My great grandparents lived on a homestead. They cooked on a wood stove.
Most of us today have no idea how good we’ve got it.
For my great grandparents’ generation, remodeling the kitchen meant picking a different place to stack the wood.
When I was growing up in Ashdown, Arkansas, we didn’t have air conditioning or a telephone, but we did have a step up from a wood stove. Mom had a 1950s range and oven.
I’m not sure if the gas stove my mom used came with the small, red brick house on Beech Street or if they bought it. But it got the job done.
Many a biscuit was baked in that oven. Many a sausage patty, fried potato, and cast iron skillet full of gravy were cooked on top of it.
As kids, we just took it for granted.
How man has cooked his food has remained pretty much the same since the beginning. Food overheat.
But the way that we combine heat and food has certainly become a lot fancier. Look no further than the appliance selections that exploded after the Second World War.
The country and its economy were in great shape. People had good jobs with good paychecks, and they were looking for ways to spend it.
The appliances of the 1950s and early 60s are the pinnacle of design and functionality. To this day, their Space Race look and options are quite impressive.
The Frigidaire Flair (at the time, Frigidaire was a division of General Motors) was a highly coveted cook top and oven. With its chrome, glass doors, and slide-out burners, the Flair came to prominence after being featured in Samantha’s kitchen on the TV show, Bewitched.
The Flair’s predecessor, the Tappan Fabulous 400, had similar features, including a built in rotisserie and slide-out burners. The large burner shut off when you removed the pot or skillet.
America wanted bigger, fancier, and more bells and whistles. And manufacturers answered the call.
It was a race between Frigidaire, Tappan, GE, Kelvinator, Admiral, Kenmore, O’Keefe & Merritt, and Amana.
Amana was famous for the Radar Range, which was a fancy name for a microwave oven. Its origins date back to World War II when an engineer named Percy Spencer worked for a company called Raytheon.
The story goes that Spencer was working near a radar set when he noticed the chocolate bar in his pocket was melting.
What he didn’t notice was that his body was also being cooked, but he lived to help develop something that most of us now have in our homes.
What Spencer helped discover became available just a couple of years later as an appliance.
The Radar Range was huge and weighed as much as a Buick.
It was also just for rich people.
When the Amana Radar Range debuted in 1947, it was for commercial applications. The first Radar Range was six feet tall and cost around $50,000 in today’s money.
The first home version came 20 years later in 1967 with a price tag equivalent to $4,000.
In 1975, microwave ovens outsold regular ovens for the first time. But even then, a microwave cost around $1,000.
Most Americans couldn’t afford those price tags. In the 1970s, $1,000 was about the average monthly salary. I know that because I was there.
Some families went into debt to buy the nicer appliances, but most couldn’t afford them.
If you couldn’t afford the Fabulous 400, the Flair, or the Radar Range, you could always go on a game show to win them.
It was Monty Hall on Let’s Make A Deal, Bob Barker on The Price Is Right, and other daytime TV fare that offered the opportunity to not only win an oven, but also possibly an entirely new kitchen.
The rest of us could watch and dream. Until recently.
I saw an ad online for a Tappan Fabulous 400. It looked to be in remarkably good shape. So I bought it.
My wife won’t let me put it in the kitchen, so I plan to put it in my man cave.
I’ll have the coolest man cave around. And I can cook a rotisserie chicken while I watch reruns of Let’s Make a Deal.
And I’ve already got the spot picked out. I’ll put it next to the wood stove. I think my great grandparents would approve.
Enjoying this column? Want to read more like this? Support your local newspaper and local journalist subscribe to The Wylie News today!
I don’t want to be like, “You guys! There’s a new stoner rock revival going on in Fort Worth!” because that implies that the one that materialized in the mid-to-late 2000s like a skunky cloud from beneath some high school football bleachers was huge enough to leave a noticeable hole when it receded. There were indeed a lot of those kinds of bands back then that don’t exist now, but I’m sure that if you ask anyone who goes to shows at Growl Records, there is no shortage of active, heavy bands at the moment, including — especially — One-Eyed Monsters.
The trio just self-released its debut album onto streaming services. While all six songs can stand alone as documents of brain-melting guitar power, when listened in its entirety, the 35-minute-long Ambrosia turns into a spacey journey across the cosmos of your imagination. It’s like activating a time-travel spell carved into a megalith. Or, if you’re not permastoned, this is a band wielding a lot of interesting melodic ideas in the service of a guitar rock epic.
With Samuel Stevens on guitar, Nathan Walters on guitar and vocals (and drums in the studio), and Tyler Lee Ryan on bass, One-Eyed Monsters came together in this iteration around 2021, after a few years of Stevens and Walters jamming with bassist Mike Lima and drummer Ian Brothers, who still backs the band onstage. Stevens and Walters knew each other in high school — Walters is a few years older and taught Stevens some jazz guitar — and that turned into the two figuring out how to write songs and record them.
At the time, Walters fronted a pop-rock band called Big Red Ants, who made an album at Crystal Clear Sound in Dallas with Kent Stump and Nolan Thies, which inspired Walters to become an audio engineer himself. When the Ants fizzled out, he and Stevens started jamming and tracking their ideas. The two played some shows in 2018 and 2019 and later recorded a couple tracks that would end up on Ambrosia: “Bongilogy” and “Forever Midnight.” After that, One-Eyed Monsters was headed into a state of aimlessness. That changed when Stevens started working on amps for Ryan.
Ryan, who’d gone to Texas A&M to study electrical engineering, had learned the basics of amp repair through building his own as a hobby and working for local electronics wizard Michael Earhart of famed Arlington shop Earhart Electronics. A colleague of Earhart’s known colloquially as Frank the Tank had an amp repair shop inside EMP Studios, a rehearsal space just north of East Lancaster Avenue.
“We got word that he died,” Ryan said, “so we went to the funeral, and the guy who owns this building was like, ‘I need to get a guitar and amp tech like you to run the shop down here,’ and I thought about it, and I decided I was ready to start my own business, so I bought Michael Earhart’s old inventory — he had it all in storage because he had retired. I had worked with him for a year and a half, so I knew how to run a shop, and I knew how his inventory worked and just hit the ground running. And then seven years later, here we are.”
Ryan’s company, Dragon Amplifiers, is a combo repair service/custom shop. Because of the ebb and flow/drought and flood intrinsic to that kind of business, he needed to hire a contract worker to help him with his backlog. Enter: Stevens.
“I have a vintage Fender amp that had some problems at the time,” Stevens said, “and [Ryan] was working on it. [Ryan] was really backed up at the time with repair jobs, and when I went to pick up my amp, I showed him some of my music. He was really into it, and then he said, ‘Do you want a job?’ So I said yeah, and he trained me, and now I do contract jobs for him.”
Ryan showed Stevens how to fix guitar amps but was still thinking about One-Eyed Monsters.
“It was about a year after [Stevens] started working for me,” Ryan said, “and I was like, ‘Hey, what’s going on with the band?’ ”
Ryan was really impressed with the riffage Stevens had shown him. “I thought whatever these guys have going on right now, it’s serious chemistry. It’s Sabbath and Pink Floyd coming together. The jazzy, heavy rock thing … that’s what I’ve always been looking for.”
One-Eyed Monsters, Walters said at Dragon recently with his bandmates, was Stevens’ “brainchild, and then this permutation turned into a different band. It felt like it had a new aim.”
