinks to keep spectators hydrated and full.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.