Home Care In Doss, TX

TexasBank recently announced $100,000 has been donated to area fire relief efforts through the James and Dorothy Doss Foundation. Of that amount, $50,000 is being given to the Texas Big Country Red Cross Home Fire Relief Fund and then another $50,000 is being distributed among Volunteer Fire Departments in Brown, Comanche, Eastland, Erath and Parker Counties.

“Community banks are engrained in the fabric of the communities that we serve,” said Greg Dodds, Regional President and Chief Lending Officer at TexasBank. We are not just your bankers, we are your friends, your neighbors and your family so when devastation like this occurs it hits home. We are appreciative to our ownership and the Foundation for offering their support of those impacted by the recent fires through such a significant contribution to the Texas Big Country Red Cross Home Fire Relief Fund.

In addition to the needed relief for those victims, the risk for additional fires remains high in almost every county in our markets. Consequently, the importance of Volunteer Fire Department funding has never been more urgent. TexasBank hopes this gift can inspire other community leaders to donate funds for truck repairs, gear, department supplies, and other necessary items needed to fight fires threatening our neighbors. We recognize, it is during times of crisis like this it is imperative that we work together and contribute whatever we can to lend a helping hand. Together, we are TexasStrong!

Over the past several weeks, the Texas Big Country Chapter of the American Red Cross has been providing emergency response relief including disaster assessments, emergency firefighting supplies and response vehicles and assistance to victims to those counties in its region who have been ravaged by wildfires. The bulk of these fires have occurred in Eastland County but there have been other large fires in Brown, Coleman and Taylor Counties as well. Once disaster assessments and initial recovery efforts are made, their efforts will be turning toward case management and awarding financial assistance for victims to begin walking them through the process of beginning to rebuild their lives.

“We are so grateful to TexasBank along with the James and Dorothy Doss Foundation for their generous support of our Home Fire Relief Program,” Robyn Flores, Executive Director for the Texas Big Country Chapter of the American Red Cross, said. “Our chapter has recently been hit hard by wildfires in the area. Partners like these ensure we are able to fulfill our mission of preventing & alleviating human suffering in the face of emergencies. “

TexasBank is a full-service community bank that is chartered in Brownwood. It operates out of 14 locations throughout West and Central Texas including Brown, Comanche, Erath and Eastland counties and the cities of Austin, Dallas, El Paso, Fort Worth and Weatherford. Member FDIC.

Phallon Doss found her calling in high school—though she did not know it at the time. As a freshman at Judson High School, Doss chose to study sign language, which counted as a foreign language. After graduation, she decided to pursue her doctorate in audiology, the science of hearing. “I wanted to continue serving the deaf and hard of hearing community in any way I could,” she said. She earned her doctorate in Audiology from the University of North Texas, and in 2013 she opened Doss Audiology & Hearing Center in Schertz. In 2017, she opened a second office in Floresville. In 2021, she and her team moved into a newly constructed office building off of Schertz Parkway. “I still get to use my sign language all the time,” Doss said. “I’m one of the only audiologists in the area who can sign, so I get patients all the time who come to me because I have that intimate knowledge of the community.” As an audiologist, Doss, two other doctors and her staff provide primary health care for diagnosing and treating hearing and balance disorders, she said. Her team also serves as the primary audiologists for Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD, which entails several visits each year to check on students with hearing loss and their equipment. “I saw a need in the community; [I wanted] to fill that void—we’ve been very blessed,” Doss said. “People are so happy to be able to get quality care in their own backyards, right here.” Doss said her medical office offers a range of services from diagnostic hearing evaluations to prescribing, supplying and fitting hearing aids. She is also one of few doctors locally to provide mapping, or programming, of cochlear implants, a hearing device that must be surgically implanted behind a patient’s ears, she said. “I find it really interesting, and I love working with them,” Doss said. “Without cochlear implants, [people] are in complete silence.” Doss said the best part of her job is seeing people’s excitement once they experience improvement in their hearing. “[Patients] are just so grateful for what we do. I do think we improve people’s lives, and that’s just amazing to be a part of that every day.” Doss Audiology & Hearing Center 645 Woodland Oaks Dr, Suite 350, Schertz TX 78154 (210) 819-5002 www.dossaudiology.com Editor's Note: The print version of this article misstated that the office surgically places cochlear implants. The office maps, or programs, the devices following implant surgery performed by an ENT or neurotologist.

Editor

Tricia joined Community Impact in 2021. She is the editor of San Antonio's first two editions, North San Antonio and Northeast San Antonio Metrocom. She is a native San Antonian who has been an editor, a reporter, a web master and a social media manager for newspapers and radio in Texas, Oregon and California. Tricia graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism and a minor in East Asian studies from the University of Oregon. When she's not at work, she's the mom of a brilliant 11-year-old who golfs and is a scout, so there are plenty of weekends spent on the golf course or camping and hiking. Coffee is a must!