“It became a heavier band,” Ryan added, “like, more serious and intimidating when I joined.”
Ryan had been in a doom-metal outfit called Southern Waste in the 2010s, for which he wrote a song that found its own evolution in the hands of his new bandmates. Overall, One-Eyed Monsters said Ambrosia’s songs came together really quickly. Stevens described their sound as “garage-psych … that got heavier, slower” with the addition of Ryan.
Their gear, Ryan said, is a big component of their sonic aesthetic, adding that Stevens “plays through stuff that he’s built. I play through stuff that I’ve built. … We have a specific sound because of those amps.”
Working at Echolab in Denton, Walters tracked, mixed, and mastered the album, and the band transferred the tracks to cassette tapes themselves — “they’re cooler than CDs and cheaper than vinyl,” Walters quipped — using a Tascam Portasound. Beyond getting their album out, One-Eyed Monsters wants to tour.
“We want to get on the road,” Walters said. “Right now, we’re just trying to find bands to network with to play shows out of town.”
But their shows at home — notably at places like Martin House Brewing Co. in Fort Worth and Growl Records in Arlington — are helping spread the word.
“If you’re a heavy band, you can play at Growl,” Stevens said. “We’ve played some packed shows there. People were really into the music. … If you can get the word out there’s a metal show, a heavy rock show, people will come to it.”
In a recent Fort Worth Report story entitled “Live music isn’t dying, music venue owners say,” Texas Music Office director Brendan Anthony said that “three closures announced within one week is likely a coincidence rather than an omen for venues in Fort Worth.”
Fort Worth booking agent Brooks Kendall added, “These are businesses that come and go a lot anyways. It just, I think, came across to people who are invested in the local scene as particularly alarming that three [closed] in one week.”
As head of Afallon Productions, Kendall booked shows mainly at The Post at River East, the venerable Race Street concert hall and restaurant known for presenting a lot of Americana, country, and other singer-songwriter-oriented bills to packed houses of people excited to sit down at a table, eat a really good sandwich, and catch performances by nationally known artists like Rhett Miller, Dale Watson, Jason Boland, and BettySoo, as well as locals like Jacob Furr, Cameron Smith, and Jackie Darlene. To look at the Post’s upcoming calendar, the Report’s headline seemed to poke major holes in the “death of Fort Worth music” narrative.
Five days later, Kendall posted the following on The Post’s social media accounts: “The Post will be closing permanently on February 29. We have reached the end of our lease and have decided not to renew. We are actively looking for a new location to reopen in. It has been a wonderful five years on Race Street, and we are so happy to have been able to do it. We thank everyone who has been a part of this experience.”
How can a music scene be just fine when yet another venue has shut down? I recently asked Kendall if his opinions in the Report piece had changed. He said that he stands by what he said, pointing out that had the pandemic never happened, “we’d be having different conversations about those venues, because most if not all of them would still be open. …. Each of those places have their own reasons for closing. … I don’t think that it’s fair to say that if someone makes that decision [to close their venue], that it’s specific to Fort Worth or its interest in live music. I don’t know what other owners’ calculus is … but we’ve all faced different challenges coming out of the pandemic. We all had a massive financial hole to climb out. But as for the health of the scene? There’s nothing in my personal experience [of late] to suggest that it’s because people don’t have interest in live music anymore.”
We both agreed that the perception of a dying scene often comes from the perspective of people our age — we’re both in our mid 40s — who were heavily engaged in the local scene nine, 15, maybe even 20 years ago (I in Fort Worth, he in Denton).
“I think that the local music scene is cliquey,” he said, “and a lot of the time, what makes it work is when there is a tightknit community, and that happens in generational waves, and a lot of the people I hear that [dying-scene narrative] from are kind of too old to be in a music scene in that way, too. The people telling me [the music scene is dying] are often people who wouldn’t go to these places anyway, who don’t even have bands anymore — old music-scene people that still have ownership in some way but aren’t actively participating in it like they used to.”
Yet Kendall’s shows at the Post (and before that, at the long-gone Live Oak when Afallon owned that business) are kind of for old music-scene people.
“I make my living presenting live music to people in my age group,” he said with a chuckle. “Whatever the next generation is, maybe they are into stuff that isn’t even for me. I know young promoters who are doing stuff for young people, and that’s not a scene I’m part of. Honestly, I’d believe it if someone said [the new band scene] is not as good as it was way back then, and I’d believe it if someone told me the scene was better than ever.”
As an example, he mentioned Daniel Alvarez, a Post employee who books metal, noise, and punk shows under his promotion company NoiseROT. Alvarez, Kendall said, “puts on shows at the Post, Haltom Theater … a lot of these found spaces that some guy will let him rent out and fill with kids. DIY shows, basically. And they do well. From observing what [Alvarez] does, there is definitely a young rock music scene in Fort Worth.”
And also, in my own experience, if you start with a local heavy band search on Instagram — OZONE or Frozen Soul, for example — you’ll likely fall into a scroll-hole full of pictures of crowded shows at local spots you might not even recognize. Most of those bands never played Lola’s or Twilite in the first place, yet here they are, still scorching the ears of tons of young people.
The Post remains open for another month, with a show nearly every night in February. Afallon, for its part, is considering all available options for its venue, and Kendall isn’t really worried that Fort Worth will lose the soundtrack to its cultural identity just because some of its venues are no longer around.
“I don’t really feel the pessimistic outlook I’ve been hearing from a lot of people,” he said. “I think a lot of us old timers need to adjust our attitude and yield to a younger generation. It’s not about teaching them about how we did it 20 years ago. They can figure out their own way of building a music community, just like we [old people] did way back when.”
TheNew York Times’ 2020 series of feature obituaries, “Overlooked,” was primarily devoted to women and “people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported” in the publication. It was an ambitious project and one that Texas itself, as a state and a society, would arguably do well to replicate. Especially since a Texas woman named Jovita Idar was one of the series’ most compelling figures, and, on August 15, 2023, she became the second Latina and first Tejana to be featured on United States currency.
Jovita Idar’s face now graces the unfrumpy side of American quarters, and her presence is wildly original and artistic. On the flipside, George Washington appears more and more irritated by the usual oxymoron that undermines so much of our legal tinder: “LIBERTY” in large all caps up top and an arguably contradictory, monotheistic “IN GOD WE TRUST” smaller and left adjacent. Idar’s reverse appearance incorporates her chief cause, “MEXICAN AMERICAN RIGHTS”; her primary callings, “JOURNALISTA” and “TEACHER”; and the names of the publications where she championed Washington’s liberty in the face of Anglocentric injustice.
The “Overlooked” story on Idar in the New York Times was particularly intriguing to me because I had stumbled onto reports mentioning her family years before and, at first, didn’t make the connection. When I started researching her for another story, I recalled the original link. I discovered that something was missed or “overlooked” in all the new reporting and most of the scholarship.
