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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-09-19 Euless ArticlesDISTRIBUTED TO: :CfAYOR CITYC.VCL CITYATT*VY CRIICI :MCKil,\ffE RIDGWAY(2) DECK BROWN I'OL'iVG iV1cDONALD COLLINS C. BARKER GETCHEL L LIBRrlR Y ADICIIIV LIBRARY REF A:Vf:ClAL CIVTR D.4 TE DISTRlB L'TED q/l9/og DATEOFARTlCLE q/13 log .YEWSPAPER F PVS T Hurricane: Evacuees arrive with survival on their minds (4 I didn't want to spend time getting plywood. I just locked my gate and took mv - . . . . J family. .. . . .. . . ,, .. s.. , i , . ; .. .' . , ' . .<, . . . .r .' : , . . . , .. . J?& ~n~ei De, Leon, whaleft Houston ,.. : . . ~ , . % ., , . , I Shelters - ' . ?? 2 "-; , . ! 3.1 ..R $7~ - .. .. . - ' Jose Angel De Leon gathered his im-,. night on the road, said Ray McDon- :'portant papers, packed his .hck ald, Euless parks' and commu@t~ and left Houston at about midnight services director! . .. - .. . , early Friday. .. ._,. Glasses inthe,buijding have been ,. . ((1 didn't want,to'spend time get-,, - moved while .the center hosts ,the;- ting plywodd. 1 just lockedmy gate, evacuees. Cots are lined up in the , and took my family," he said. gym'. Rooms are set up with com- . . ,Traffic crawled along at 15 to ib.:puters and televi$ons SO fbat~~va.~u-~:i? mph for much of the journey. . . ees can check e-mail and monitor. : . It was .3 p:m. ,when .De Leon'-.' news "ports. Poolandfoosballwere along with three families of,relativeS, being played in the lobby ~ - arrived at the Midway Recreation :; .:. For "OW, De Leon says the evacu- Center in Euless. The center was ees'will-d do one thing. "Wait," he pected to be maxed out with ,go .~aid.I'WaittoseewhatwillhaP~er~." evacuees from the Houstqn area by ; Doug. Peters, senior, minister at .evening. . .. , . .- ; .North Davis Church of Christ in ~r-"':' ~ost arrived byabbutlii.m. Fri- lington, said his church was Pre- .. day, when volunteers served mza, : .. pared to house UP to 150 evacuees. A: for lunch. By midafternoon, budoad,of people was scheduled to. were sleeping after spending all arrive in the evening, he said. - . . : -The . church , hosted evacuees': , .fro,m Hurricanes Kagina and Rita in , - 2005 and assisted ,140 people who : fled from Hurricane Gustav last week, Peters said, ... -. , . ., .. .';.."We're ,rea,dy,, and. we want to >. :help,'!. said, PeJers, .who added his ,church has about 50 volunteers and staff members-on ktandby :Staff writers Mitch Mitchell, Susan Schrock and ,: , Jessamy Brown contributed to this report. ' . . , G DIANE SMITH, 817-390-7675 -. DISTRIB CrTED TO: !VIA YOR CITY CIYCL CITY A TTlYY CRIJI IVICK~AIIE RIDGbK-1 Y(2) DECK BROWh' YOCr1VG :~ICDOIV,~LD COLLLVS C. BARKER GETCHELL LIBR.4R Y ADII.II~V LIBRARY REF .4iVl1MiiL CNTR DATE DISTRIBUTED Q / / / c Z( DATE OF ARTICLE / d ,YE WSPAPER FbVST THELMA IRENE SMITH 1919-2008 Ms. Smith died Wednesday. She was 88. Her family remembers he; as someone who loved com- mansas native raised pany, babies and fishing. She was also known for cooking pies with flaky crusts. For manyyears,'she stored big bottles of shampoo on the her brother's daughter front porch for use at her beauty shop. According to one family story, before the beauty shop as-if she were her own opened, MS. Sniith watched over granddaughter Tiffney Woodside by putting her in the bathtub while she cut hair. She also ran Irene's Beauty Shop in Euless and was And then there's the time Ms. Thomas accidentally washed her daughter's hair with gasoline, mistaking it for one of the married to former Police Chief Harold "Smitty" Smith. big