Frenship Rural H.S. Dist. v. Central Education Ag., 11396

• Decision Date: 25 May 1966
• Docket Number: No. 11396,11396
• Citation: 404 S.W.2d 41
• Parties: FRENSHIP RURAL HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellant, v. The CENTRAL EDUCATION AGENCY of the State of Texas et al., Appellees. . Austin
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 41

404 S.W.2d 41

FRENSHIP RURAL HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellant, v. The CENTRAL EDUCATION AGENCY of the State of Texas et al Appellees.

No. 11396.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas Austin.

May 25, 1966.

Rehearing Denied June 15, 1966.

Elmer V. East, Lubbock, Gaynor Kendall, Austin, for appellant.

Nelson, McCleskey & Harriger, James A. Walters, Johnny R. Phillips, Lubbock, for appellees.

HUGHES, Justice.

This appeal is from a summary judgment rendered by the trial court sustaining an order of the Central Education Agency of the State of Texas which upheld the disannexation of approximately three and one half sections of land from the Frenship Rural High School District, appellant, and the annexation of such land to the Shallowater Independent School District. The latter district is located in Lubbock County. Frenship is located partly in Lubbock and Hockley Counties.

This case has wended its way through the school agencies as required by law and has been properly appealed to the courts. No point is made as to any deficiency in these respects and no point is made that the order complained of by Frenship is not supported by evidence or that it is in any respect arbitrary.

The single point made by Frenship is:

'Point I--The petition for detachment failed to conform to the mandatory requirements of Article 2742f, Vernon's Civil Statutes, in that it was not limited to a single territory, but instead sought detachment of two separate and distinct territories from Frenship Rural High School District. The order of the State Board of Education, which assumed to require that such multitract petition be granted, was consequently void. The District Court's Judgment sustaining the order should therefore be reversed, and judgment rendered that the disputed areas are still within the boundaries of plaintiff school district.'

The stipulated material facts are:

1. On or about the 12th day of November, 1963, Berlin Haught and seventeen other signatories filed with the County Board of School Trustees of Lubbock County, Texas, a petition signed by the said Haught et al. as petitioners, praying for detachment of the lands therein described from the Frenship Rural High School District, and for annexation of the lands to the Shallowater Independent School District.

2. The lands sought to be detached are described by metes and bounds in the detachment petition. The lands included within the petition do not comprise a single territorial tract, but instead constitute two distinct tracts or territories separated from each other by a distance of approximately one-half mile. Specifically, the lands described in the petition as the South one-half of Section 28, Block JS, Lubbock County (a 320-acre tract owned by Theo Lide, and hereinafter referred to as 'territory No. 1') is not contiguous to, but is physically separated from and one-half mile distant from the other tract or territory described in the petition (embracing Sections 32, 51, 52 and a portion of Section 53, Block P Lubbock County, and hereinafter referred to as 'territory No. 2'). The two territories are separated by intervening lands within Frenship Rural High School District which are not included within the detachment petition.

3. Both territory #1 and territory #2 lie adjacent to and each is contiguous to the common boundary lines separating Frenship Rural High School District and Shallowater Independent School District. Neither territory constitutes (nor do both aggregate) as much as ten per cent (10%) of the area of Frenship Rural High School District, and detachment of both territories would not reduce Frenship Rural High School District to an area of less than nine square miles.

4. Mr. and Mrs. Theo Lide, who signed the petition, constitute a majority of the qualified voters residing within territory #1; they are both over fifty years of age, and their children are all adults. At the time of filing of the petition, and at all times since, no child of, or below, scholastic age has resided within territory #1.

5. Berlin Haught and the fifteen other signers of the petition are residents of the territory #2, and they constitute a majority of the qualified voters residing within territory #2.

Sec. 1 of Art. 2742f, Vernon's Ann.Tex.Civ.St. provides:

'Section 1. In each county of this State the County Board of Trustees shall have the authority, when duly petitioned as herein provided, to detach from and annex to any school district territory contiguous to the common boundary line of the two districts; provided the Board of Trustees of the district to which the annexation is to be made approves, by majority vote, the proposed transfer of territory and provided, further,...