Midland’s Top 10 Stories Of 2021 – Midland Reporter-Telegram

One of the great moments in Midland sports history took place in 2021 as the Olympics featured two athletes raised here.

Midland High graduates Bryce Hoppel and Natalie Hinds thrilled a community by first qualifying for the U.S. teams in track and swimming, respectively, and then competing against the best in the world.

The two were the first to qualify for a U.S. Olympic team in more than 30 years and the first to compete going back to 1968. Both got through the Olympic Trials process, claiming the last spots in their respective events – Hoppel in track’s 800-meter run and Hinds as part of the 400-meter swimming relay.

Hinds even left Tokyo as the first Midlander to medal in the Olympic games since Doug Russell in 1968.

The two former state champions and collegiate standouts had Midlanders talking. One couldn’t drive without seeing them on billboards or go online without seeing Olympic updates. Their successes put Midland on the map, had people recalling their past successes and gave younger Midlanders athletes they could emulate.

During the fall, both were properly rewarded as they were both inducted to the Midland ISD Hall of Legends.

Legendary? That is exactly what Hoppel and Hinds have become.

It became too common for Midlanders to experience the shaking in 2021.

Earthquakes became part of the routine this year. All totaled, tracking sites measured 15 earthquakes that were magnitude 3.0 or greater around Gardendale, Midland or Stanton. The strongest was the last one of the year – a 4.5-magnitude tremor near Stanton that sent Midlanders off into the new year wondering what was next.

The fact is not everyone felt all 15 of those tremors or the 27 (3.0 or higher) quakes going back to 2020. EarthquakeTrack.com reported with one day to go in 2021 that there had been 243 total earthquakes in and around Midland in the past 365 days.

The problem became so constant that the Railroad Commission of Texas ordered the suspension of deep oil and gas produced water injections around Gardendale and announced investigations elsewhere.

A February winter weather event had people scrambling to figure out how to stay warm and wondering when warm weather would return.

From Feb. 11 to Feb. 18, the temperature in Midland never climbed above freezing. During that span 13 new records were set for either coldest high or low temperatures. The NWS also showed new records for consecutive days when the temperature failed to top 32 degrees (eight, the previous record was five). Lastly, the NWS reported that the 221-straight hours of freezing temperature “is the longest stretch at or below 32 degrees on record (90 years).”

The cold dipped to -2 (-17 including the wind chill) one night, the average low temperature during that stretch was 10.6 degrees and Mother Nature blanketed Midland with 5.6 inches of snow for good measure.

The problem was made worse as Midlanders – like residents across the state – dealt with power issues that caused blackouts during significant chunks of the day or for days at a time.

The winter weather experience was great enough to close a vast majority of school campuses for the week. It showed there were Midlanders — like Karl Boroski and Pastor Roy Smith – who braved the elements to make sure all Midlanders had a roof over their head, a warm meal to eat or just a sleeping bag to provide some protection for the coldest spell in the city’s history.

In the middle of March, Midlanders heard Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announce that Midland County would be home to migrant children during an interview on a Sunday news show.

That is when migrant camp became part of the Midland lexicon. For some 2021 became the year when transparency became punchline as Abbott’s announcement of impending federal action came as a surprise to even Midland leaders. It also showed that Midland was going to be impacted by the chaos at the border.

Still, migrants were bused in and out of the Cotton Logistics’ OneLodge Midland camp from March through June. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services used the mancamp southwest of the city and south of Midland International Airport to first house teenage boys and then tender-aged children (5-12 years old), both male and female, alongside teen girls up to the age of 17 years old.

Issues at the camp included the need for security fencing, children that tested positive for COVID-19, the lack of Spanish speaking staff on site, the lack of new clothes for the migrants and no case managers on site to begin processing the minors’ release to family elsewhere in the U.S. There were also water issues, according to the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality.

A comprehensive behavioral health care center for the Permian Basin will become a reality.

During the 2021 Legislative session, Texas leaders approved Senate Bill 8, which included supplemental appropriations of specific funds Texas received under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. SB8 included $40 million to expand access to mental health services in Midland. Medical officials said the hope is to use the state resources to help build a 100-bed facility for the region. Upon completion of the construction of the campus (possibly by 2024), it will be operated by a partnership between the Midland County Hospital District and Ector County Hospital District.

The facility will be a key piece in the community-wide effort to upgrade mental health facilities in Midland – an effort that goes back to 2015 and conversation with the Meadows Foundation about local mental health policies.

“Our communities in West Texas have a dire need for quality mental health are,” Craddick stated in a press release. “The mental health hospital is a great stride toward meeting the mental health needs of West Texas. I am honored to have worked on securing this funding and look forward to this facility being a resource for generations to come.”

