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TERESA PRICE is settling into her Limestone County Veterans Service Officer chair at the Mexia Courthouse Annex on South McKinney. Teresa and her husband are both retired veterans of the Navy. Bob Wright photo
The Price is right for Vet. Co. Service Officer
by By BOB WRIGHT- Editor
(Posted 11/15/2009 02:07 pm)
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Today, Teresa is comfortable in her new role, located in the Limestone Courthouse Annex, 205 South McKinney Street - she’s open to assist veterans and their families every Tuesday and Thursday from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. Veterans may contact her during those hours by calling 562-6288.
The new Veterans Service Officer succeeds Bob Ray, who capably served until he began having health issues.
She early on was in what is known as the Navy’s Limited Duty Officer (LDO) Program; Less than one percent of all enlisted service members submit a package for the program - “in hopes of being selected,” Price explained - and less than 10 percent of all applicants are selected. These sailors are known as “Mustangs,” those officers “who come up through the ranks and have prior enlisted service,” she added. For 13 years, Teresa Price was an enlisted Naval member, and went on to have 11 years of service as an officer (through the LDO Program). With a total of 24 years on active duty, Price retired became a Chief Petty Officer, was an Ensign, and retired as a Lieutenant.
Approved for the County Service Officer position in October, Teresa was in a military family. Her father, Doc Belcher, retired as a Chief Petty Officer in 1970. Her mother died in 1992. Doc and Teresa’s stepmother, Barbara Belcher, live in Omaha, Nebraska, but visit on Lake Mexia twice a year - in the Spring and Summer, spending about four months here each year. He father, a native Iowan, met her mother while stationed in Hawaii.
The county’s new Veterans Service Officer has lived in Rota, Spain; Norfolk, Virginia; Washington, D.C.; San Diego, California and in Hawaii. It was in Hawaii that she was born. She has done extensive traveling, due to her being in a military family, having resided in Japan, the Philippines, on Midway Island and in Maine. She graduated from high school in Hawaii and it was a year later she joined the Navy.
Teresa enlisted in the Navy in 1976, and retired in 2000. She is married to Rick Price, also a retired Navy veteran who was raised in Mexia and graduated from Mexia High School in 1963. Rick joined the Navy in 1966. He retired as a Lieutenant, having gone through the same LDO Program as his wife did.
After returning to Mexia, the Prices built and operated a Bed & Breakfast, The Commodore, at Lake Mexia. They have closed it as a Bed and Breakfast, but continue to reside there. Her husband Rick is a member of the International Automotive Oil Change Association, which he serves as Treasurer. “He travels four or five times annually, teaching a manager’s course,” Teresa explained.
Teresa and Rick are both active members of The Rotary Club of Mexia, and are the parents of three children - Melissa Cominsky, with the 3-M Company in Austin; Brandon Prive, manager of a Jiffy Lube in Washington State; and Christopher Price of Hawaii. There, he is Vice-president and overseer of the Prices’ Fast Lube stores. “We also have six grandchildren and three dogs,” she smiled.
In assuming her new position, Teresa had this to say:
“Limestone County has a lot of veterans with a lot of benefits available to them. I want to help in educating them as to what is available to them and to their dependents.”
