After dodging wildfires, Texas' Shamrock celebrates St. Patrick

SHAMROCK (AP) After a hectic week dodging two wildfires and housing more than 200 evacuees of communities threatened by blazes, this small Panhandle town kicked off its 60th St. Patrick's Day celebration Friday.

Folks in the 2,000-resident town strung green and white streamers from downtown awnings and placed leprechaun cutouts in windows. Merchants were selling everything covered in four-leaf clovers _ from teddy bears to boxer shorts _ as well as Irish stew and green lemonade, but no green beer. Shamrock, alas, is in a dry county.

More than 10,000 people were expected to attend the weekend festival that includes a parade, antique car show, motorcycle show, rodeo, carnival and "lad and lassie" beauty pageant.

Since hundreds of firefighters arrived in the region to help battle blazes that scorched more than 840,000 acres, killed 11 people and scores of cattle since Sunday, Shamrock leaders decided to offer them a free meal at the Friday night banquet.

"Shamrock has a whole different air about it, almost like when people have the Christmas spirit," said Mary Dion, who owns Shamrock Rose clothing store downtown, where the sidewalks are dotted with permanently painted shamrocks. "When it's St. Patrick's Day there's a loving spirit here. And this will take people's minds off their problems. Everybody's lost something. If it isn't feed, it's a field."

A mixture of rain and sleet fell across several Panhandle counties Friday, and the National Weather Service predicted wet conditions would continue through the weekend. But the Texas Forest Service said lightning caused at least two new small fires in Carson County on Friday morning.

A third small fire caused part of Interstate 40 in Carson County to be shut down in both directions for half an hour Friday afternoon, and traffic was rerouted.

Texas Forest Service spokesman Warren Bielenberg said firefighters continued putting out hot spots Friday in the three major Panhandle blazes _ a 350,000-acre fire in several counties near Interstate 40, a 40,000-acre fire near Childress and a 450,000-acre fire stretching from Borger to Canadian. All three were 95 percent contained.

Earlier this week, one raging fire came within 5 miles of Shamrock, which is about 20 miles west of the Oklahoma border. Another smaller fire came within a few blocks, said City Manager Johnny Rhodes.

As fires threatened neighboring towns, some nursing home residents and others were evacuated to Shamrock. They slept Sunday night in the community center, where the St. Patrick's Day banquet, dance and motorcycle rally were to be held. But they soon returned to their homes.

"We said, `It's going on, no matter what,'" Rhodes said. "We may have moved (the festival), but we wouldn't have canceled it."

The event has been held annually since the 1940s except a couple of years during World War II in the town that got its name in the 1890s from an Irish immigrant who wanted to honor his home country, according to locals. The town along old Route 66 also has a piece of the Blarney stone from Ireland in its park.

Treva Whitson of Sayre, Okla., brought her 11-year-old granddaughter, Trisha O'Quinn, to Shamrock on Friday because of the girl's Irish heritage.

"So far I like it, and it's fun to see the Irish stuff," said O'Quinn, who wore a green wig made of green tinsel and who had drawn a shamrock on her cheek with eyeliner.