Onion Creek Senior Center benefactors Cecil Clark, left, Sandra Grizzle and Bob Barton conduct the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Onion Creek Senior Citizens Center. (Photo by Cyndy Slovak-Barton)
by KIM HILSENBECK
The long-awaited, and many would say much-needed, new Onion Creek Senior Citizen Center in Buda is officially on its way. At the groundbreaking ceremony last Thursday, Sandra Grizzle, the center’s executive director, said the organization began nearly three decades ago with a classified ad in the Onion Creek Free Press, the Hays Free Press predecessor.
Grizzle said the 1983 notice put out the call to anyone interested in forming a senior citizen organization for the people of Buda. The ad was placed by the newspaper’s publisher, Bob Barton.
“Many people read this ad and some thought, ‘what a wonderful idea,’” Grizzle said. “People came together for a meeting and, lo and behold, on January 24, 1984, the Onion Creek Senior Citizens elected its first Board of Directors.”
Barton deeded a partnership interest in land he owned and traded adjoining land to the county with a requirement that it be leased to the senior citizens for $100 a year for 20 years. Grizzle said a metal building from the old San Marcos hospital was moved to the site in Buda, near the intersection of FM 2770 and Main Street in Buda, next to the current Hays County office building.
In a short speech several minutes later, Barton returned the favor, telling the crowd of about 100 people that the new senior citizen’s center would not have made it this far without Grizzle’s pushing. Bob Barton, now publisher emeritus of the Hays Free Press, was one of the people Grizzle thanked at the groundbreaking.
The crowd looked on as Barton, Grizzle and Cecil Clark, who is 99 and the center’s oldest member, ceremonially broke the ground for the new building.
“We are so grateful to all who have helped us get to this point,” Grizzle said. “Now let’s make this the best senior center we possibly can.”
