The first 830Times.com contest is done!Photographers are receiving chances in the St. Joseph’s Raffle held on Sept. 6 for $5,000 or 11 other prizes, from $500 to $4,000.
Winning 10 raffle tickets for chances and a dozen other prizes was Alma Samantha Cavazos Sanches with her photo of the fire.
When she was contacted that she’d won, her comment was “It was a scary day but at least something good came out of it.”
She and her family had to evacuate their home.
“I live on top of the hill off of 277 and when we had first saw the smoke it looked to be far off the property, my husband and I even went to do grocery shopping at H‑E‑B thinking by the time we got back it would be under control,” she wrote to 830Times.
She got back and was making dinner. “We hear a knocking at the door and realized that a fire truck was parked in front of the house along with sheriff who told us we needed to evacuate. That is when it got really real. I left with my brother in law, his son and my sister in law while my husband and his mom stayed at the house. They would call us and tell us that they could start to actually feel the heat which just had us so scared. But thank the lord that we finally got the call that it was safe for us to come home, all thanks to God and the firefighters who helped control the situation.”
Evacuation was also on second place winner Desiree Trevino’s mind, who submitted her mother Jessica’’s photo. “We were outside practically the entire time cause we were so worried that we were gonna have to evacuate! There were times that we could actually see the flames from down the street,” she said
Third place went to Efren Bernal Gallegos of his shot of a helicopter over the fire.
“Hopefully, this was a fun contest for everybody,” said Joel Langton, publisher. “The 830Times staff learned a lot, we learned that our readers enjoy this, and we learned how to do these types of contests better in the future.”
Also randomly receiving tickets for voting in the contest were Alyssa Michelle, Bethany Ryherd Rodriguez, Diana Morales, Kurt Lemp, Vanessa Gudino, Clarissa Soto, Yraidu Celedon, Amy N Sal McKinney, Bobby Roberts and Karla Hernandez. Each of these winners won a raffle ticket for $5,000. Each of these winners should send a direct message to the 830Times Facebook Page with their name, phone number and address or make arrangements to pick up a ticket.
“We ask that people like and follow our Facebook page to make sure they don’t miss future contests like this,” Langton said.
