TARKINGTON

The Tarkington Volunteer Fire department is praising one of their own after he responded to a call on his own in hopes of saving a Grandmother and baby girl believed to be about nine months old.Captain Doc Sikes said he was at home when he got alerted to a mobile home on CR 2198 near Cleveland.“I know the area, I know the members of the department and where they live I was going to be the only one coming to this station anyway just because of work schedules,” Sikes said. “So I knew me waiting around for hopefully somebody else to show up would be pretty much out of the ordinary so I pretty much had it pre-determined that once I got to the station, I was just going to put my stuff on and go,” said Sikes.Sikes’ arrived on scene in a matter of minutes.“Any firemen that I know, that I pride myself in knowing would have made the exact same call,” Sikes saidTarkington Fire Chief Paul Gregory said Captain Sikes immediately went to work.“He put a ladder in the window where they confirmed the victims were last and made entry, found the Grandmother, pulled her to the window and that’s was about the same time the engine from here arrived and was able to assist getting her out to no avail, she was already deceased,” said Chief Gregory.Captain Sikes and his fellow firefighters went back in the mobile home to search for the baby girl but she too had died.“This is a very unfortunate circumstance for the fire department, for the family involved,” Sikes said.Chief Gregory told KPRC 2 He was proud of Sikes decision making.lot of times they say you should wait, but you have victims, especially a baby. These guys aren't waiting,” said Chief Gregory.Chief Gregory added that counselors and chaplains will be made available to anybody in his department who needed them.

HOUSTON – Three Houston area school boards – in Friendswood, Magnolia and Tarkington – planned to vote Monday night on whether or not to remove their mask mandates. New state guidelines require all students, teachers, staff and visitors to wear masks on school property, unless school boards vote otherwise. In Magnolia, the board of trustees voted to remove the mask mandate, effective April 1. AdIn Tarkington ISD, a decision has not been made as of Monday evening. We will update this story as the school boards cast their votes.

Tarkington has high expectations entering coach Zachary Bass' second season as 12 starters are back in the locker room who are making a run at District 10-3A-DI. The motto in 2020 is Adjust and Overcome as Bass says "staying cohesive as a team and rising to high expectations" are the ultimate goals. Bass welcomes back Trae Deck, an all-district selection, who threw for 2,000 yards and 20 TDs. Kevin McCarther will be a safety valve at TE, while Bradley Sanders will play both ways. Defensively, the strength is up front with Travonte Bogany, who gets after the QB on the edge.

And a lot of folks are still pretty worked up, because a Liberty County constable walked onto the field and stopped the game for a while. A Splendora player had taken a Tarkington player to the ground during the play. DeSpain said it looked to him like the Splendora player, Matteo Sloan, was choking the other boy. The constable would not talk on camera, but told Local 2 on the phone, "Appeared to me they were fighting." One of the game's referees told Local 2 that he hasn't seen anything like it in more than 20 years of officiating high school football.