Idar was born in Laredo on September 7, 1885. Her father, Nicasio Idar, was born in Port Isabel. Nicasio’s father was a Portuguese sailor who was rarely around and, according to Idar’s youngest brother, Aquilino (in a 1984 interview), Nicasio’s mother “sold” him to some cowboys for a year of work in Oklahoma when he was a teenager. He then got a job in the Nuevo Laredo railyards and worked as a yardmaster for 20 years. Nicasio met Idar’s mother, Jovita Vivero, of San Luis Potosi, in Rio Grande City, and they married. They had 13 children. Three died at birth, and one didn’t survive childhood. Jovita Idar was the second eldest. Nicasio had done fairly well and settled in Laredo, where in the mid-1890s he founded El Partido Independiente de Laredo to help Mexican and Mexican Americans there organize politically. By 1896, he was elected a Justice of the Peace. Nicasio and his wife’s children were raised with the relative privilege of la gente decente citizenry, and he placed a special emphasis on education and public service. Aquilino has said his father often discussed these matters with them.
Out in the yard, my father used to sit right there, and all of us — seven brothers and two sisters — used to form a circle around him. And he would talk to us about Mexicans, about Mexican Americans; how to fight for the Mexican people; what to do for the Mexican people. How to think. Don’t let anybody tell you how to think, because you are a freethinker. You are standing on the face of the earth on your own two feet. So use your own brain to work your way up in any situation. He said, “You don’t depend on anybody to tell you that you’re going to heaven, to paradise, or this and that. You’re gonna stay here until you die.”
Idar was able to attend the Laredo Seminary (later known as the Holding Institute), founded just three years earlier by the Methodist Episcopal Church.
From here in examinations of Idar’s life, most narratives — including the Times’ “Overlooked” account — jump to her father’s activism and his work as the editor and publisher of La Crónica, a local Spanish newspaper, but there was more to Nicasio’s progressive work. It included membership in Mexican-Tejano social and fraternal orders in the Rio Grande Valley, including the Masonic-structured Gran Concilo de la Orden Caballeros de Honor, of which Nicasio was the Laredo lodge secretary. And Crónica articles reporting on the lodge parroted Nicasio’s views. One from December 17, 1910, titled “Excitativa Del Gran Concilio de La Orden Caballeros de Honor a La Raza Mexicana,” is almost striking for its candor.
It is not possible … to attain respectability, trust, and protection within the American nation, if we ourselves do not have this with our co-nationals; if we believe that the Mexicans are unworthy of our association with them, of us joining their associations, we should not expect that the Americans would gladly receive us in theirs. If we do not have trust in the men of our own race, how can we expect other races to have trust in us?
As Gabriela González puts it in Redeeming La Raza: Transborder Modernity, Race, Respectability, and Rights (2018), the article “critiqued the divisions among Méxicano-Tejanos, particularly the selfish shortsightedness of the comfortable class for their lack of loyalty to the group and their lack of respect for Mexicans of modest means.”
After Idar’s graduation and attainment of a teaching certificate, she worked as a teacher in Los Ojuelos, a small community between Laredo and Hebbronville, but she was discouraged by the conditions and school facilities in the community and reportedly resigned, opting to work with her father and two of her brothers, Clemente and Eduardo, at La Crónica. In Crucible of Struggle: A History of Mexican Americans from Colonial Times to the Present Era (2011), Zaragosa Vargas notes the ways “the Idar family sounded off against separatist and inferior housing and schools, the abysmal conditions faced by Tejano workers that took on the visage of peonage, and the gross violations of Tejano civil rights” in the pages of La Crónica. And this, at a time when, as the Times’ “Overlooked” story describes it, “Laws of the Jim Crow era enforcing racial segregation also limited the rights of Mexican Americans in South Texas (they are often referred to by scholars today as ‘Juan Crow’ laws). Signs saying ‘No Negroes, Mexicans or dogs allowed’ were common in restaurants and stores. Law enforcement officers frequently intimidated or abused Mexican-American residents, and the schools they were sent to were underfunded and often inadequate. Speaking Spanish in public was discouraged.”
As educated members of la gente decente, Jovita Idar and her family were caught between historically abusive law enforcement and, on the other side, the uneducated, “pariah”-like members of their fellow Tejano and co-national community. Wikimedia Commons
*****
Idar, herself, was particularly compelling. Often composing diatribes under pen names like “Ave Negra” (Spanish for “Blackbird”) or “Astraea” (the Greek goddess of justice), she tirelessly advocated for Mexican Americans and, particularly, women, asserting that they should educate themselves and not acquiesce to lives of subservience to men or, for that matter, the patriarchal Catholic Church. For La Crónica, it verged on a crusade. The publication’s writers openly blamed religious fanaticism for Mexico’s staggering illiteracy rate, noting that “83% [of the Mexican Republic] are illiterates who vegetate like pariahs, unconscious of their existence, and ignorant of their rights and duties as of a republic that proclaims to figure in the vanguard of the most cultured and powerful nations on earth.”
A controversial, anonymous article in the February 2, 1910 edition of La Crónica warned of the patriarchal monopoly of the Catholic confessional.
The confessional scares me, and I advise mothers to teach their daughters to confess their guilts and faults not to God, or to confess them before the lattice of the confessional, to the ear of a man who has no right to listen to the conscience of youth, and who is susceptible to feel all of the human passions precisely because he is human and celibate. The mother loves her daughters with heartfelt, immense, pure, and incomparable love, and she is the legitimate confessor of the family and the legitimate counselor of the home.
Then, a week later, a Crónica piece titled “Vulgariza La Revista Catolica” clarified the publication’s position: “We do not want the woman to stop believing in whatever God strikes her fancy. … We only want to destroy the idols of the woman’s heart and have her turn her face once again to her God, so that she can adore him with more intelligence, freely.”
By the time “Debejamos Trabajar” appeared in the December 7, 1911 La Crónica, Idar had secularized the sentiment, so that it appeared more palatable (if not more digestibly feminist): “Working women know their rights and proudly rise to face the struggle. The hour of their degradation has passed. … They are no longer men’s servants but their equals, their partners.” And she was known to take it even a step further, flatly proclaiming, “Educate a woman, and you educate a family.”
In a 2017 interview with the San Antonio Express-News, González, an associate professor in history at the University of Texas-San Antonio, said Idar “worked toward the creation of a better world where women and men of all backgrounds would be able to thrive and contribute to their communities. She labored for social justice, for an end to racism and segregation, for women’s rights, and for the rights of children to have an education and therefore greater opportunities.”
Idar and her family utilized La Crónica to support the creation of El Primer Congreso Mexicanista (the First Mexican Congress) to advocate for justice and equality for Hispanic people in Texas. The Congreso met for 11 days in September 1911. They recognized Mexican-American achievements, celebrated their Mexican heritage, sponsored empowering speeches, and staged festive community performances. Idar and other women were prominent participants in the event and subsequently formed the Liga Femenil Mexicanista (the League of Mexican Women, of which Idar was the first president).
In 1913, Idar crossed into Mexico and worked with La Cruza Blanca (a medical aid organization like the Red Cross) during the Battle of Nuevo Laredo in the Mexican Revolution.
La Crónica closed its doors after Nicasio’s death in 1914, and Idar became a staffer for another Spanish-language newspaper in Laredo, El Progreso. When El Progreso published an editorial by a Mexican revolutionary named Manuel Garcia Vigil that was critical of the United States’ occupation of Veracruz later that year, members of a local company of the Texas Rangers appeared outside the door of El Progreso with the intent to shut it down, but they hadn’t planned on encountering Jovita Idar. She defiantly berated them, reportedly issuing a succinct lecture on the First Amendment and freedom of the press. The Rangers retreated. They returned the following morning — when Idar wasn’t around — to destroy El Progreso’s offices and printing equipment and arrest the other employees.
