Buda resident visits every state park in Texas
July 12, 2023 – By Brittany Kelley
Carol Swanson Rodgers, a Buda resident, visited Lockhart State Park with her son years ago as a way to introduce her family to what the state has to offer. Thirty-seven years later, she has visited all 106 state parks of Texas.
Rodgers was always a child of nature. She often spent her time at local trails near her home, boating and playing in the trees. Despite loving the outdoors as a child, her goal was never to visit all the state parks; it happened naturally over time.
“The state parks all focus around some unique feature and there’s something different in all of them. We went through a few and we went through all of them in the area, then we went further,” explained Rodgers. “As the years went by, I just managed to get to all of them.”
The hobby began as a family adventure, constantly squeezing trips into weekends, spring breaks and summers, but now retired, Rodgers frequents parks whenever she chooses.
Her love for the park isn’t purely recreational. Rodgers has spent several years working with both Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts — first with her children, then as a scout leader, a venture crew advisor and a sea scout skipper’s mate — volunteering, building trails and more.
“I love being outdoors, camping and hiking. I learned my skills through scouting,” said Rodgers. “I started off with my children and ended up with everybody else’s child. The whole drive behind boy scouting is that the outdoors is your classroom. You learn leadership, management, problem solving, skills and self-reliance all outside.”
It’s evident, with her smile, laughter and bright eyes, that Rodgers has found a safe space in hiking through forests, kayaking on rivers and spotting deer.
“There’s a peacefulness. There’s a self-reliance that’s fun,” she said.
In all her love for state parks, she often sees the pollution and the effect of climate change and population. The phrase “loving our parks to death” is due to an increase in population and visitors literally trampling parks to death due to overcapacity.
She does her part in helping to keep the parks clean by practicing and teaching the seven principles of Leave No Trace. According to Leave No Trace, individuals should plan ahead and prepare, travel and camp on durable surfaces, dispose of waste properly, leave what they find, minimize campfire impact, respect wildlife and be considerate of others.
“That’s a way to preserve [parks] for future generations. If you’re going to start getting [on the trails] more, look it up,” said Rodgers.
Revisit the Story at: https://www.haysfreepress.com/2023/07/12/buda-resident-visits-every-state-park-texas/
Lehman HS baseball aims high ahead of new season
Dec. 13, 2023 – By Megan Navarro
KYLE – The Lehman High School varsity baseball team is swinging for the fences as the players look ahead to their upcoming season.
The program has surpassed adversity to put themselves close to making it to the playoffs the last two seasons. However, the team still managed to break school records as it ended the 2022-23 season with the most wins in a season at 19. And for the upcoming 2023-24 season, the players and head coach Jacob Kaase are on the hunt for playoffs for the first time in 10 years.
Kaase was a two-sport athlete in high school with being on both the baseball and football teams. Following high school, he attended Texas Lutheran High School (TLU) for three years, where he helped the Bulldogs to three consecutive American Southwest Conference Championships and he was named in the TLU Athletic Hall of Fame in 2022.
He was drafted by the Texas Rangers after his junior year and he played four seasons in the organization and appeared in 306 career minor league games, according to TLU. At the end of his baseball career, he went back to TLU to finish his degree and graduated in 2012.
Kaase became the varsity assistant for the Lehman High School baseball team in 2018 and then in 2021, he took over the program. He said that when he was 14-years-old, he knew that he wanted to become a high school baseball coach and math teacher, and that dream came true at 29-years-old.
“Just going from a player to a coach is a big transition in itself and there’s a lot of people that really struggle with it. Doing something and teaching something are two completely different things. I feel that, just because I played at such a high level, going back to the high school level was really a hard transition,” he said. “I had to really work on simplifying concepts, terms and philosophies for the high school athletes to really understand and comprehend.”
For Kaase, coaching the players goes beyond baseball.
“When you’re able to teach somebody something, anything in life [and] not just baseball. When you are able to connect with them, get them to buy into what you are teaching them, build a relationship with them [and] watch them become successful is an even greater joy than doing this myself,” he explained. “That’s a big part of why I do what I do. Not just on the baseball field, but watching them grow into men and to be leaders in the community and their homes and to be good husbands [and] good fathers. All of those types of things they can learn from baseball.”
