The Neches River gets all the love

Launching onto the Neches River

From the July edition of County Line Magazine

Everybody’s always gushing about the Neches.

The river flows through the heart of East Texas, rising in Van Zandt County. The Texas Observer calls it a “superior ecological panorama.” Texas Monthly reports that canoeing it is like “drifting through a sun-dappled dream.”

Whatever those claims mean, the Neches’ sister river, the Sabine, has been getting no such love. When someone writes, “the Neches stands alone as East Texas’ last remaining wild river,” it seems to imply the Sabine is tamer and therefore inferior. Continue reading

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Selling roses to Longview’s drunks

The rose lady, Pam Johnson

If a man and woman are out on the town — they’re two-stepping, they’re having fun — one thing is all but certain: before night’s end, the rose lady will find them.

And when she does, the man better have $3 in hand. It’s a small price to pay for a husband or boyfriend or even a first date who wants to stay in the good graces of his woman.

The rose lady drives from club to club in Longview and Kilgore. On a mission, she hurries through the front door and scans the crowd for her prey. She darts among them, proffering a bouquet of deep red and other brightly hued roses. Many people say no, but plenty say yes.

She’s sold more than enough flowers to keep her in business for the past 20 years.

“Would you like to buy a rose?”

When the rose lady comes around, you might never think to ask her name. She has one, though. It’s Pam Johnson. Two decades is an eternity in the nightlife industry, and Johnson, 46, credits her longevity to the high quality and reasonable price of her roses. No gimmicks for her.

“These girls from Tyler used to come over with cellophane and teddy bears,” she said. “They think they’re so hot. Well, I have run those Tyler girls out of this town. All I have to have is roses, and that makes my customers happy.”

Click here to continue reading at news-journal.com.

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Unleashed dogs not bicyclist’s best friend

My delicious, meaty shank

My latest scheme to not get any fatter is to ride a bike. Dogs think this is a terrible idea.

Normally I wouldn’t give two rips about the opinion of some mangy cur, but I live out in the country — in official parlance, an unincorporated area of western Gregg County — where dogs rule the road. They’re no fans of pedestrians, and they really hate guys on bikes.

Case in point: Maybe three minutes into my ride the other day, a pit bull terrier raced into the street, and he sank his teeth into my delicious, meaty shank.

The wound was deep. The blood was flowing. I threw down my kickstand, stormed through the owner’s yard and rang his doorbell.

Read more: http://www.news-journal.com/oped/forum/article_e53547a5-afcc-53e3-acc0-1ea795744d4b.html

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Comfort food and mounted critters

From the June edition of County Line Magazine

Some things just go together: Burgers and fries, bacon and eggs, comfort food and mounted critters.

It beckons.

A Gladewater greasy spoon has discovered the winning combination. The Silver Spur Cafe on U.S. 80 serves diner fare in the presence of wild things … lots and lots of wild things.

On a Thursday morning, the black bear was situated to pounce on an old man in a cowboy hat. A coyote’s tail dangled above another man’s head. Along the restaurant’s walls were a beaver and otter, raccoon and porcupine, more than a few squirrels and flocks of birds. Continue reading

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Old rides, new life

BETTIE — Edsel Green parked his tractor beside the only traffic light in town the other morning and polished his beauty for the ride to come.

Edsel Green nurses a cold beer on the back seat of his tractor.

Edsel Green nurses a cold beer on the back seat of his tractor. Photo by Kevin Green (no relation)

Rebuilt from hood to hitch, every bearing and seal, the red International was not pulling a disk plow or baler. Instead, Green’s haul on that autumn day was an old bench seat from a GMC van.

He had welded the seat, still covered in factory blue cloth, to a homemade mount that he raised and lowered with a hydraulic hitch. It felt pretty sturdy.

“We’re fixing to go look at the leaves change colors,” he said. Continue reading

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The ballad of Billy Ray

LINDEN — Whatever happened to Billy Ray Johnson?

Morris Dees and Billy Ray Johnson

Morris Dees and Billy Ray Johnson

For years, the middle-aged, mentally challenged black man had been a familiar face around town. But on a September night in 2003, four young white men gave Johnson beer at a pasture party and told him to dance while they laughed. They used racial slurs. They beat him into unconsciousness and dumped his body on a country road.

The collective shoulder shrug of Linden’s residents drew national outrage. Continue reading

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A home-grown Thanksgiving turkey

The domesticated turkey has only one obligation in this life, but it’s a big one, and there’s no getting around it.