*****
Idar’s stand against the Rangers was incredibly brave considering their reputation for violence and bloodshed during encounters with Mexican and Tejano populations along the border at the time, and the history of her fearlessness and resolve is thankfully becoming more widely known. But a largely forgotten incident early in her life had a more profound effect on her and her family’s social and political outlook (and perhaps the city of Laredo itself) because this incident shaped the family’s views moving forward. A brief account of the Laredo Smallpox Riot is available online via the Texas State Historical Association’s Handbook of Texas.
LAREDO SMALLPOX RIOT. A smallpox epidemic at Laredo that began in early October 1898 led to events that eventually climaxed in March 1899, when a violent showdown between Mexican Americans and Texas Rangers resulted in the immediate death of one man, the wounding of thirteen, and the arrest of twenty-one participants. On October 4, 1898, Laredo physicians began noticing a disease resembling chicken pox among the city’s children. The first death directly attributed to smallpox, that of a Mexican child on October 29, prompted Mayor Louis J. Christen and local officials to start a committee to investigate reports of the illness. By the end of January 1899, more than 100 cases of smallpox had been reported in Laredo. Dr. Walter Fraser Blunt, State of Texas health officer warned that more systematic and thorough measures would have to be taken to control the epidemic. Dr. Blunt’s instructions included house-to-house vaccination and fumigation, the burning of all questionable clothing and personal effects that could not be fumigated, and the establishment of a field hospital to disinfect patients. This field hospital was in effect a quarantined area, referred to as the “pesthouse.” Most of the vaccination and fumigation efforts were directed at the poorer barrios of the city along Zacate Creek on the east side of town.
Conditions worsened to such an extent that on March 16, 1899, Blunt arrived from Austin to take charge of efforts to control the epidemic. A serious problem arose when a number of Laredo residents began to resist the vaccinations and fumigations. Blunt responded by requesting the services of the Texas Rangers to help medical teams carry out house-to-house vaccinations and fumigations. On Sunday, March 19, 1899, a small detachment of Rangers arrived from Austin and joined in the efforts to get all residents immunized. The arrival of the Rangers heightened the apprehension of some people being forced to submit to the radical health measures. Friction between Mexican Americans and Texas Rangers was long-standing in South Texas. Where the Rangers met resistance, they broke down doors, removed occupants by force, and took all who were suspected of having smallpox to the pesthouse. A throng of angry protesters gathered and showered the Rangers and health officials with both words and rocks. In the ensuing melee, Assistant Marshal Idar was hit on the side of the head by a stone, and one of the protesters, Pablo Aguilar, received a shotgun wound in the leg.
“Assistant Marshal Idar” was Jovita’s father, Nicasio.
As educated members of la gente decente, Jovita Idar and her family were caught between historically abusive and overbearing American law enforcement and medical officials and, on the other side, the uneducated, “pariah”-like members of their fellow Tejano and co-national community.
The next day, the Laredo Times reported that Deutz Brothers, a local hardware store, had “received a telephone order for 2,000 rounds of buckshot to be delivered to a certain house in the southeastern portion of the city, but instead of filling the order, the authorities were notified and given the location where the delivery was to be made.” Sheriff L.R. Ortiz quickly obtained a search warrant and took with him Capt. J.H. Rogers and his detachment of Texas Rangers. The elite squad had been reinforced that morning with the arrival of more Rangers on the train from Austin. Together they began a house-to-house search in the immediate area where the ammunition was supposed to have been delivered. At the home of Agapito Herrera, trouble began for Sheriff Ortiz and the Rangers. Herrera, a one-time Laredo policeman, met the lawmen outside his home and took Ortiz aside to talk privately. As the discussion heated up, a youngster standing in the doorway shouted “ya!” and darted inside. Almost simultaneously, while the nervous Rangers drew their guns, Herrera disappeared into the house and ran out the back door accompanied by several armed men. In the ensuing gunbattle, Capt. Rogers was wounded in the shoulder by a bullet fired from Herrera’s pistol. Herrera himself was shot in the chest by Ranger gunfire. Ranger A.Y. Old ran up to the wounded Herrera and pumped two fatal shots point blank into his head. The dead man’s sister, Refugia, was shot in the arm, and a friend, Santiago Grimaldo, was shot in the stomach.
After evacuating Rogers, Rangers returned to find an angry crowd of about 100, some of whom were armed, gathered around Herrera’s lifeless body. After the hurling of more taunts, someone in the crowd fired a shot. The Rangers promptly opened fire into the crowd, wounding eight, including one man mortally. As evening approached, the Rangers retreated to Market Square. All through the night, sporadic gunfire could be heard in the same troubled neighborhood. Realizing that the situation could easily worsen, the Rangers called on the cavalry unit stationed at Fort McIntosh for additional support in restoring order. On the morning of March 21, the Tenth United States Cavalry [composed of African-Americans], under the command of Capt. Charles G. Ayers, moved into the affected neighborhood to maintain the peace and assure that the work of controlling the smallpox epidemic continued unhampered. Rangers also patrolled the area, searching for and arresting anyone they thought involved in the riot. Liberal journalist Justo Cárdenas and twenty others were arrested. Few disturbances were noted in the days that followed. The army seemed to have taken control of the situation, and Mayor Christen pleaded with other areas of the state to send food and clothing to the victims of the epidemic. Throughout March, many children continued to die of smallpox, but in April, the number of deaths decreased dramatically. The situation had improved so much that by May 1, 1899, Blunt ordered the quarantine lifted.
Today, one in five Texans is still not vaccinated for COVID, and certainly during the pandemic’s heights and leveling off, our uneducated, ill-informed or ignorant, “pariah”-like neighbors (of all ethnicities) reacted in much the same way their counterparts did in Laredo in 1899. The difference is that the undereducated and underprivileged members of the Tejano and Mexican community in Laredo at the turn of the 19th century had a legitimate excuse. They faced Juan Crow discrimination and underfunded education systems.
The Texans who verged on rioting and violence regarding the COVID vaccinations at the dawn of 2020 had complete access to informational opportunities and educational programs, and their obliviousness to public health considerations and borderline spiteful intransigence are still inexplicable and stupefying.
Jovita Idar’s family bore Nicasio’s attackers no ill will, and the patriarch, two of his sons, and his daughter set out to help them by educating them and providing them an alternative, cogent voice in the Mexican-American population’s ongoing struggles for equality and justice in their community. And not for monetary reward, fame or political gain — but for the future of La Raza.
Idar married Bartolo Juarez in 1917 and moved to San Antonio. Though childless, she helped raise the children of her sister Elvira, who passed away during childbirth. Idar established the Democratic Club in San Antonio and became a precinct judge for the party. She also created a free kindergarten and served as an interpreter for Spanish-speaking patients at a local hospital. Idar struggled with tuberculosis for many years and succumbed to a pulmonary hemorrhage at the age of 60 on June 15, 1946.
Jovita Idar championed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) a century before it was a thing, well before it was cool, and way before Anglo conservatives made a political football out of it. And they were no match for her almost unparallelled Third Estate bum rush. She was more Texan and American than the entire lot then — and now. And her quarter grants no quarter.
Fort Worth native E.R. Bills is the author of Tell-Tale Texas: Investigations into Infamous History and The 1910 Slocum Massacre: An Act of Genocide in East Texas.
