A track beloved by skating champs is sidelined for landmark development
Speedskating wasn’t on the agenda as Waco leaders gathered Thursday near an old school track by the Brazos River. They were there to break ground on Barron’s Branch, a massive mixed-use development that features a creek walk, a plaza, a pavilion and pedestrian bridge.
But for some of the sport’s top athletes in the Waco area and far beyond, the track from the now-demolished Indian Spring Middle School is more than surplus property.
Over the last year, skaters from Dallas and Bellmead have met there three days a week to train for the U.S. National Outdoor Speedskating competition held in Hollywood, Florida, from Aug. 25 through Sept. 1.
They say the smooth, hard-surfaced track was the only one in Central Texas that compares to the U.S. Nationals Track.
“This is kind of like my home track,” said Dallas speedskater Karan Sudhakar, 15, during a practice on Aug. 11 with his sister, Kenishka, 9. “So I’ve got to travel all the way here in order to make it.
“Our wheels can’t really take synthetic tracks or the running tracks that high schools usually have. So this track’s perfect enough, and it’s pavement, and it’s almost the same distance as the outdoor national track.”
The track was built around 2013 to serve the newly rechristened Indian Spring Middle School. It closed temporarily in 2015 as the city replaced a drainage tunnel that failed beneath it, then repaved the track.
Now a second tunnel, topped by an artificial recirculating stream, will help convey Barron’s Branch to the river and allow remove floodplain restrictions that had hampered the site’s development.
The track was already under demolition this week as heavy equipment was staged for the 11-acre site where a multiphase downtown development project is beginning. This first round of construction is expected to cost $169 million and wrap up in 2028. — Justin Hamel
Visualizing the wildfire that threatened Meridian State Park
The Hydra Fire in Bosque County has stopped its march north toward Meridian State Park and the nearby city of Meridian. County fire marshals were monitoring hot spots with drones and reported 83% containment of the blaze as of Wednesday afternoon.
The fire ignited Sept. 14 and quickly roared north before stalling less than a mile east of the park, causing it to close for several days.
About 1,000 acres had burned by Wednesday. To grasp the extent of the fire, I used AI and some prior experience with Copernicus Browser, the European Space Agency’s satellite image repository, to create a custom burn scar detection model. You can see the results of the model below, which ran on a satellite image captured Sept. 20, the most recent available without cloud cover.
In short, it looks for the way burned areas reflect light and radiation differently than unburned areas. The model combines features of Pierre Markuse’s wildfire detection script and a USGS script designed to detect fires in dry grass (versus forests). I got the idea from a satellite visualization I made a few years ago examining Lake Powell’s declining water level.
The trick was to substitute water level changes for burned versus unburned areas. The results here aren’t perfect — there’s a few false positives and smoke occlusion created problems with the northern part of the burn scar — but I think it does a lot to reveal the affected area. — Sam Shaw
Waco ISD: More certified teachers, less turnover
Waco Independent School District’s efforts in recruiting and retaining qualified teachers are paying off, administrators told the Waco ISD board last week.
Waco ISD has reduced its turnover rate and has exceeded its goal of hiring highly qualified teachers. The district’s new strategic plan outlines goals to recruit, develop and retain highly qualified staff.
The district reports that 95% of teachers are certified, exceeding this year’s goal of 93% and approaching the 2030 goal of 96%.
The district’s staff retention rate is at 84% this year, surpassing this year’s goal of 81% and close to the 2030 goal of 85%.
Ronnita Carridine, Waco ISD’s assistant superintendent of human resources, told trustees she wants to raise the bar to 86% or 87%.
The district also aims to improve staff satisfaction. Through surveys, it found 68% of staff felt a sense of belonging. By 2030, it hopes to reach 100%.
“Some people might think that’s rather lofty but if we don’t shoot high, we don’t know where we’re going to land in the grass,” Carridine said during Thursday’s board meeting.
The district’s turnover rate decreased from 2024-25 to 20.4%, down from 23.3%.
Texas House Bill 2 requires school districts to use certified teachers in core subjects and to submit plans for reducing dependence on uncertified teachers.
Waco ISD began implementing its first strategic plan last year, focusing on student achievement, staff retention and recruitment and engaging families and communities. District officials will update the public on their progress at a “state of the district” event Oct. 30. — Raquel Villatoro
In suspense: A reader’s striking visualization
Gideon Jeffrey is among several readers who have reached out to The Waco Bridge about McLennan County Elections Office’s hefty “suspense” list, which lists some 28,500 registered voters whose addresses remain unconfirmed. (Read our story to learn more and make sure you’re not on the list.)
Jeffrey went the extra mile and mapped suspense voter rates in all Texas’ 254 counties over the last 31 years. Sure enough, McLennan County is an outlier, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s calculations in March, with suspense voters accounting for 18.5% of the voter rolls. (A caveat: McLennan County’s list has shrunk slightly by several hundred names since March.)
Also notable: Bell County’s rate has been even higher than that in the past.
We love cool maps, so we got his permission to share his work with you. See the interactive version of the map here. – J.B. Smith
By the numbers
100
Number of engineers L-3 Communications estimates it will need to hire in Waco to keep up with growing business, according to a presentation by company representative Bill Kascsak at a McLennan County Republican Club meeting last week.
The aircraft modification company already has some 275 engineers among its 1,035 Waco employees and is looking to expand staff and facilities. It is recruiting Baylor University and Texas A&M for jobs and internships.
The Waco plant has rebuilt its workforce in the last few years as it has lassoed big military and civilian contracts, including work on the Navy P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft and modifications for NOAA, NASA and the project to turn a 747-8 donated by Qatar into Air Force One. – J.B. Smith
