Activity-packed weekend ahead

By Todd Brooks

There will be opportunities to brave the heat and get out of the house over the weekend in Comanche. Events from district fairs, sports camps, school supplies and school and community events will be happening all over the town.

Friday

* The Comanche-Empire District Fair gets the busy weekend kicked off at Patterson Avenue Baptist Youth building. Items can be entered from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. Friday. The viewing for the district fair will be from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Lunch will be served from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. with pulled pork cooked by Stephens County District 3 Commissioner Russell Morgan for $7. Fair entries will be released at 4 p.m.

Saturday

* The district fair continues with the livestock show beginning at 8 a.m. at the Comanche Ag Complex. Check-in for animals is 7:30 a.m. Show order is cattle, swine, sheep and then goats.

* A beginner and advanced wrestling camp will be presented by the Comanche Takedown Club for beginners in the morning and advanced wrestlers in the afternoon at the Comanche wrestling gym.

* The Comanche Chamber of Commerce school supply giveaway will be from 11 a.m. to noon at First Baptist Church of Comanche. It will be for Comanche Public School students only and will be for all grades.

n The Comanche softball team will be hosting a community event featuring an alumni softball game, co-ed softball game, home run derby, vendors, bouncy houses, silent auction and more beginning at 5 p.m. at the Field of Dreams. Bringing a lawn chair is recommended and food will be available to purchase.

Sunday

* The Comanche football team will be hosting the second annual Midnight Madness practice and community event. It begins at 9 p.m. with the first football practice of the season beginning at 12:01 a.m.

“I started doing that around 2007 with my team in Texas, and it became really important when I started the Krum football program,” said Gary Robinson, head coach. “The reason I did it was we had never had football in Krum and we wanted everybody in Texas to understand that we were going to start as soon as the UIL (Texas’ high school athletic association) would allow us to practice. We wanted it to be on TV and the media, and it was. There was a time when the Weather Channel called and interviewed me about it. That’s what we wanted. We wanted people to know we were serious about playing football.”

The same applies now to the Indians.

“That’s what I think about it here, turning around a program that hasn’t won for a while,” Robinson said. “We want people to know we are serious - the community, our opponents, everybody - we are here to play football, we are not here to mess around. Whether we win or lose, we want people to know we are going to get after it. We want our opponents to know at the end of the game that they were in a football game. We’re going to start the very minute OSSAA allows us to start.”

Then there is the community aspect of it.

“I go to my booster club and get them on board to make a carnival atmosphere out of it with bounce houses, punt/pass/kick competitions and the concession stand will be open. The cheerleaders and band can get involved and have stuff for the little kids. It’s a good community get-together and plus, it’s not hot. We can get in a good two or two-and-a-half hour practice under the lights. It’s always been a big hit. There’s a lot more people doing it now after they saw how successful we were with it in the early 2000s.”