Different stages of a total solar eclipse. Courtesy Rick Fienberg / TravelQuest International / Wilderness Travel
People who are passionate about eclipses are called umbraphiles, like the vain guy who Carly Simon said “flew his Learjet up to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun” on July 10, 1972.
But 12 million Texans won’t have to leave on a jet plane to see the next total eclipse. It’s coming to us, on Monday, April 8.
The moon’s shadow will enter the state near Eagle Pass and sweep northeast across Uvalde, Fredericksburg, Killeen, Temple, Waco, Corsicana, Terrell and Sulphur Springs.
Those are cities close to the center of totality, but the shadow’s path will also darken the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and most of Collin County.
For local residents, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience what amateur astronomer Armin Bernhardt calls a life-changing event.
To read the full story and support local journalism subscribe to The Wylie News today!
Construction of a railway crossing, financial audit results and more were discussed at last week’s Wylie City Council meeting.
Mayor Matthew Porter recognized Boy Scout Brian Goodrich for achieving the rank of Eagle Scout and acknowledged National Human Trafficking Prevention Month at the Tuesday, Jan. 23, regular meeting.
During the public comment portion of the meeting where citizens have three minutes to address council, council heard from 11 people, all calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
Councilmembers are not allowed to respond to comments on non-agenda items, however, many individuals spoke beyond the allotted time limit.
“How come we who claim the Wylie Way are still silent towards funding this genocide with our own tax dollars?” one woman asked.
To read the full story and support your local newspaper subscribe to The Wylie News today!
A partial trial installation of the Market Street Bridge flood closure on the Kingston side will be completed Thursday morning, Luzerne County Flood Protection Authority Executive Director Christopher Belleman announced.
The exercise is expected to begin approximately 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. and wrap up at 1 p.m., Belleman said.
One westbound lane heading toward Kingston will be temporarily closed during this period. Eastbound traffic lines into Wilkes-Barre will not be impacted by the operation.
Linde Corporation, the contractor handling the exercise, will follow Pennsylvania Department of Transportation guidelines on directing traffic through the work zone, Belleman said. As a courtesy, Belleman notified the county 911/Emergency Management department and municipal officials.
Belleman said the entire Kingston closure structure does not have to be set up for this operation.
“Once you’ve done a couple of bays, the pattern is duplicative. We are going to focus on the closure portion on the upstream sidewalk and extend one bay into the roadway,” Belleman said in the release.
County Flood Protection Authority Chairman Dominic Yannuzzi said such periodic practice exercises are necessary to ensure equipment is in order and that workers remain prepared for Susquehanna River flooding.
“It is part of the authority’s commitment to protect residents from flooding,” Yannuzzi said. “In some instances, we only have a few hours of notice to install flood walls and engage pumps.”
While the bridge closures are one of the most prominent flood protection features, dozens of other components must be tested on a regular basis to make sure they are operating properly and that the flood protection system is fully functioning, Yannuzzi said.
The 16-mile flood control system includes eight electrical substations, more than 120 underground wells that relieve water pressure that could compromise the levee and 13 pump stations with deep-well pumps that handle drainage from the land side of the levee when it can no longer naturally feed into the Susquehanna, officials have said.
Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.
A partial trial installation of the Market Street Bridge flood closure on the Kingston side will be completed Thursday morning, Luzerne County Flood Protection Authority Executive Director Christopher Belleman announced.
The exercise is expected to begin approximately 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. and wrap up at 1 p.m., Belleman said.
One westbound lane heading toward Kingston will be temporarily closed during this period. Eastbound traffic lines into Wilkes-Barre will not be impacted by the operation.
Linde Corporation, the contractor handling the exercise, will follow Pennsylvania Department of Transportation guidelines on directing traffic through the work zone, Belleman said. As a courtesy, Belleman notified the county 911/Emergency Management department and municipal officials.
Belleman said the entire Kingston closure structure does not have to be set up for this operation.
“Once you’ve done a couple of bays, the pattern is duplicative. We are going to focus on the closure portion on the upstream sidewalk and extend one bay into the roadway,” Belleman said in the release.
County Flood Protection Authority Chairman Dominic Yannuzzi said such periodic practice exercises are necessary to ensure equipment is in order and that workers remain prepared for Susquehanna River flooding.
“It is part of the authority’s commitment to protect residents from flooding,” Yannuzzi said. “In some instances, we only have a few hours of notice to install flood walls and engage pumps.”
While the bridge closures are one of the most prominent flood protection features, dozens of other components must be tested on a regular basis to make sure they are operating properly and that the flood protection system is fully functioning, Yannuzzi said.
The 16-mile flood control system includes eight electrical substations, more than 120 underground wells that relieve water pressure that could compromise the levee and 13 pump stations with deep-well pumps that handle drainage from the land side of the levee when it can no longer naturally feed into the Susquehanna, officials have said.
Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.
Volunteers Sherry Higgins, left, and Jon Bailey are escorted by Collin County Deputy Jose Perez as they search for homeless individuals at Brockdale Park in Lucas last week as part of the annual Point-in-Time count. Jeremy Hallock/The Wylie News
On a chilly Thursday night last week, four teams of volunteers gathered at The Cross Church event center to assist in a carefully coordinated effort to search for unhoused citizens in the area.
And after hours of searching, the annual Point-in-Time (PIT) count revealed less unhoused individuals than in year’s past, but the data is still crucial to collect.
This year’s annual count, Thursday, Jan. 25, was organized by Ronni Fetzer of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, as part of a county-wide effort.
The 25 volunteers were divided into four teams to search parks, parking lots, schools, churches, restrooms, Wylie High School Ag barn, ER facilities and other areas. Two teams were scheduled for 5:30 p.m. and two for 8:30 p.m.
To read the full story and support your local newspaper subscribe to The Wylie News today!
A memorial will be built at Cox Elementary in Sachse honoring the Mendoza sisters, Daniela and Sofia, who were killed in the May 2023 mass shooting at the Allen Outlet Mall. Courtesy Wylie ISD
At the first Wylie ISD school board meeting of the year on Monday, Jan. 22, Cox Elementary Principal Krista Wilson announced an upcoming memorial honoring sisters Daniela and Sofia Mendoza. The Cox students were among the eight people killed at the mass shooting in Allen on May 6, 2023.
“In the days following this tragedy, so many people reached out wanting to do something to honor the memory of these sweet sisters,” Wilson said.
Cox ESL teacher Stephanie Green took the lead on the Mendoza Legacy Project, which began with crayons and notebooks before architects were involved. The memorial will be located on the northeast corner of Cox Elementary and Green said their hopes for the project are threefold.
“We want to provide a place to honor and remember Daniela and Sofia,” Green said. “Create an outdoor space for our current Cox Coyotes and teachers and to provide a place of reflection and calm for the community.”
To read the full story and support local journalism subscribe to The Wylie News today!
Driving south along Highway 6 in Clifton, Texas, you pass a Subway, a Sonic and a Dairy Queen, where until a few weeks ago, several employees allegedly sold meth in addition to Blizzards and dipped cones.
According to a press release from the Clifton Police Department, tips started coming in June 2023 that individuals were selling meth in the small town of about 3,500, about an hour and a half south of Fort Worth. Their investigation led them to the local Dairy Queen, giving rise to the name “Operation Blizzard.”