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Two local startups have been selected for the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund, a $10 million initiative.

Doss Group Inc. — a holding company for businesses such as AskDoss and Doss Home Warranty — and Sotaog LLC are among 50 startups nationwide Google selected for the fund's second cohort. The 2021 group also includes four startups in the Austin area and three in the Dallas area.

Each startup will receive up to $100,000 in non-dilutive capital — meaning the founders do not give up any equity in their companies — as well as Google Cloud credits, Google.org Ads grants, and hands-on support to help their startups grow, according to a Google for Startups blog post.

The Google for Startups Black Founders Fund was launched in 2020 as a response to the financial and societal pressures Black founders face, according to a Sept. 21 Google blog post. The first cohort consisted of 76 Black-led startups, including four in Dallas and five in Austin, which also received up to $100,000. No Houston-area companies were selected for last year's cohort.

“The Google for Startups Black Founders Fund is transformational for Sotaog,” said Robert Estill, chairman and president of Sotaog. “In addition to the tremendous ongoing support from Google resources, it also provides validation of a lot of hard work by our team, provides innovation recognition and provides a next-level launching point for SOTAOG. We expect so many more opportunities to open up due to the association with Google."

Sotaog also participated in the Google for Startups Fellowship program, in which it had an active duty military service member work at Sotaog for three months. The program helped the service member transition back into the workforce.

Sotaog's Internet of Things platform helps empower energy and heavy-industrial companies to make smarter decisions with real-time intelligence, analysis and insights, the company says.

Estill has held various executive roles throughout his 30-plus years in the energy industry. He served as CEO of Madagascar Oil, vice president of strategy and portfolio at Houston-based Marathon Oil Corp. (NYSE: MRO), and president of European operations and senior executive at Texaco Inc.

Estill happened to receive the news that Sotaog was selected for the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund on his birthday.

"Who do I send the balloons to?" he said in a video provided by Google.

Bobby Bryant, CEO of Doss Group, has been in the real estate industry for over 20 years. In 2009, Bryant launched iBuy Realty, a buyer’s-agent brokerage firm. The basic business model called for clients to search for and tour homes themselves, with the firm coming in during the negotiation and contracting process.

In 2016, Bryant sold iBuy Realty and launched AskDoss following a commercial agreement with IBM (NYSE: IBM) to use the Watson supercomputer.

AskDoss allows a real estate agent or customer to verbally search for information or specifications on a home or property, rather than using a desktop-based real estate portal. The "Siri for real estate" component is just one feature. When Doss is asked a question, it pools pricing information, neighborhood and school district all in the same place, giving an agent up-to-date information from their smartphone, Bryant told the Houston Business Journal in 2016.

"The Google for Startups Black Founders Fund gives us a beyond favorable chance to successfully launch our next-era digital real estate search, service and transactional marketplace,” Bryant said. “The support will be used to accelerate our development by hiring a data engineer. DOSS applied for the Google Founders Fund because of the opportunity for our digital real estate search platform to be funded by the most helpful search engine on the planet."

Here are the other Texas-based startups chosen for the second cohort of the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund:

To view the rest of the 2021 and 2020 list, click here.

Also on Sept. 21, Google announced the creation of the Latino Founders Fund to support Latino-led startups as part of the company's $15 million commitment to economic justice for the Latino community. Like the Black Founders Fund, the Latino initiative will award Latino-led recipients up to $100,000 along with business mentorship and Google resources.

Doss, Texas is situated on Mormon Creek where FM 783 meets FM 648, 19 miles northwest of Fredericksburg in Gillespie County. Since Doss is an unincorporated farming and ranching community, census data is estimated and gives an approximate population of 225.

1. Doss boasts the state’s smallest school district.

Photo: en.wikipedia.org

Started in 1884, Doss School is one of the few remaining rural school systems in the state of Texas. A limestone schoolhouse replaced the initial 1894 frame structure in 1905 and the addition built in 1927 is still in use today. Doss Elementary School operates within the Doss Consolidated Common School District with a full-time staff of five—two teachers, two aides, and an administrative clerk. The 2015-2016 school year ended with nine students. Although this is the smallest class Doss Elementary has seen in several years, community members were eager to keep the doors open and held a meeting to discuss the current situation. Following the meeting, district trustees made a unanimous decision to begin the 2016-2017 school year in August, its 133^rd consecutive year. As it currently stands, Doss Elementary is expecting enrollment this fall to total six.

