The 60th anniversary Jim Bowie Days Celebration opened on June 20th with a full day of activities focusing on sports and a barbecue cookoff.
Festivities continue throughout the week highlight by rodeo, youth rodeo, kid’s activities and Pioneer Court. The second annual Smokedown BBQ Cookout began on Friday night with the steak and beans contests. Three other categories for chicken ribs and brisket followed on Saturday. There were 27 teams, four more than last year.
Conducted by Outlaw BBQ, the grand champion was Vinny McNamara, with 36 points. Steve Cumbie was reserve grand champion with 26 points.

Read about all the weekend’s winners complete with many photos in your Thursday Bowie News.

Top photo – The first annual pickleball tourney drew 17 teams. Teams greet each other before they start play (Photo by Barbara Green0

A Bowie couple accused of causing serious injuries to a 15-month old boy in January 2025 pled guilty in 97th District Court on June 14 and both received state prison terms.
Jonah Belcher and Cheyenne Eckert, both 24, Bowie, were each charged with injury to a child, a first-degree felony. Belcher received 17 years in prison and Eckert, the child’s mother, received 10 years.

Read the full story in the Thursday Bowie News.

Your counties “hams” will join with thousands of amateur radio operators who will be showing off their emergency capabilities this weekend.
During the past year, the news has been full of reports of ham radio operators providing critical communications during unexpected emergencies in town across America.
Some of these emergencies included California wildfires, winter storms, tornadoes and other events world-wide. When trouble is brewing, Amateur Radio are often the first to provide rescuers with critical information and communications.
On the weekend of June 27-28, the public will have a chance to meet and talk with Montague Counties ham radio operators and see for themselves what the amateur radio service is about.
Showing the newest digital and satellite capabilities, voice communications and even historical Morse code, hams from across the USA will host public demonstrations.
This annual event, called “Field Day” is the climax for the week long “Amateur Radio Week” sponsored by the ARRL, the national association for the Amateur Radio. Using only emergency power supplies, ham operators will construct emergency stations in parks, shopping malls, schools and back yards around the country.
Their slogan, “Ham radio works when other systems don’t” is more than just words to the hams as they prove they can send messages in many forms without the use of phone systems, internet or any other infrastructure that can be compromised in a crisis. More than 30,000 amateur radio operators participated in last year’s event.
“We hope that people will come to see for themselves, this is not your grandfather’s radio anymore,” said Allen Pitts of the ARRL. “The communications ham radio people can quickly create have saved many lives when other systems failed or were overloaded. And besides that – it’s fun.”
The Montague County Amateur Radio Club will be demonstrating amateur radio from noon to 10 p.m. on June 27 and from 8 a.m. to noon on June 28 at the Montague County Courthouse Annex Community Room in Montague.

Read more on this story in the Thursday Bowie News.

Pictured a previous field day event. (Bowie News file photo)