bottles of shampoo. BY BRYON OKADA "There were always sillythings like that going on," Wood- okadapstar-telegram corn side said. KELLER -Irene Smith never had a baby, but she was very As for'how Ms. Smith fit into the family tree, there'was no familiar with the role of mother. confusion. The oldest child of cotton farmers from~lka, Ark., she "led her Mother all my life!" said. often cared for her two brothers and sister while her parents "She was an grandmother." worked in the fields. Other survivors include her sister Dorothy Papp of San Early on, she took in her brother's daughter, Glenda, rais- Antonio. ing the 4-year-old as her own. She will be buried today in the family plot in Stuttgart, After her first marriage ended in di- Ask.J vorce, she took on two jobs to make ends meet. During the day she worked at the Comet Rice Mill in Stuttgart, Ark., and then sewed beer and sandwiches'at a bar at night. Smith In 1956, after hearing that there were good jobs in North Texas, she moved with Glenda to Grand Prairie. She went to beauty school - and in the process met a police detective named Harold Morgan Smith, whom everyone referred to as Smitty. ! Eventually the couple married and became mainstays in the nearby town of Euless. Ms. Smith opened Irene's Beauty , Shop on Euless' Main Street in 1961 and it flourished until about 1980, when she retired, family members said. Smitty ' joined the Euless Police Department in 1963 and eventually became police chief, retiring in 1981. The two then moved to be near friends in Louisiana. Smittydied in 1988. Ms. Smith stayedin Louisiana until four years ago, when Alzheirner'~ disease made it impossible for her to care for herself. However, in her last two years, while she lived in a Keller care center, her eyes would still light up whenever she saw Glenda. "I think she knew I belonged to her," Glenda Thomas said. DISTRIBUTED TO: / PAGE / OF- hlA YOR CITY CSCL CITY ATTNY CRIIM iWCKrl,MlE RIDGWA Y(2) DECK BROCVIV YOCVG h1cDO.WLD COLL1,VS C. BARKER GETCHELL LIBR4RY AD:I.I/V LlBR4RY REF A;VI1V1,4L CIVTR DATEDISTRIBL'TED q / lob/ DATEOFARTICLE 9/17 A'EIVSPAPER FWST HURRICANE IKE I AFTERMATH ~rnergenc~ workers raise funds Five Tarrant County fire and police associations raised $2,500 thli week to buy food, water and clothing for Houston-Galveston-area dispatchers, police officers and firefighters who have rarely left their posts since Ike hit the Texas coast Saturday. The Bedford, Euless, Grapevine, Hurst and North Richland Hills associations collected the money. Several local authorities will head to the Texas coast today to deliver the items. DlSTRlB L'TED TO: i\f,4 YOR CITY CIVCL Cl TY ATTIVY CRIiV1 IV~CKAICIIE RIDGK4 Y(2) DECK BR0CV.V YOUIVG i\/cDO;VALD COLL~IVS C. BARKER GETCHELL LlBR.4R Y AD.C/I:V LIBRARY REF AIVI!V~:.LL CiVTR DA TE DlSTRIBUTED C// /9 /" DATEOFARTICLE 7 / /kl/od IVEWSPAPER FWST DISTRIB L'TED TO: / PAGE OF- / iCI,4 YOR CITY C'VCL CITY ATT!VY CRLW iCICK;I;LIIE RIDGWJ Y(2) DECK BROIt'S YO L'IVG IVICDO~VAL D COL L IiVS C. BARKER GETCHEL L LIBR4 R Y ADhIIiV LIBRARY REF A/VIltIiiL Clt'TR 9 119 ,4TEOF'AlZTICLE q//9 108 NEWSPAPER DATE DISTRIB C'TED FWST Coalitions OK 'unprecedented' 24-vear contract dth Luminant J The groups include about 150 Texas cities and municipal organizations. By JIM FUQUAY jfuquay@star-telegram.com Arlington, Grapevine, Burleson and about 150 other Texas cities and munic- ipal organizations have agreed to buy most of their electricity over the next 24 years through an unusual contract with Luminant Generation. The Cities Aggregation Power Project has since 2001 negotiated to buy