While some may consider the Lehman High School varsity baseball players to be underdogs, Kaase said that it’s all about perspective and they will use that as an advantage, rather than a disadvantage. He took over a program that had seven consecutive losing seasons and he’s been consistently trying to build that back up.
Our first season was a losing season, and the next season was the first winning season and we missed the playoffs by half a game. My third season, which was last season, we went on a 11-game winning streak to start off the year and broke the school record for the number of wins in a season,” he said. “We missed the playoffs again.. I think a lot of credit goes to the kids for buying in or answering the call to the best of their ability and just continuing to grow. And that kind of leads us to, hopefully for the first time in years, punching a playoff ticket.”
The group of varsity seniors on the team is Kaase’s first set of recruited players; he has coached the majority of them for all four years.
Andrew Cruz, a junior on the team, started playing baseball when he was around 3- or 4-years-old. He said that being coached by Kaase has been a great experience for the past three years, as “not once has he ever talked down to people” and “he definitely had an impact on the Lehman baseball team ever since he has been there.”
For Pete Cienaga, one of the varsity seniors, being able to play baseball at Lehman High School has taught him how to deal with failure and overcome issues. He said that he has loved working with coach Kaase because “he coaches us up from the fundamentals from like very basic stuff to help us be better with our performance.”
Both Cruz and Cienaga are hoping that they can help their team get to the playoffs for the 2023-24 season.
Community Support
Coach Kaase spoke about what it means for the players to put on the jersey before each game, but also what it means for the players to know that the community will stand by them every step of the way.
“I talk to the boys a lot about what it means to wear this jersey [and] to wear a jersey that says Lehman on the front. They’re playing for something bigger than themselves. They’re playing for their family. They’re playing for the school. They are playing for this community,” Kaase said. “I talk to them a lot about what that means as far as making a mark and leaving a legacy behind. It’s just part of the brand … We go on and play opponents, win or lose, regardless of the results, we want that opponent to remember the day they played the Lobos, how we played, we didn’t quit and we kept hunting for victory.”
“We want the community to be able to get behind this and know that we play, and how we go about our business, is a reflection on this community,” he added. “[We are] trying to build a tradition of success here at Lehman High School.”
New facility in the works
While working to make it to the playoffs is at the forefront of coach Kaase and his players’ minds, they are also looking forward to the construction of a new facility that will house the Lehman High School baseball and softball venue with dugouts, batting cages, press box, concrete sidewalks and a restroom/concessions building.
The current facilities were constructed in 2004, when the campus opened. The proposition for this project was on the 2023 bond — the cost is estimated at $5,374,337 — because it had previously failed to pass in the 2021 bond, and it was placed on a bond for a second time earlier this year as a matter of equity, according to Hays CISD Chief Communication Officer Tim Savoy.
“Johnson High School, which opened in 2019, was constructed with new equivalent facilities. A recent bond in 2017 passed for an upgrade at the Hays High School baseball and softball venues,” Savoy explained. “This left the Lehman facilities in need of an upgrade. In the 2017 bond for the Hays High School baseball and softball upgrades, Lehman got new bleachers and a press box at the main stadium and a new CTE Auto and Vet Tech building.”
Savoy added that the district decided to implement turf, rather than continuing with grass, on the upgraded fields because of increasing water restrictions, droughts in the area and the inability to maintain grass for playing surfaces.
Construction is underway. In order to do what is best for the kids, Savoy said that the district has worked out an expedited construction schedule with the contractors to finish at least the field before district games begin after spring break in 2024.
“This will likely require some preseason games to be played away, but the entire season, specifically district competition, won’t have to be played away,” Savoy said. “We have since been able to get a commitment from the construction teams that they will be able to complete the playing surface by early March 2024 and finish the remaining venue items by about the third week in March.”
The parents of the Lehman High School baseball team are slated to host an event on April 6, 2024, to present the new complex to the community as well as a spring fundraiser for the team. According to Tiffany Roberts, point of contact for the players’ parents, they will be creating a “Day at the Ballpark” with ballpark foods, vendors, lots of games and prizes, performances, batting practice, a home run derby, local mascots from around the community competing in fun activities and more.
To stay up-to-date on the team, visit https://bit.ly/4aafycO.
Revisit this Story at: https://www.haysfreepress.com/2023/12/13/lehman-hs-baseball-aims-high-ahead-new-season/