On November 22, 2014 students from the Hillsboro Unified Tae Kwon Do School tested for new belts. These students were required to preform two patterns, break boards and spar while being tested by a panel of Masters. On hand for the grading were Grand Master Park-9th Degree Black Belt and co-founder of Unified Tae Kwon Do from Houston, Texas, Master Charles Kight-4th Degree Black Belt and chief instructor of the Hillsboro Unified Tae Kwon Do School for over 18 years, Master Kevin Kight-5th Degree Black Belt from Lorena, Texas and Kevin Devers-4th Degree Black Belt from West, Texas.

2008 Italy High School graduate, Josh Howard will be one of the contestants in the second season of Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Challenge on CMT (Country Music Television). The series will air it’s first episode on January 4th, 2015.

Josh’s episode will air February 8, 2015 on the CMT channel at 7pm.

The Lady Gladiators controlled the Lady Bulldogs of Venus in the dome Tuesday night from the first play of the game until the final buzzer.

Being a Gladiator is forever and high school was just the beginning for former Italy High School student-athlete and now Naval Electricians Mate 3rd class petty officer Zachary Hernandez who will be in town for a short visit during the Christmas holiday.

Downtown Italy came alive on Saturday, December 6, for the annual Christmas Parade and Festival. There was something for everyone this year.

The Walmart Neighborhood Market Job Fair will be Friday, December 19, 2014 in the Italy Boze Community Center at 161 W. Main Street, Italy. Come in and fill out an application or be interviewed on the spot.

Annual Gladiator Regiment Band Christmas Concert
Thursday, Dec. 18 at 6:30pm
Italy HS Gym
Beginning, Junior High, and High School Bands
admission is free

The Martinez family, the owners of Mamma’s Place, wants to express their sincere thanks and appreciation to the Italy community and surrounding area. The response to the reopening of Momma’s Place has been more than they could have imagined. Phones are on, credit card machine is working—the original is back! Enjoy!

The Emergency Services District #3 and the Italy Fire Department would like to thank the following local merchants for their gift certificate donations for our Appreciation Dinner:

On December 15th, the Italy Police Dept. and the Italy Fire Dept. joined forces and took 6 Stafford Elementary children Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart. After all of the shopping was done they had lunch together at CiCi’s pizza. Then they all ventured back to the Italy Community Center to wrap the presents and had cookies and punch for a snack. The Police Officers and Fireman had as much fun as the kids did shopping.

The Emergency Service District #3 hosted the 12th Annual Fire Department Appreciation Dinner on Monday night in the Italy Community Center. ESD Board members are Jackie D. Cate, Vicente Guerrero, Howard Morgan, James Steele and Murrie Wainscott.

The City of Italy honored local resident, Altha McNeely, on Saturday, December 6, 2014 at the annual Christmas parade and festival. Altha moved to Italy when she was in the 4th grade. She is a long time member of First Baptist Church.

The Italy ISD Board of Trustees will have the monthly meeting on Monday, December 15, 2014. Meeting time is slated for 7pm and will be held in the Italy High School cafeteria at 300 S. College Street, Italy.

On the first Sunday night in December, the Italy Ministerial Alliance Christmas Service was held at Central Baptist Church. Choirs represented the Union Missionary Baptist Church, Central Baptist Church, Mt. Gilead Baptist Praise Team, and Coming of Christ Church.

On January 2, 2012 a young man entered the Hillsboro Unified Tae Kwon Do School located at 125 W Elm-Hillsboro along with his mother and father, Maria and Roger Sam. The family was from Italy, Texas.

The Gladiator Band Boosters will meet on Monday, December 15 at 7:30pm in the Italy High School Band Hall. All band member parents are urged to attend.

The Gladiator Football program and AD/HFC Charles Tindol announce Italy’s 2014 All-District award winners for their relentless efforts on the grid-iron this season.

Trinity Mission has an angel tree and have many angels on it. They are hoping to have all the angels off the tree.

The Italy Lady Gladiators improved their record to 10-3 with a 50-34 victory or the Axtell Lady Longhorns at home in the dome Tuesday night. Freshman Emmy Cunningham led Italy with 30 points.

Even when they were outnumbered, the Italy Lady Gladiator Junior Varsity basketball team never gave up. They fought hard on the court to defeat the Axtell Lady Longhorn J.V. 23-21 on Tuesday night in the dome. Italy started the game with only 5 players -Axtell suited up 11 players.

