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A meeting will be held next week for Hamshire-Fannett school officials with a new company to talk about money for classrooms. Brian Burns reports the new company is investing more than 300 million dollars toresurrect a dormant refinery. Don Hodges spends his days on his Hamshire rice and soybean farm tending to his garden. But before retirement, Hodges spent his life working in the oil business. The last 19 years of his career, he spent here at the old Independent Refinery in Hamshire. "Well, I was the one who put the lock on the gate."

Hodges hopes the new company taking over the old plant which closed in the early 80’s, becomes as instrumental to the community as it was back then. "Yeah it’s important. They need to give some of these younger people a chance for jobs." This gate has been padlocked for the better part of 25 years but now, Jefferson Refinery is coming back to life. The new company, based in The Woodlands, is called Jefferson Refinery LLC. They plan to refurbish the rusty towers, corroded vessels and holding tanks to produce gas and other petrochemicals. The new plant means not only hundreds of construction jobs but 100 to 150 permanent jobs... It also means tax money for the Hamshire-Fannett school district.

School superintendent Keith Elliot tells us he’ll be meeting with Jefferson Refinery officials next week to work on tax evaluations for the school district on the property. Jefferson County is also thrilled saying the 300 million dollar project could bring in a million a year in new tax revenues. "You know, in this economy, yeah it’s extremely beneficial news for us. It’s something that we’ve really been happy about. It’s something we’re looking forward to beginning construction," according to Jeff Branick, assistant to Jefferson County judge Ron Walker. But Hodges says the new money for the school district is the most important thing.

"It’d help our school district for sure even if it didn’t lower our taxes." And it looks like that new tax money is coming. Jeff Branick says residents can expect to see crews begin refurbishing work at the Hamshire Refinery by mid summer.