As the Bowie School District launches into its summer projects, several department heads offered their year-end reports to the trustees last Thursday.
Annual reports
Wayne Walker, support services director, told the board the management team for all his departments set a goal to reduce budget expenses this year and so far they are below budget projections as the school year winds down and summer projects kick off.
As of June 6, child nutrition was $235,678.46 below budget; transportation, $217,942.20 below budget and custodial $312,277.44 below budget, for an overall projected amount of $765,898.10 below budget.
“We hope to finish August 2024 under budget to help out the district in recouping some of the adopt deficit budget for 2023-24. We are projecting in the right direction to end the fiscal year,” said Walker.

Read the full story in the mid-week Bowie News.

Five Montague County high schools will conclude their year with graduation ceremonies this week including Bowie, Forestburg, Gold-Burg, Nocona and Saint Jo.
Saint Jo graduates on May 23, Bowie, Nocona and Forestburg on May 24 and Gold-Burg on May 25.
Bowie High School
The Jackrabbits of Bowie will walk the stage at 8 p.m. on May 24 in Jackrabbit Stadium. The senior class selected Coach Aaron Chokas to be the class speaker. He is the boy’s head track coach and a Bowie graduate.

Read the full story and meet the top graduates of the five county high schools graduating this week across Montague County in your mid-week Bowie News.

The Nocona High School barbecue teams competed at the state contest last week with the top 91 teams and it was a tie-break tri-tip cook that earned the Burnt Ends team a wild card spot in the National competition.
Deanna Meser, one of the team sponsors, explained while the teams did not score in the top 10 of the five events that counted for a national bid. Only the top 10 are given points no matter what your score is for each event.
“Both teams turned in their best meats of the season in every event. Both teams worked together all day long. We started the year with two returning students and ended the year with eight pitmasters,” Messer explained.
The Burnt Ends took part in a national tie-breaker event cooking tri-tip and took the grand championship. Messer said the final details of the contest were a bit confusing but the Burnt Ends’ pork chop made it to the finals table placing them in the top 24 out of 87 high school teams. They were selected for a wild card because of that and their tri-tip championship.
Nationals will be in Branson, MO. Members of the Burnt Ends are Heyvan Ramsey, Keegan Norman, Owen Crossen and Josiah Messer.