A school district in need of academic performance revival picked an education leader from California to lead it in 2021.

Midland ISD made a very unconventional move, going out of state to select Angelica Ramsey to come in and move a school district stuck in the academic mud and lingering in the bottom quartile of the state.

Ramsey began in February and has already changed executive leadership at the top of her administration. She also stated that the former “central office” has become a “district service center,” which she hopes shows the commitment that leadership is making to support campuses across the district.

The goal among leadership appears to be the creation of more cohesive and consistent policies across the MISD community, especially at the elementary school level – something leaders say has been missing and put MISD in a “situation to where now we have to work feverishly to make sure that we’re becoming a district of one.”

Ramsey’s first year has not been without some higher-profile board conversations about the MISD calendar, the placement of Young Women’s Leadership Academy, the elimination of the public comment period (which didn’t happen) and mask mandates.

However, for those who paid attention, there has been executive action with regards to academic performance not seen in some time.

Oilfield acquisitions continued in 2021, and ConocoPhillips and Pioneer led the way.

Both put billion-dollar deals together to improve their respective positions in the Permian Basin and improve their standing with investors. The deals also strengthened their commitment to Midland and the Permian.

ConocoPhillips spent approximately $20 billion in Permian Basin acquisitions this year, vaulting it into second place as the Permian’s second-largest producer. The company began the year completing its $9.7 billion acquisition of Midland’s own Concho Resources and then capped the transformative year by acquiring Shell Enterprises LLC’s Delaware Basin holdings for $9.5 billion.

In the spring, Pioneer announced an agreement to acquire leaseshold interests and related assets of DoublePoint Energy for $6.4 billion. It was reported after the announcement that Pioneer’s acreage position would top more than 1 million net acres and the company expects production from the acquired assets to reach approximately 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Pioneer and ConocoPhillips in September were shown to be the top-two producers in the Permian with both producing more than 600,000 barrels a day.

The celebration of postseason football was marred by a bus accident that killed two members of the Andrews community, including its band director.

On Nov. 19, a truck driving the wrong way on Interstate 20 near Big Spring slammed into a bus carrying members of the Andrews High School band traveling to Sweetwater for a football playoff game. The collision killed three, including the driver of the bus (Marc Elbert Boswell) and the high school’s band director (Darin Kimbrogh Johns). The Department of Public Safety also reported that 13 people were injured.

What followed was a community in mourning for their fellow residents and a region willing to pitch in to help the hurt. The football game was postponed, but when it took place days later, band members from Sweetwater and Big Spring high schools were among those playing in place of the Andrews band.

DPS later reported that it was a Midland man, Nathan Paul Haile, who was behind the wheel of a Ford F-350 that collided with an Andrews ISD bus Friday afternoon 2 miles east of Big Spring. He also died in the collision.

A Midland County jury earlier this month stated that David Wilson is not guilty of murder in the March 5, 2019, shooting death of Midland Police Department Officer Nathan Hayden Heidelberg.

The verdict came after around 90 minutes of deliberations, and the jury’s decision marked the end of the one of the most high-profile cases in recent Midland County history.

Wilson was indicted on a charge of manslaughter after shooting Heidelberg while MPD responded to a burglar alarm call at his home. He told investigators that he mistook Heidelberg for an intruder. Wilson was arrested and charged with manslaughter following the shooting and was re-indicted by a Midland County grand jury on Oct. 28 and charged with murder. 

Both Wilson and the family of Heidelberg have filed civil suits against the companies that installed and monitored Wilson’s alarm system, claiming the companies mistakenly alerted police on the day Heidelberg was shot and killed.

The owner of Becky’s Flowers and a former mayoral candidate went on social media on Jan. 6, drinking a beer and shaking off the effects of an alleged tear gas attack and boasting of her involvement in storming the U.S. Capitol and participating in the riots there.

“I don’t know if you have heard about the shot that rang out throughout the world, but that was it and I am not ******* joking around,” Cudd said during her broadcast.

What followed during the year was Jenny Cudd backtracking about her role in the riots at the Capitol building and eventually her decision to plead guilty to one misdemeanor charge related to her participation in riots at the U.S. Capitol building as part of a plea deal with the federal government.

Cudd pleaded guilty to entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds during a hearing with Washington, D.C. Judge Trevor McFadden in October. In exchange for the guilty plea, the U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed to drop four other charges against her, including a felony obstruction charge.

The guilty plea came after fellow Midlander Eliel Rosa, who was with Cudd during the Capitol riots, was sentenced to one year of probation for parading or demonstrating in a Capitol building.

Cudd’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for March 18. She is facing up to 12 months in prison, a year of supervised release and an up to $100,000 fine.