The bird in my backyard had to die, and it was my job to off her. Continue reading

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Ghosts in the trailer park

“Are you troubled by strange noises in the middle of the night?
“Do you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic?
“Have you or your family ever seen a spook, specter or ghost?
“If the answer is ‘yes,’ then don’t wait another minute. Pick up the phone and call the professionals …”

- “Ghostbusters”

Above & Beyond Paranormal investigators

Above & Beyond Paranormal investigators. Photo by Kevin Green

There will be tears tonight.

There will be voices in the cemetery – a child’s laughter, a whispered threat.

On a cool, damp night in Longview, paranormal investigator Misty Richardson says she will not fear the spirits she expects to encounter during research of a local burial ground.

“Me, what I believe is that I have the Lord with me,” she says. “We say a prayer and feel that He protects us. Some of them do try to possess you, so you have to do it with a clear head. If you act relaxed and peaceful, you don’t have anything to worry about.”

If you give in to panic, on the other hand, you become vulnerable. You must not panic.

Otherwise, “something can actually attach to you, and you can take it home,” she says. “It’s very, very rare, but it has happened.”

Richardson knows. She’s one of a handful of local investigators who form Above & Beyond Paranormal, a research team that is registered and open for business in Gregg County.

“We’re here to prove there is life after death here,” Richardson said.

“Basically, we ghost hunt. Anybody that allows us to either go in their homes or cemeteries, we’ll go in overnight. We’ll investigate by pictures, videos, voice recordings. It’s actually pretty neat.”

They aren’t afraid of ghosts, she says. But that’s about to change. Continue reading

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Can Longview’s race “monster” be solved?

In midst of LISD attendance zone debate, race relations still riddle

A black boy’s education was not worth much in Longview in the 1950s, but the segregated schoolhouse did offer a cheap supply of ready labor.

“They’d come get us out of class,” recalls Al Jones, a 67-year-old Longview resident who attended all-black East Ward Elementary School. Continue reading

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Emu on the run

A wayward emu is on the loose in northwestern Harrison County after spooking a rancher’s livestock for the past couple of weeks. Brad Martin said his son and nephew were heading to the family fishing hole on a recent day when they spotted the unwelcome guest.

“They came running up to the house, yelling, ‘Daddy, there’s a prehistoric animal at the pond!’ ” Martin said. Continue reading

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On the road with Wes and Scott

Last summer Scotty and I got paid to drive around East Texas … These are the videos from our six day trips.

Listen to my interview on Shreveport’s NPR station:

All Things Considered / Red River Radio Get Adobe Flash player

… Yes, I used the word flabbergasted. Many thanks to my nameless web colleague!

Canton:

Nacogdoches:

Caddo Lake:

Zipline:

Gators and Friends:

Gilmer:

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Cicada song

Tiny nymphs hide among the trees of East Texas.

For years, they lead quiet, uneventful infant lives, content to drink the sap of tree roots as they burrow deeper and deeper into the soil.

But as they grow older, the midsummer night beckons. Continue reading

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Let’s commercialize high school sports

Pat Collins is a salty old coach, a booster backslapper, a guy whose powers of persuasion can open wallets around town.

He wants the best for his kids, and he knows how to get it. For proof, just look at the fancy scoreboards at Longview High School. Continue reading

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'He's given hero a different meaning'

LAKEPORT — Hundreds of East Texans stood in silent tribute Saturday as a Tatum family grieved over the flag-draped casket of a fallen loved one.

Family members of Alejandro Granado meet his casket at the East Texas Regional Airport.

Family members of Alejandro Granado meet his casket at the East Texas Regional Airport. Longview News-Journal photo by Les Hassell.

Relatives and supporters gathered at the East Texas Regional Airport to meet the body of Alejandro “Alex” Granado III, a Special Forces communications sergeant who was killed a week earlier in eastern Afghanistan. He was 42.

Granado arrived by chartered plane on a warm, clear August morning. The plane landed smoothly, and the only sound among the hundreds on hand was a mechanical hum as the cargo door lifted open. Continue reading

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Longview Transit riders as varied as the routes

John Harris. Photo by Michael Cavazos.

John Harris. Photo by Michael Cavazos.

You could write a book about the characters who ride Longview’s public bus routes.

Just ask Greg Sambrano.

Sambrano, a 52-year-old car wash employee, future college student and aspiring novelist, is 30 pages into a work of fiction based on the people he meets during excursions across town.

“I cruise around and listen to people,” Sambrano said. “I just ride the buses. It’s all I’ll do today – talk to people sometimes, but mostly just listen and observe. You ride it a few times, you’re going to see the characters.” Continue reading

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Overnight in a homeless camp

Terry at his camp. Photo by Kevin Green.

