Soldiers may be deployed and school may be out, but summer is still a busy time at Fort Hood. For anyone looking for fun activities, whether a young married couple or a family with four kids, plenty is happening that won’t break the bank.

Fun at the lake Belton Lake Outdoor Recreational Area is a great value for military families, costing just $2 per car, said Lisa Bass, outdoor recreation program coordinator at Fort Hood.

Fun at the pool To say the pools on Fort Hood are popular is an understatement. In one week, the seven pools see about 18,000 patrons, said Jody Valdez, aquatics director.  Pools are open seven days a week from noon to 8 p.m. Visitors can bring their own food and drink.

Fun at the library The Casey Memorial Library has several summer programs going on this summer, for both children and adults.  The library’s reading program, A Midsummer Night’s Read, is open to all ages and continues until July 15. Participants can register online and win prizes for keeping a log of books they’ve read.

The Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood area was named as an increasingly knowledge-based economy in this month’s Wired magazine.

The short article and infographic, “Small cities feed the knowledge economy” by Adam Davidson, singles out the area as one where “creative class” workers’ ranks are growing.

“Livable cities draw creative people, and creative people spawn jobs,” Davidson writes. “Some places you’d never expect — small cities not dominated by a university — are learning how to lure knowledge workers, entrepreneurs, and other imaginative types at levels that track or even exceed the U.S. average (of 30 percent of all workers).”

Killeen’s current percentage of creative class workers is 28 percent. It will be almost 30 percent by 2018, according to the article.

Davidson took his data from the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.

Jönköping, Sweden-based institute academic Dr. Charlotta Mellander said this week that she applied U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics job growth predictions for 2008-18 to all types of occupations in the U.S., by region.

“In other words,” she wrote in an email, “given the current occupational structures in the regions, how much can they expect to grow over the next decade?”

While some small cities’ creative ranks could contract by 2018, Killeen’s is projected to grow by 15 percent, or to 29.5 percent of the workforce.

In her analysis, Mellander distinguished between three groups of workers: creative class workers in knowledge-based jobs; service workers in standardized service jobs; and working-class jobs, mainly in manufacturing.

In 2008, 33,970 knowledge-based workers were in Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood. According to Mellander’s extrapolation, their numbers will increase to 39,345 in 2018. Service employees will increase 10 percent, to 66,751. Working-class employees will increase 4 percent, to 27,022.

The importance of attracting knowledge-based jobs and workers is nothing new to the Greater Killeen Chamber of Commerce. Marketing director Jonathan Packer said this week that the chamber has worked off of

several “place design” papers for some time, to “proactively create a place where talent wants to reside.”

According to the chamber’s “New Economic Model” paper, business used to need labor. In today’s economy, it needs talent.

Packer attributed Killeen’s growing number of knowledge-based jobs in part to Fort Hood, particularly its Operational Test Command and Central Technical Support Facility. The test command plans for and tries out new war-fighting systems, while the support facility supports deployed soldiers‘ digital needs.

There’s a lot more going on at Fort Hood than stereotypical Army imagery, Packer said.

Article Courtesy of Colleen Flaherty, Kdhnews.com

Texas lawmakers will spend an extra month in Austin trying to hammer out a bill to fund Texas schools.

While they’re their, Belton ISD has a very specific request for them.

Don’t just pass a bill that funds schools, pass a bill that changes the way you fund schools.

Belton ISD Superintendent Dr. Susan Kincannon said, “We are concerned about having a fair system of funding for our children and for our tax payers.  In our district we receive approximate, several thousand dollars less per student than property wealthy school districts in the state do.”

The state’s school funding method is complicated.  Essentially, though, in 2006, lawmakers adopted a “band-aid” system to distribute school funding, until a more fair and permanent solution was found.

Under the system, school districts with higher property value, receive a higher amount of funding per student.

This was put in place reversing the previous system, where “property wealthy” districts received much less funding due to the assumption they would take in more with local property taxes.

A critical problem, though, sprung up in many rural districts, where the property values were high, but the population low.

As a result, those districts struggled because they didn’t take in much money on the local level.

Now, five years later, that same “band-aid” system is still in place.

While complicated, it’s still an issue that resonates with parents, who not only have kids in the schools, but also pay property taxes to both the school district and the state.

Aimee Derossett has two kids in Belton ISD.

She said, “As far as funding and cuts and all of that goes, it shouldn’t have anything to do with property value or who lives where or how many nice houses you have in the direct neighborhood.”

Ralph Sheffield, (R)-Temple, represents Belton, and told KCEN, “I can tell you for a fact that an area like The Woodlands, which is a very property wealthy area, they’re taking an 8 point something, 8.5% cut I think it is.  Where, if you compare to Belton, they’re taking an average of probably 3 [%].”

However it’s not the percentage of funding, but the amount of funding Belton ISD is concerned about.

They stand, under the current school financing bill, to receive $6.5 million less over the next two years.

Kincannon said, “The property wealthy school districts are receiving billions more just in the inequitable funding that could be used to balance the cuts for all districts across the state.”

Now, Belton ISD leaders want their representative and senator to get that message, so they’re taking a new approach to activism.

Alerting staff, parents, and community leaders, in their in-box.

Kincannon said, “We sent out a message today because we wanted the community and our staff to know that what’s being proposed is unfair.”

You can read the e-mail here.

It explains the situation, and calls for the recipient to call their representative and senator.

By mid-afternoon Tuesday, Sheffield hadn’t heard from many constituents.

“I’ve heard from very few people really in the district so I’m, I’ve talked to some of the superintendents of the schools,” he said, “We get an e-mail now and then that my staff will address, but personally, one to one conversations, I really haven’t had that many conversations with people back home.”