The police department set up undercover drug buys, and officers confirmed meth sales were being made at Dairy Queen and other locations around the town.
With help from the McLennan County SWAT team and two Texas game wardens, Clifton Police executed three search warrants between Jan. 16 and Jan. 26.
They arrested 10 individuals on charges including manufacturing and delivering controlled substances and possession of controlled substances in a drug-free zone, which includes proximity to a public park and preschool.
The press release clarified, “Those individuals are no longer employed there [Dairy Queen] as of this report.”
“We always encourage small businesses in Clifton,” Chief of Police Chris Blanton said in the press release, “however we would encourage these types of entrepreneurs to take your criminal enterprise elsewhere.”
Dairy Queen did not respond to our request for comment. However, Facebook had a lot to say, in addition to the Clifton PD who, while not coordinating drug busts, surely dabble in stand-up comedy:
A man is accused of fatally stabbing his 75-year-old mother at her home in Pickens County, Georgia, deputies say.
Getty Images/iStockphoto
A man is charged after his 75-year-old mother was found stabbed to death inside her north Georgia home, deputies say.
Deputies were called to the home in Jasper on Monday, Jan. 29, and found Linda Foster’s body on the dining room floor, according to the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities said she had been stabbed multiple times.
Foster’s son, Barry Douglas Williamson, was arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault, deputies said. It’s not clear what led to the deadly attack.
Authorities didn’t release additional details but said the investigation is ongoing.
Williamson, 55, remained in custody at the Pickens County Adult Detention Center as of Jan. 31, online records show.
Jasper is about 60 miles north of downtown Atlanta.
Tanasia is a national Real-Time reporter based in Atlanta covering news across Georgia, Mississippi and the Southeast. Her sub-beat is retail and consumer news. She’s an alumna of Kennesaw State University and joined McClatchy in 2020.
A man has been sentenced to 140 years in prison in California for brutally raping a 9-year-old girl and a 32-year-old jogger more than two decades ago, officials announced this week. Proescutors say Kevin Konther tried to accuse his identical twin brother of committing the crimes – along with the molestation of a former girlfriend’s daughter.
Konther, 58, was sentenced on Friday in Orange County Superior Court, where a judge imposed the maximum penalty, the Orange County District Attorney said in a news release. A jury convicted Konther in February 2023 of multiple felony charges linked to the sexual assaults, including two counts of forcible rape and one count of a lewd and lascivious act with a minor, according to the district attorney.
“The relentless pursuit of justice by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the Orange County District Attorney’s Office has ensured that another monster who preys on young girls and young women will never be free to jump out of the bushes again,” said District Attorney Todd Spitzer in a statement.
Konther and his twin brother were arrested in 2019 after a breakthrough in DNA testing led investigators at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office to both men, CBS Los Angeles reported at the time. Authorities took the twins into custody together, but detectives said they determined quickly that Konther was their suspect. He was booked on charges of rape, oral copulation with a child younger than 14, lewd and lascivious acts with a child younger than 14, and aggravated sexual assault, and held on $1 million bail ahead of his arraignment.
Kevin Konther was arrested Jan. 10, 2019, on rape charges in connection with two rapes which occurred in the 1990s in Orange County.
Orange County Sheriff’s Department
Two of the crimes happened almost three decades ago, although there were no substantial developments in either of those cases until advances in genetic genealogy finally allowed detectives to push their investigation forward in 2019. The first assault happened on Oct. 21, 1995, when authorities say Konther raped a 9-year-old girl in Lake Forest as she walked home alone from a shopping trip to buy school supplies. Authorities say he grabbed the girl and covered her mouth while pulling her down an embankment that led to a secluded park. The girl ran home without her clothes and reported the rape to her mother.
Three years later, on June 2, 1998, authorities say Konther raped a 32-year-old woman who was out on a jog in Mission Viejo. Naked except for his shoes, Konther jumped out at her from bushes along her jogging trail and dragged her down an embankment before attacking her and running away.
Detectives learned of the third crime after they started to use investigative genetic genealogy in 2018, in hopes of finding the suspect in those first two rapes. Allegations emerged during that phase of their investigation that accused Konther of molesting the daughter of an ex-girlfriend.
Once Konther and his twin were arrested, “conversations that were covertly recorded” between them allowed authorities to pinpoint him, and not his brother, as the suspect, the district attorney said, noting that Konther had made incriminating statements while his twin “was shocked by the arrest.”
Emily Mae Czachor is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. She covers breaking news, often focusing on crime and extreme weather. Emily Mae has previously written for outlets including the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek.
Argyle ISD is mourning Argyle Middle School principal Scott Gibson.
ARGYLE, Texas — Argyle ISD is mourning the loss of Argyle Middle School principal Scott Gibson.
Argyle ISD Superintendent Dr. Courtney Carpenter said in a letter to families that Gibson “died Sunday following an accident out of state.”
“Mr. Gibson, whose fun-loving spirit permeated his campus, served as the AMS Principal since 2009 and first became an Eagle in 2006 as an assistant principal. He was a dedicated and engaging leader who inspired staff and created a positive learning environment for his students,” Carpenter’s letter read. “The inspiration for his career in public education came from his parents after seeing the impact they had on their students.”
“Please join us in remembering Mr. Gibson and keep his wife Jodie and their four children in your thoughts and prayers,” Carpenter continued.
Carpenter says the middle school is providing counseling resources for students and staff and additional resources from Denton ISD.
After-school activities at Argyle Middle School for Tuesday are canceled.
Before beginning as Argyle Middle School’s principal in 2009, Gibson served as AMS’ assistant principal from 2006-2009, and taught world geography at Northwest High School from 2004-2006 before that, according to his bio on Argyle Middle School’s website.
He taught and coached at Denton Ryan High School from 1997-2004.
Jodi Gibson told me her husband Argyle Mid School Principal Scott Gibson loved “family” more than anything but loved serving his school family as well. She says, “Scott as the spiritual leader lead us in this happiness and joy!” @wfaa@ArgyleISD@TownArgylepic.twitter.com/x3O2FcJALH
His wife Jodie Gibson told WFAA that he loved his family more than anything in the world and they always planned their outings together. They have a daughter and three sons. Still, they shared him with his school district family because that’s where his heart was as well.
“He was full of life and laughter,” said Gibson, “His parents were educators, his grandmother was an educator. He came from an educated family.”
“What he exuded most of the time was just joyfulness,” said Jodie. “and he died very peacefully. He died happy.”
During a telephone call Tuesday afternoon, Jodie Gibson shared with WFAA reporter Scoop Jefferson how much her husband meant to his family, the school district, and the community. She said Gibson had a unique ability to remember every student he coached over the years.
“He touched thousands and thousands of lives. We would go places in Denton, and people would be like, Hey, Coach Gibson, I mean, these are people that are you know, who he coached in 98, right? Mr. Gibson was their favorite from Argyle, They would just go out of their way to, you know, make sure they said hi to him and give just a little bit of context and he could pick it up and go, Yep, I know who you are,” said Jodie.
Jodie says Gibson’s funeral is scheduled for 10 a.m. Feb. 10 at St. Mark Catholic Church in Argyle. She referred to him as the spiritual leader of the family who will be missed by the family and throughout the school district, which she says has shown tremendous support.
