FAST group spreads joy in Lockhart

By Kyle Mooty

LPR Editor

Sixty-five Freshmen Aggies Spreading Tradition (FAST) once again spread joy around Lockhart by attending several locations on Saturday to work on various projects.

The students, who make the trip once a year spent Friday night – males at the Lockhart First Baptist Church Connection Center and females at various houses around town – are carrying on a lengthy Texas A&M tradition. About 240 applicants are trimmed down to about 70 in the FAST program.

“It’s a wonderful group of kids,” said Gary Dickenson, a former president of the local Texas A&M Club. “It’s an application process and it’s stringent. Sophomores who were in it the previous year organize the thing.”

This year, the students scattered around Lockhart to lend helping hands, including joining with members of the Lockhart Kiwanis Club to build a wheelchair ramp at a private residence in town.

Also, students helped work in the garden at the Caldwell County Food Bank, cleaned up around the ballfields at Lockhart City Park, worked at the Dr. Eugene Clark Library, the Lockhart Animal Shelter (walking dogs and cleaning the kennels), 4:12 Kids, and Keep Lockhart Beautiful.

Several individuals helped cook pancakes, eggs, Smitty’s sausage, and bacon at the First Baptist Church Fellowship Hall. Helping cook for the students were Dickenson, Tanya Homann, Nic Irwin, BJ Westmoreland, Benny and Linda Hilburn, Alan Robinson, Jim and Dawn Jewel, and Sam Weiser.

The students began coming to Lockhart 14 years ago and have come one night and worked a day each February since.