2. Doss started as a gristmill and distillery.

Photo: www.texasalmanac.com

Brothers Thomas C. and John E. Doss founded the town in 1849, building a gristmill and distillery on Threadgill Creek. Later they added a dam and sawmill. August Steiness bought the mill from the brothers in 1864, dismantling the distillery and expanding the gristmill. Following Steiness’s death two years later, his widow sold the operations to William F. Lange, a German immigrant. The mill came to be known as Lange’s Mill and was operated by members of the Lange family from 1859 to 1888. Lange’s Mill has been greatly cared for by the community over the years and in almost perfect preservation is one of the last old burr mills in Texas.

3. Doss founding family has ties to Herman Lehmann and Quanah Parker.

Photo: www.joeherringjr.blogspot.com

When flooding destroyed the dam at Lange’s Mill, William Lange employed stonemason Philip Buchmeyer to rebuild it from 1872 to 1875. Buchmeyer was married to Augusta Johanna Adams Lehmann, the widow of Ernst Moritz Lehmann and mother of Herman and William F. Lehmann. In 1870, Herman, then ten, and Willie, eight were captured by a raiding party of Apaches. Four days later, cavalrymen returned Willie to his family, but were unable to rescue Herman who remained with the Apache and later the Comanche until 1878. Herman lived with Quanah Parker’s family as his adopted son from 1877-1878 until U.S. soldiers brought him home.

4. Doss was the site of a reenactment of the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Photo: www.warbirdinformationexchange.org

On February 19, 2005, a large scale reenactment of the Battle for Mount Suribachi and the Two Flag Raisings took place on the Welge Ranch in Doss, Texas. Several hundred military volunteers participated in the event commemorating the 60^th anniversary of the battle and honoring the heroes of the day. The Admiral Nimitz Foundation and the National Museum of the Pacific War sponsored the experience, which also included a morning parade down Main Street in nearby Fredericksburg. The procession featured Iwo Jima veterans, other military veterans, active duty military, and dozens of WWII vehicles.

5. Doss was not always Doss.

Photo: www.rshannagallery.com

Although the community originated when the Doss brothers began operating their mill in 1849, the small town did not acquire a United States post office until 1898 when William F. Lange opened one in his general store. Before that, community members had used a room added on to the house of August Steiness as their mail delivery station. When William Lange opened his post office the name was naturally Lange, but in 1907, the post office moved to what is now the Doss town site and renamed Doss.

Dolly Doss, 98, died Sunday, March 29, 2020, in Austin, TX. Dolly, as she was nicknamed by her Grandpa Fuller when she was a toddler, was raised in Burns, KS by Harold & Lucille (Fuller) Bender. She married Harry Doss, who preceded her in death after over 70 years of marriage. Dolly was the creator of a large, loving family; a cultivator of a vast circle of dear friends; a faithful follower of Christ; and an excellent card and Chicken Foot player.

The oldest of three sisters, Dolly outlived both Joy and Nancy. She was fond of her sisters’ children and grandchildren and gave them special care and attention after her sisters passed away. She had a great wit and excellent memory - especially for people. She remembered everyone’s birthdays with cards and letters. A good cook, she made nibblers and oyster crackers for Christmas presents. Her recipes are recorded in a family cookbook so she will be remembered in the years to come as her daughter and sons, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren make her sugar molasses cookies and French silk pie. Her 5 children, 11 grandchildren, and 23 great-grandchildren will miss her.

Dolly and Harry were faithful and active members of the United Methodist Church in every community in which they lived which included Wichita and Independence, KS, Aurora, Rolla, and Higginsville, MO; Grants and Gallup, NM; Lufkin, Onalaska; and Austin, TX, where Dolly honed her Chicken Foot skills as a member of the Tarrytown Christian Adult Fellowship (CAF). She rarely ever in her 98 years missed Sunday church services. One of her favorite verses was Micah 6:8 “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Luke Mathabela, her 11 year old great grandson, called her the Spirit of the family. The family is comforted to know that Dolly was sung Amazing Grace in her final hours by the staff at Gracy Woods Nursing Center.

Her children are: Michael Doss, Corpus Christi, TX: Cheryl Haywood (Alan), Austin, TX: David Doss (Kathy), Kansas City, MO; James Doss (Sally), Lenexa, KS; and Stephen Doss, Fountain Hills, AZ. She was preceded in death by daughters-in-law Pat Doss and Evelyn Doss.

Interment will occur at a future date where she will be laid to rest with most of her family at Highland Cemetery in Winfield, KS. Memorials may be made to Tarrytown United Methodist Church or to the Harold and Lucille Bender Scholarship at Southwestern College, Winfield, KS.