“I have an amazing community. There are all these people in my house, and they have brought and placed so much food in front of me and help me,” said Jodie. “I know God will carry us through this. It’ll be hard because I never anticipated being a widow at 48 years old and having to raise my kids by myself. So, I am taking it one step at a time. And I trust in Jesus, and I know He will provide for me.”
West Pittston is making some headway advancing its goal to construct a levee along the Susquehanna River.
Luzerne County Community Development Executive Director Catherine Hilsher said Tuesday her office has identified $187,500 that will be used as a required local match for a $562,500 federal flood mitigation grant the borough received for the levee project.
Borough Council President Ellen Quinn said this $750,000 will cover advanced study and levee design.
In addition, the borough has been approved for a $1.5 million federal Pre-Disaster Mitigation, or PDM, grant that will require a 25%, or $500,000 match, officials said.
The borough has committed to come up with that local match and is seeking additional grant funding to offset the borough’s financial obligation, Quinn said.
This $2 million will be used for preliminary engineering and levee design, she said.
“We are absolutely determined to keep this going,” Quinn said. “We need protection, and we deserve protection.”
With the grant funding committed, Quinn said the borough will soon initiate the public search process for an outside entity to handle the preliminary engineering and design.
A new levee is estimated to cost between $50 million and $55 million.
Borough officials started pushing for flood control after the record 2011 Susquehanna flood caused $98 million in damage to 880 borough residences, 26 businesses, four churches and four other public buildings, records show.
The borough is on its own in securing a levee because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers declined to initiate a levee under its umbrella, officials have said. The federal agency determined in 2017 a levee around West Pittston did not meet the benefit-to-cost ratio warranting the investment, officials have said. The process to secure and complete a levee through the U.S. Army Corps also could take decades.
Because a study was needed to launch the project, the county community development office in 2018 awarded $225,000 to the borough to analyze all options.
That county funding came from a $25.4 million U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development allocation to fix lingering damage from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee in 2011 that was largely used for flood buyouts and to repair flood-damaged infrastructure, officials have said.
Hilsher said Tuesday that a small portion of this disaster recovery funding was still available to provide the new $187,500 match last month as requested by the borough.
Before committing the match, the county office first verified the West Pittston levee was eligible for this funding and that it could be used as the local obligation, Hilsher said.
“I was glad it was eligible,” Hilsher said, noting there are no more leftover funds available to use as a match on the second federal grant.
Unveiled in January 2020, the county-funded feasibility report recommended the borough follow the example of Bloomsburg in Columbia County, which responded to a similar Army Corps rejection by rounding up private and public funding to build a levee there.
The proposed levee in West Pittston would include stretches of both earth and concrete-capped sheet pile, the report said. The levee height would vary to a maximum of 15 feet, it said.
About 60 vacant parcels would have to be acquired on the river side of Susquehanna Avenue to make way for the levee, it said.
The new levee would meet Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) requirements to comply with the National Flood Insurance Program to ensure property owners receive reduced flood insurance rates from levee protection, officials have said.
Wilkes-Barre-based Borton-Lawson completed the study, with help from sub-contractor Reilly Associates in Pittston and guidance from borough project management consultant Jim Brozena.
Quinn rattled off a list of elected officials assisting in securing funding, saying she believes they all understand the need for a levee.
“They are with us, and I greatly appreciate it. All our elected officials from the county and state to federal level have been very supportive,” Quinn said.
Because the trauma of 2011 flooding is still fresh in many minds, borough residents brace themselves when the river rises, Quinn said. Citizens regularly seek updates on the levee plans at borough council meetings.
“We are moving ahead in a positive direction, and we hope the momentum keeps going our way and that within a few years we will have a levee,” Quinn said.
Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.
West Pittston is making some headway advancing its goal to construct a levee along the Susquehanna River.
Luzerne County Community Development Executive Director Catherine Hilsher said Tuesday her office has identified $187,500 that will be used as a required local match for a $562,500 federal flood mitigation grant the borough received for the levee project.
Borough Council President Ellen Quinn said this $750,000 will cover advanced study and levee design.
In addition, the borough has been approved for a $1.5 million federal Pre-Disaster Mitigation, or PDM, grant that will require a 25%, or $500,000 match, officials said.
The borough has committed to come up with that local match and is seeking additional grant funding to offset the borough’s financial obligation, Quinn said.
This $2 million will be used for preliminary engineering and levee design, she said.
“We are absolutely determined to keep this going,” Quinn said. “We need protection, and we deserve protection.”
With the grant funding committed, Quinn said the borough will soon initiate the public search process for an outside entity to handle the preliminary engineering and design.
A new levee is estimated to cost between $50 million and $55 million.
Borough officials started pushing for flood control after the record 2011 Susquehanna flood caused $98 million in damage to 880 borough residences, 26 businesses, four churches and four other public buildings, records show.
The borough is on its own in securing a levee because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers declined to initiate a levee under its umbrella, officials have said. The federal agency determined in 2017 a levee around West Pittston did not meet the benefit-to-cost ratio warranting the investment, officials have said. The process to secure and complete a levee through the U.S. Army Corps also could take decades.
Because a study was needed to launch the project, the county community development office in 2018 awarded $225,000 to the borough to analyze all options.
That county funding came from a $25.4 million U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development allocation to fix lingering damage from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee in 2011 that was largely used for flood buyouts and to repair flood-damaged infrastructure, officials have said.
Hilsher said Tuesday that a small portion of this disaster recovery funding was still available to provide the new $187,500 match last month as requested by the borough.
Before committing the match, the county office first verified the West Pittston levee was eligible for this funding and that it could be used as the local obligation, Hilsher said.
“I was glad it was eligible,” Hilsher said, noting there are no more leftover funds available to use as a match on the second federal grant.
Unveiled in January 2020, the county-funded feasibility report recommended the borough follow the example of Bloomsburg in Columbia County, which responded to a similar Army Corps rejection by rounding up private and public funding to build a levee there.
The proposed levee in West Pittston would include stretches of both earth and concrete-capped sheet pile, the report said. The levee height would vary to a maximum of 15 feet, it said.
About 60 vacant parcels would have to be acquired on the river side of Susquehanna Avenue to make way for the levee, it said.
The new levee would meet Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) requirements to comply with the National Flood Insurance Program to ensure property owners receive reduced flood insurance rates from levee protection, officials have said.
Wilkes-Barre-based Borton-Lawson completed the study, with help from sub-contractor Reilly Associates in Pittston and guidance from borough project management consultant Jim Brozena.
Quinn rattled off a list of elected officials assisting in securing funding, saying she believes they all understand the need for a levee.
“They are with us, and I greatly appreciate it. All our elected officials from the county and state to federal level have been very supportive,” Quinn said.
Because the trauma of 2011 flooding is still fresh in many minds, borough residents brace themselves when the river rises, Quinn said. Citizens regularly seek updates on the levee plans at borough council meetings.
“We are moving ahead in a positive direction, and we hope the momentum keeps going our way and that within a few years we will have a levee,” Quinn said.
Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.
Juan Aguilera Duran, of Mansfield, Texas, was sentenced to 17 years in prison Friday, three months after pleading to a child pornography charge, the U.S. Attorney’s Office Northern District of Texas announced Tuesday.
File photo
A 33-year-old Mansfield man accused of using Snapchat to send sexually graphic messages and videos to a 14-year-old boy has been sentenced to more than 17 years in prison federal prosecutors said.
