Athletic Turf Firm Paid Waxahachie ISD Facilities Director for German ‘Vacation’ to Tour its Sports Work

Mike Wright, a former Cedar Hill ISD facilities official who is now the director of facilities at Waxahachie ISD, was given a paid vacation to Cologne, Germany to attend a conference that showcased athletic upgrades and other sports facilities.

The revelation comes at an ironic time: WISD school board trustees heard at their January board meeting that there was an estimated $16-22 million upgrade estimate for athletic facility improvements — some of which would include a sizable upgrade to Lumpkins Stadium, where the Waxahachie Indians football team plays.


My red flags started going off when the Waxahachie Daily Light published their "Crystal Ball" predictions for 2010 that hinted at a May 2010 bond election to pay for an athletic-and-school renovation and upgrade package that reached an estimate of $80 million, according to Joey G. Dauben, the publisher of The Ellis County Observer and news editor at The Ellis County Press, to date the only publication to report about the controversy.

"When I inquired about the May bond election, one trustee had no idea about it," Dauben said. "The more digging I did, the more this push for a bond package unraveled."

The director of The Ponder Group, the company who paid for Wright's trip to Germany, apologized to WISD for any bad publicity the trip might have caused, according to an e-mail obtained in an open records request.


The direct link to the documents: http://www.elliscountyobserver.com/?p=11360