By David Taylor
Managing Editor
Following their win in a historic eminent domain case versus Aldine Independent School District, the Travis Upchurch family was ready to celebrate.
“We knew we had to do something to thank the kind and caring people of Aldine who came to our dad’s defense in regard to the eminent domain case against him from the school district,” said his daughter, Tara Upchurch.
Upchurch and her brother spent two months going to school board meetings asking hundreds of friends, family, and community members to write to the board to ask them to reconsider taking their dad’s home for the Thorne Stadium renovation project.
“When we realized that we weren’t getting anywhere with that, we changed tactics and sent out a call to invite people to the next (September) board meeting and boy did they show up!” Tara said.
Supporters packed the board room, many holding signs of support, and numerous others signed up to speak at the meeting, strongly giving their opinion and threatening the failure of the coming bond election and unseating board members up for election.
Days before the beginning of early voting, the board announced at the October meeting that they were rescinding their pursuit of the Upchurch home.
“We knew then we had so many Aldine community members to thank,” Tara said, and they recently took the opportunity to do that with a celebration at the nearby American Legion Hall.
Along with burgers and chili, the family assembled a slide show of photos from the early years in Aldine and Travis Upchurch, Sr. prepared a pecan pie using the pecans from the trees on his property planted by his grandparents decades ago.
“Our great great grandparents settled in Aldine in the early 1900’s and we loved growing up listening to all the stories passed down about how tight knit the community was back then,” she said.
The Upchurch siblings now live abroad and said they were proud to feel that same spirit from the Aldine community even now.
“Aldine residents truly care about one another and look after each other,” she said. “That’s never changed or gone away. There’s no way we could ever repay everyone who looked after us in one of our most stressful and uncertain times as a family. We only hope to stay connected and to continue to find ways to give back and celebrate with such a wonderful community.”