However Kincannon hopes as more people understand the situation, that will change.

She said, “Our frustration is that the system that has been proposed doesn’t fix the unfairness and the inequities that exist.”

Still, even if state leaders are flooded with calls over the next few days, it’s unlikely a change in the funding structure will take place this special session.

Sheffield says that won’t happen until, “After we get this package at least done in the interim, and then go back and really work on what’s really fair and equitable out there for all school districts.”

Getting a funding bill in place now takes more precedent, since district’s still don’t know how much money they’ll have to work with next year.

Still, that also means at least two more years with the unbalanced funding system.

Kincannon said, “We would like for our children to receive the same amount of funding as all other children in the state of Texas.”

The districts activism, is resonating with parents, who also want the same.

Aimee said, “I’m glad that Belton’s more active because I’d like to see more things go to the school as I have children in the school district.”

Article courtesy of kcentv.com / Reporter:Matthew LeBlanc/Photographer:Chris Buford

KILLEEN — Sitting in the audience during a live taping of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” was surreal for Sgt. Ryan Lott and his wife, Krystal, but when the couple was pulled on stage by the daytime talk show host and surprised with a $100,000 HGTV home make-over, surprise turned to shock.

“I think I was like, ‘Oh my god, oh my god,’ something corny like that,” Krystal said Monday. “It was crazy. After that, it was all a blur. I was shaking like a leaf and halfway crying.”

Ryan said he was shocked when Ellen gave them the news.

“Totally just trying to get tickets to sit in the audience and watch Ellen live and to get this told to you is amazing,” he said.

Despite a sold-out show, the Lotts got tickets to Thursday’s live taping after Krystal emailed the show telling them about her husband’s impending deployment and that they wanted to do something “super fun” before he leaves in June.

The couple was whisked back to Killeen Friday where they’ll remain in their hotel room while their Allegany Drive home is engulfed in what “HGTV’d” Executive Producer Patrick Jager dubbed chaos.

For the first time, HGTV and Ellen DeGeneres partnered to find a deserving family in need of a home makeover to be featured on the network’s “HGTV’d” show, which premiers in June.

It was the Lott family who producers chose to surprise.

“They’re just adorable,” the designer, whose identity won’t be revealed until Thursday, said Monday. “They have so much energy; their story really touched me.”

Ryan, a sergeant in the 615th Aviation Support Battalion, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, will deploy soon after being home a year since his last deployment. The couple met while both serving in the same unit.

“I’ve had a struggle trying to manage everything when he was gone,” Krystal said. “Everyone knows how hard I tried to maintain my home.”

The “HGTV’d” crew will be on-site for seven days to complete the home makeover, details of which remain under wraps until it’s revealed to the family Thursday.

“We’re not going to skimp and do something small with Ellen,” Jager said, standing outside the home Monday. “Together, it’s going to be way over the top. This is hopefully going to be one insanely excited family.”

The designer who’s working countless hours on the Lott’s home said the need for low or no maintenance was important when designing the makeover.

“You go; you enjoy; that’s it.”

The Lotts said they’re nervous about what’s transpiring within the walls of their home, but excited to see what the designers have in store for them.

“I’m everything,” Krystal said.

“Every possible synonym for nervous, that’s what I am. I’m nervous, I’m excited.”

They both said they’re most excited to see what’s done about the flooring in the home and any work done in the yard.

“I’m really excited for my yard,” Krystal said. “I couldn’t get it to go grow to save my life.”

The completed makeover and designer will be revealed to the couple and their two small children at 6 p.m. Thursday. “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” will air portions of the makeover Friday, but the entire episode will be featured on “HGTV’d” after the show premieres June 6.

Article By Holly Wise of the Fort Hood Herald

Despite a board member’s objections, the Killeen Independent School District Board of Trustees on Tuesday approved a $1 million wireless upgrade project planned to provide a minimum of one wireless access point for every four classrooms across the district.

The issue of beefing up KISD’s wireless infrastructure has been discussed for some time by Chief Technology Officer John Evans, who has said the district’s current coverage is inadequate and spotty.

The wireless project is just one portion of the roughly $10.5 million that has been budgeted in KISD’s current Strategic Facilities Plan for technology-related spending.

Using the SFP — a fund traditionally designated for new schools and building construction — is where KISD Trustee Terry Delano said he had concerns.

“I don’t really have a problem with the wireless project, but where I have a problem is moving this money from our facilities plan, which is basically there for our buildings,” Delano said Tuesday night, before voting against the project. “I would hate to see us tap a fund former boards have saved for schools and facilities and use that for technology.”

KISD Board President Mike Helm said the board decided to designate money in the SFP for technology as a result of a greater surplus than expected two years ago.

“We had extra student growth and the revenue was higher than anticipated,” Helm said, mentioning the surplus was between $15 million and

$20 million. “We were able to designate a surplus that year over and above our normal contribution to the

building fund to catch up to the technology issues out there. We put it in a building fund for lack of a better place.”

Superintendent Robert Muller pointed out that the wireless option being recommended was the least expensive and most conservative in scope of three options presented. Muller said one challenge facing the district is keeping technology capabilities and infrastructure at adequate levels on the older campuses. Such considerations are often built into the construction costs of newer campuses, he said.

All board members excluding Delano voted to approve the $1,071,670 wireless project. In addition to the coverage to classrooms, the work would ensure adequate coverage for common areas, portable buildings, labs, offices and other necessary locations throughout KISD.

This article is courtesy of Andy Ross, Killeen Daily Herald.