Three Jail Bookings in Five Days; Callisburg Points Families to Meal Applications

By GvilleTX Newsroom

Cooke County jail records list three arrests between July 31 and Aug. 4, two made by the sheriff's office and one by Gainesville police, each tied to a felony parole hold or drug charges. Separately, Callisburg ISD is pointing families to an online application for free or reduced-price school meals under state income limits that took effect July 1.

The jail roster lists Dillon Keith Hughes, booking 262857, arrested July 31 by the Cooke County Sheriff's Office and held on a felony parole violation tied to a charge line reading PCS PG1<4/BURG HAB. Austin Ethan Gill, booking 262863, was arrested by the same office the next day on charges of possessing 400 grams or more of a Penalty Group 2 controlled substance along with more than five pounds of marijuana, the roster says. Gainesville police arrested Derek Dewayne Guthrie, booking 262874, on Aug. 4 at 1307 Mill St. on a felony parole violation, according to the roster. A booking entry records an arrest and the charges filed against a person, not a conviction.

County records identify the jail as a 212-bed facility at 300 County Road 451 in Gainesville, staffed by 45 employees.

Cooke County Communications answers 911 and dispatches for the sheriff's office, county EMS, constables, city police in Lindsay, Muenster, Oak Ridge and Valley View, state agencies and volunteer fire departments from Callisburg to Rosston, the county says. In 2022 figures published by the county, the center handled roughly 550 calls for service a week.

The agencies' 2025 racial-profiling reports, required each year under state law and filed with the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, also show the scale of traffic enforcement. The sheriff's office counted about 1,900 stops, most of them on U.S. highways, and Gainesville police counted roughly 8,900, most on city streets. Deputies searched 354 of the vehicles they stopped and found contraband in 148, the county report says, and recorded no use of physical force that caused injury. Neither agency logged a racial-profiling complaint last year.

That workload sits in a county still adding people. The Census Bureau puts Cooke County at 44,461 residents and Gainesville at 18,528 as of July 1, 2025, each about 7 percent above the 2020 base.

On the school side, Callisburg directs families to EZMealApp. The district lists reduced-price breakfast and lunch as free at the elementary and middle/high campuses, which matches Texas Department of Agriculture guidance that reduced-price students eat both meals at no cost through the 2026-27 school year. Families paying full price owe about a dollar for breakfast and under three dollars for lunch. A household of four earning up to roughly $61,000 qualifies for reduced-price benefits under the state chart now in effect through next June.

Neighboring districts handle the paperwork on their own terms. Muenster ISD says it processes household applications during the school year. Valley View ISD says its move to the Community Eligibility Provision made breakfast and lunch free for every student in 2024-25 and removed the need for applications that year.

_Editor's note: Everyone charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law._