Contact Santa’s Hotline at (214) 949-5782 between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. this holiday season to tell Santa or Mrs. Claus what is on your Christmas Wish List! You can even email Santa at [email protected]. Brought to you with love and Season’s Greetings from Trinity Of Italy!

The IYAA will be holding its final basketball signup tomorrow on Saturday, December 6, at the Upchurch Ballpark concession stand from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon.

Members of the Italy Lady Gladiator Softball team left their mark in the big city while bringing a tournament championship trophy home after defeating larger schools such as Duncanville and South Grand Prairie for the top prize.

Hats off to Stafford Elementary’s Student Council for doing their part in organizing a canned food drive. With bragging rights on the line, the third grade students in Mrs. Jenna Chambers’ class came out on top as the class who collected the most cans—172 items!

This coming weekend will be packed with basketball games for our Italy Boys JV and Varsity squads. Our JV boys will travel to Ferris High School for their 9th grade/JV Tournament and our varsity boys will travel to Avalon for their 84th annual Basketball Tournament. Brackets for both tournaments are attached.

The Italy Youth Athletic Association had all three of their Football and Cheerleading age groups A (5th-6th), B (3rd – 4th) and C (Pre-K – 2nd)) win at least one playoff game and the C-team and B-team both reached the Superbowl with the Italy’s C-team winning the Championship trophy!

Congratulations to these hard working Stafford Elementary students! Job well done!

The Italy ISD Board of Trustees will have a workshop on Thursday, December 4, 2014. Meeting time is slated for 5:00pm and will be held in the Italy High School Cafeteria.

Several of our Italy, Texas youth are reveling in victories of recent sports championships. Did you know?

With everyone in suspense on where she might go, Italy’s Kortnei Johnson selected LSU over University of Houston and Kansas State and will continue her track career as a Lady Tiger at the D1 level. Not bad for an athlete from a small school without a track.

The Italy National Honor Society, sponsored by Tina Richards, the Italy Junior High National Honor Society, sponsored by Casey Holden, and the Italy HS/JHS student council, sponsored by Vivian Moreland, held their annual canned food drive competition, and EVERYBODY WON, donating 540 cans of food to the Italy Food Pantry! The Pantry volunteers cannot thank you enough for the wonderful contribution you have made to the Italy Food Pantry.

Italy High School’s yearbook staff would like to start off and say Happy Thanksgiving to the whole community of Italy and remind you to start shopping! We would like to give appreciation to all companies listed below for their ad in the 2014-15 yearbook! When shopping this holiday season, please mention to these businesses that you heard about them from Italy Yearbook ad pages!

The Italy Gladiator ColorGuard will have a Bake Sale on Saturday, November 22 from 10:00am to 3:00pm at the Texas Best Travel Plaza. Donations of baked goods are appreciated.

The Italy Fire Department and Italy Police Department are asking for the community’s help to raise funds for the annual Shop with a Hero.

Italy High School senior softball pitcher Jaclynn Lewis commits to Texas Lutheran University where she will continue her career as a Lady Bulldog.

Italy High School junior Mason Womack becomes the first male cross-country runner to qualify for regionals in recent times for the Gladiators.

The Italy ISD Board of Trustees will have their regular monthly meeting on Monday, November 17, 2014. The meeting will be held in the Italy High School Cafeteria at 300 S. College, Italy. Meeting time is slated for 7:00pm.

Don’t be left out in the cold without your Gladiator gear. Let’s get warmed up for our JV/Varsity Baseball Season with spirit beanies, gloves and headbands available for purchase thru Italy Baseball!

Hats off to the following Italy High School students. These 120 students are part of the 2014-2015 Academic Honor Roll List for the 2nd six weeks. (This is an increase from the previous grading period!) Congratulations to these students as well as their parents, teachers and administration. It takes a village!

On Veterans Day, the administrators, staff and students of Italy ISD showed their appreciation to local veterans by hosting a program to honor them.

On Friday, November 14 we will honor Kortnei Johnson as she signs her letter of commitment to run track at the collegiate level. We will have a short signing ceremony at 3:10 pm in the Dome followed by cake to honor Kortnei.

With the weather growing colder, South Ellis County Random Acts of Kindness is in desperate need of winter coat donations for both adults and kids along with winter clothing donations as well!!!