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Construction was approved in mid-August for a lab on the 1200 block of Sarah DeWitt Drive, about a mile away from the old lab, according to a Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory news release.
The new building will increase the laboratory’s space and the ability to test various specimens, according to the release.
The Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, an agency of the Texas A&M University system, has operated the Gonzales lab since 1991, according to the release.
Former laboratory director Dr. Sam Glass and his wife, Sally, donated the one-acre plat of land for the new lab, Sally Glass said.
Sam worked with the laboratory for 34 years before retiring about a decade ago, Sally said, and it remains close to his heart.
“When it was moved from the country into town (in 1971), he built that lab,” she said. “He was in charge of that.”
So when the couple heard the group was looking for land and couldn’t find anything in the county, they donated what they could.
Laboratory personnel appreciate the gift, Tammy Beckham, director of the state veterinary medical diagnostic laboratory, said in the news release.
“Their gift of a prime parcel of land in Gonzales will make this laboratory possible,” she said. “The Glasses have had a long history of dedicated service to the poultry industry, which continues even today.”
The new facility will go in near a major poultry production site, Beckham said in the release, and will continue to serve mostly commercial poultry businesses. Veterinarians and individual producers, however, will also benefit.
“The routine diagnostic testing performed here also provides the surveillance necessary to detect and contain potential outbreaks of high-consequence diseases such as Exotic Newcastle Disease,” she said in the release, “and highly pathogenic avian influenza (bird flu).”
The old laboratory facility will be given to Gonzales County once the new building is complete, Dr. Jose Linares, the Gonzales lab director, said in the release.
Construction will start near the beginning of 2009, Sally said.
It’s nice to give back to the community, she said, explaining that the poultry industry is vital to Gonzales.
“It’s our economy,” she said. “It’s No.1.”