A.D. Ibarra

-Eagle Pass

Manuel Reyes III, D.A.R.E. Officer for the Eagle Pass Independent School District, informed The News Gram of the success of the 13th Annual D.A.R.E. Graduation held at Maverick County Lake.

"We're very thankful to all of our sponsors, volunteers and charitable organizations for the use of their equipment, vehicles, boats and even motorcycles which made the event much more enjoyable for the students."

Reyes stated that over 200 participants were able to culminate a year of Drug And Resistance Education across the EPISD.

Game wardens from The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department were on hand to give the students boat rides as has been customary throughout the years.

Members of the Gypsies, Blue Knights, Reguladores, and Halcones MC Clubs were also on hand to give the students rides on their Harleys and the Maverick County Sheriff's Department had three Polaris 4-Wheelers to allow the kids to ride as well.

Pedro Guanajuato of US Costoms assisted the Sheriff's Department in giving out incentives for the kids and Alfonso Mallen of the Eagle Pass Boys and Girls Club held a beach volleyball tournament and Big Bob Flores and Adolfo Lozano of BBO Truck Center handled the cooking chores of preparing over 350 hamburger patties.

Members of the Figthin' Texas 20122nd Junior Air force ROTC were on hand to assist with crowd control and lining up students who were waiting to get rides on the vehicles as well as one of the Polaris vehicles was hooked up to a wagon graciosly provided by Rosendo Flores.

The Laredo Food bank provided all the drinks for the event and numerous volunteers were also on hand to help out this worthy cause.

"We would like to thank Maverick County Commissioner's Court and the Commissioner of Precinct 1 Gerardo Morales and his assistant, Oscar Cantú for permission to use the facility and for their assistance."

"We had four D.A.R.E. Officers including myself as Jose Regalado of the EPPD, Melissa Valdez of the KTTT PD, Charlene Alvarado of the KTTT PD and G.R.E.A.T. Officer Fernando Chacon were also very instrumental in the success of the event and throughout the entire school year," added Reyes.

"The event has gotten bigger and bigger since the days when we started and it's all due to the great support we've always gotten from our community contributors who we are looking forward to working with again next year."