Juan Aguilera Duran was charged via criminal complaint in May 2023 and was indicted in August 2023. He pleaded guilty to receipt of child pornography in October 2023, according to a news release from Leigha Simonton, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas.
He was sentenced on Jan. 26 by U.S. District Judge Reed C. O’ Connor, who also ordered Duran to a lifetime of supervised release.
“The Secret Service is committed to using our forensic and investigative capabilities to help catch criminals who prey on the most vulnerable among us,” said Christina Foley, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Secret Service’s Dallas Field Office, in the release.
According to court documents, Mansfield police were dispatched on Aug. 13, 2022 to a residence in Mansfield to meet with the 14-year-old who had received sexually explicit messages, images, and videos via Snapchat from Duran.
Search and arrest warrants resulted in Duran pleading guilty to receiving child pornography. He later pleaded guilty to receiving images of child pornography on his computer, according to the release.
“This case is a testament to the great work that occurs when agencies collaborate and work together for the common good to fight evil in our community. This particular unit is established to protect our most valuable and vulnerable, our kids,” Mansfield police Chief Tracy Aaron said in the release.
The Mansfield Police Department, Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office Digital Forensics and Technical Services, and the Secret Service conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandie Wade prosecuted the case.
Related stories from Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Nicole Lopez is a breaking news reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. She graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso, where she studied multimedia journalism. She also does freelance writing.
Earlier today, the Hawks upgraded De’Andre Hunter to available and Dejounte Murray to probable. While this is Hunter’s first game back in over a month and Hawks head coach Quin Snyder said that he would be on a minutes restriction, it was pretty easy to conclude that he would not be in the starting lineup.
With Hunter coming off the bench, it was pretty easy to predict the Hawks starting lineup. Trae Young, Dejounte Murray, Saddiq Bey, Jalen Johnson, and Clint Capela will be the first five on the floor for Atlanta.
After Anthony Davis was ruled out earlier in the day, it was going to be interesting to see the Lakers starting lineup. LeBron James was available to play and he started alongside D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, Taurean Prince, and Jaxson Hayes.
Atlanta will need to shoot the ball better in this game than they did against the Raptors. The Hawks shot 6-27 (22%), but four of those makes came from one player, Bogdan Bogdanovic. As good of a game as Saddiq Bey had, he was 0-6 from three, Trae Young was 1-4, and the bench did not have a good night shooting. They were fortunate to be playing such a shorthanded and average team last night or else their poor shooting might hurt them. The Lakers are near the bottom of the league in three-point attempts allowed.
Los Angeles has been known as an elite defensive team since James and Anthony Davis teamed up, but that is not the case this year. The Lakers are 19th in PPG allowed, 15th in field goal percentage, 21st in three-point percentage allowed, and 28th in three-point attempts allowed. Per Cleaning the Glass, the Lakers are 13th in points allowed per 100 possessions and 17th in effective field goal percentage.
Young could have a big game tonight. Both of the Lakers starting guards, D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves, are poor defenders and I would bet that Young and Murray if he plays, will certainly try to exploit these two players on that end of the court.
Hawks point guard Trae Young vs the Raptors Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
LeBron James might be getting up there in age, but he is still one of the league’s best players and is capable of having a huge night. This season, he is averaging 25.0 PPG, 7.7 APG, and 7.4 RPG. His teammate, Anthony Davis, is having one of the best seasons of his career. He is averaging 24.9 PPG and 12.1 RPG, while also averaging 2.3 BPG.
While those two players are the big stars, D’Angelo Russell is having a nice season as well. He is averaging 17.3 PPG and 6.1 APG while shooting 47.8% from the field and 42.1% from three. His defense leaves a lot to be desired, but he is having a bounce-back offensive season.
The numbers for the Lakers don’t jump off the page. They are 14th in PPG, 7th in field goal percentage, 30th in three-point attempts, 15th in three-point percentage, 7th in free throw attempts, 22nd in rebounding, and 23rd in turnovers. Per Cleaning the Glass, the Lakers are 19th in points per 100 possessions, 11th in effective field goal percentage, 20th in turnover percentage, 29th in offensive rebounding percentage, and 8th in free throw rate.
The numbers for the Hawks’ defense are hard to look at. They are 29th in PPG allowed, 28th in field goal percentage allowed, 18th in three-point attempts allowed, and 28th in three-point percentage allowed. Per Cleaning the Glass, the Hawks are 26th in points allowed per 100 possessions and 29th in effective field goal percentage allowed.
A 14-year-old member of Scouts BSA Troop 1869 earned Scouting’s highest honor — the Eagle Scout Award – for her project at a local nonprofit.
Scout Amelia King, an eighth-grade student Burnett Junior High School, partnered with In-Sync Exotics in Wylie to update the entrance ramp to the nonprofit’s visitors center and restroom, making it accessible to all guests.
Construction for the project was originally set for late October, but due to weather, it was rescheduled for Saturday, Dec. 2.
Amelia said she decided to center her project on big cats after visiting the sanctuary with her family, adding that she loved seeing the cats and respected In-Sync Exotics’ goal to give them a good home.
Her project got jump-started when she visited In-Sync to take some measurements. While there, volunteer, Emily Graham said she was interested in supporting Amelia’s project.
“She reached out to the McKinney Masons and the Order of the Eastern Star about funding my project,” Amelia said. “Both organizations donated to my project and together their donations covered the entire cost.”
Because the project required construction knowledge, Amelia said she reached out to adults with experience.
“I was very fortunate to have many willing to help me build the ramp,” Amelia said. “My project advisors, Jason Baker and my dad, Forrest King, were also very helpful when I was planning and coming up with the design of the ramp.”
The ramp was built in one day, thanks to help from multiple Scouts and adult volunteers.
“All five Scouts from my troop, including myself, as well as three Scouts from Troop 78 and seven adults constructed the ramp on Dec. 2,” Amelia said.
A plaque now adorns a post on the newly built ramp at In-Sync Exotics.
Another adult provided lunch for everyone, said Amelia, and overall, the project “took around eight hours.”
The project was finalized on Thursday, Dec. 28, when Amelia returned to In-Sync Exotics with her parents to paint the ramp.
ISE board member and Director of Education, Laura Czekala, said “It was a pleasure working with Amelia. We are incredibly grateful and honored that she selected In-Sync for her Eagle Scout project.”
Since the completion of the new ramp, Czekala said they have received “numerous compliments” on Amelia’s work and about the positive impact it has had “on our visitor’s experience.”
Amelia is the third girl in her troop to receive the Eagle Scout award. She is a founding member of Scouts BSA Troop 1869, an all-girls Boy Scout troop that began in 2020.
“Our troop is very close-knit, and we encourage each other’s progress,” Amelia said. “We enjoy working on requirements and merit badges together. Taking on this project was challenging, but it taught me a lot about leadership, organization, and project management. Balancing an Eagle Scout Project with school, band, National Junior Honor Society, and other obligations has helped me better my time management.”
For more stories about the Wylie community, see the next print or digital edition of The Wylie News. Subscribe today and support local journalism.
.jpg)
.jpg "Juan Aguilera Duran, of Mansfield, Texas, was sentenced to 17 years in prison Friday, three months after pleading to a child pornography charge, the U.S. Attorney's Office Northern District of Texas announced Tuesday.")