power for its members, which include cities and utility districts. It called the 24-year term of the latest agreement, an- nounced Thursday, "unprecedented and said it could save its 111 members hundreds of millions of dollars over its life. Also' participating in the contract is the South Texas Aggregation Project, a smaller group. The groups previously contracted for power over terms of one or two years. Under the ,terms of the Lurninant contract, members of the two groups will pay 5.6 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity in the first year, said Austin lawyer Kristen Doyle, counsel to CAPP That will rise 3 percent annually, which would put the cost at about 11.4 cents per kwh after 24 years. That price does not include the cost of power transmission and distribution, .which currently averages about 2.5 cents per kwh in North Texas. That charge is regulated by the Texas Public Utility Commission, . . - To get that price, however, CAPP members must agree to prepay part of their electricity bills that is designed to cover Luminant's fixed costs of genera- tion. CAPF' will sell long-term bonds to hance that payment, which could amount to between $400 million and $600 million depending on how many members participate, Doyle said. And that's good for Luminant and its parent, Energy Future Holdings, which took on tens of billions of dollars in debt when it bought TXU Corp. in 2007. "Cities have very good credit ratings and access to cheaper capital than Lu- minant or Energy Future . Holdings - might," Doyle said. ; She said that each member; whkther through its city council or board of di- rectors, must decide whether to partici- pate in the contract. Some, including Grand Prairie, have already approved it and most are expected to take it up in the next two weeks, she said. . Electricity bought under the- con- tract can be used only for the munici- palities' own power needs, such as street lights and utilities. State law pro- hibits the cities from reselling power to residents, Doyle said. Luminant spokeswoman Ashley Monts said the amount of power 'cov- ered by the contract is enough to serve about 75,000 average Texas homes. That's not a huge amount as industrial power contracts go, but its length is ex- ceptional, she said. She said five years is a fairly comnion term for commercial and hidustrial contracts, and 10 years is consideredve- ry long. "We have never had anythmg close to this. It's a really long contract," Monts said. "The rate is capped, and we have a customer locked in along with the pre- payment." It's estiqated that the contract will cover about 70 percent of CAPP3mew- bers' annual usage. JIM FUQUAY, 817-39&7552 ' ' DISTRIBUTED TO: iClA YOR CITY CIVCL Cl TY A TTIVY CRllkI ~\ICEL-~ICIIE RIDC WA Y(2) DECK BROrf';\' YOCiVC ,JlcDOililLD COLLI!W C. BARKER CETCHELL LIBR4RY ADM1:V LIBRARY REF AIVIIMAL CiVTR DATE DISTRIBUTED 9/ 19 log DATEOFARTICLE 71 17 /Of NEWSPAPER FWST FabEuless: Join conductor Sergio Espinosa and the Ir- ving Philharmonic Orchestra, for "Blast Off," aconcert under the evening stars, at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 27 at the Village of Bear Creek Amphitheater. It is a narrated travelogue of a trip Into space using instrument$ groups in the orchestra to tell the story. Lewis Warren Jr., a - 12-year-old Euless resident and pianist, will be the special guest. By age 8, Lewis was per- forming in competitions na- tionally and internationally. What a treat for $5 admission. You can purchase tickets at the Midway Recreation Center.'It's lawn seating, so bring your chairs and blwets.