Terry at his camp. Photo by Kevin Green.

Two figures darted through the rush-hour traffic in the drizzle of a rainy April evening in Longview.

With unwashed T-shirts clinging to their backs, they flagged down wary drivers who were trying to exit the parking lot of a grocery store on East Marshall Avenue.

“Hey, can you spare a couple bucks?” they asked. “We’re trying to get a bite to eat.” Continue reading

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Anything goes in backyard wrestling

Drew slams somebody with a chair. Photo by Les Hassell.

Drew slams somebody with a chair. Photo by Les Hassell.

Heavy metal is pounding, the people are ready for wrasslin’ when a man in a black lucha libre mask cuts the music and grabs the microphone.

“Let me explain the rules,” he says.

About 50 people have gathered for an afternoon of hardcore wrestling in a backyard near Liberty City.

But rules? There are no rules. He and other unpaid, untrained wrestlers are preparing to battle in a ring where they will batter each other with folding chairs, cookie sheets, a thumbtack-studded baseball bat, barbed wire and other weapons. The bloodier, the better, they say. Continue reading

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A dying man's 'holy calling'

Dencil Marsh at the East Texas Arboretum. Photo by Les Hassell.

Dencil Marsh at the East Texas Arboretum. Photo by Les Hassell.

Dencil Marsh’s wife calls him a billy goat the way he scrambles over leaf-strewn ledges and through deep, dry washes. Somehow, he said, he never loses his footing.

He wanders foot trails through scrubby forest and brush, exploring a patch of land set aside for a project he considers his “holy calling” – the transformation of 28 acres into a garden showcase and urban forest known as the Longview Arboretum and Gardens.

On a sunny afternoon in June, Marsh leaned his 73-year-old frame against a young pine tree to rest and catch his breath.

“I don’t have the strength and stamina I used to,” he said. “I used to think I was a tough little guy.” Continue reading

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Fast times with the repo man

Wesley Pierce. Photo by Kevin Green.

Wesley Pierce. Photo by Kevin Green.

Never bring a knife to a gunfight.

It’s a rule to live by, but not one that applies to Longview’s top repo man.

Wesley Pierce has been cursed, chased and shot at in the 18 years since he began combing the streets in his tow truck. He’s on the lookout for vehicles whose owners have defaulted on their loans, and though he does not pack heat, he said a gun in his face is unlikely to deter him.

“When I go out to get a car, I’m there to get the car,” he said. “I’m not saying I’m bulletproof, because I’m not, but I know more people won’t pull the trigger than will pull the trigger.”

It helps that he strikes an imposing figure. Pierce, 39, wears a gold chain and a trim goatee. Spiky blond hair has retreated from his forehead, and the hint of a mullet tickles the back of his neck. Continue reading

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Hit-and-run

Nakia Wright was straggling behind the others, so the car hit her first. It flipped her into the air, and when she came down her head cracked the right headlight.

It struck Jermaine Washington, 20, next, gashing open his big toe. The passenger-side mirror then caught Hettie Franklin’s elbow, and in the fall, she fractured her ankle.

“I spun around and hit the doggone ditch,” said Franklin, 20. “It felt like I was doing a skip-hop.” Continue reading

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Desperate options

Philip Boepple at his home in a shotgun shack in Longview.

Philip Boepple at his home in a shotgun shack in Longview. Photo by Michael Cavazos

No air conditioning, rotting floors, sagging ceilings: This is how some Longview renters live.

The winter chill was creeping into old Sam Harris’ bones.

To fight the draft, he nailed boards across the outside of his windows, and he stretched a wide, blue tarp across an exterior wall of his shotgun shack.

“Well I tell you, it’s awfully cold, and I put that up to make it warmer,” Harris said. “That wind blows hard.” Continue reading

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Death by Dr Pepper

Larry Nelson spilled his Dr Pepper on the way home from work one hot summer afternoon.

He pulled into a parking lot in Gladewater to clean up the mess, but the bottle cap had fallen to the floorboard, rolling just out of reach. He squeezed his wide, 280-pound frame between the seat and the dash and reached for the missing cap – and realized he was stuck. Continue reading

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Otters among us

Wildlife biologist Charlie Muller points to a set of otter tracks.

Wildlife biologist Charlie Muller points to a set of otter tracks.

The biologist squatted beneath a busy highway bridge in White Oak and studied the creek bank for signs of life.

Hot on the trail of an elusive critter, Charlie Muller pointed to a set of paw prints that emerged from the milky green water.

“Right here’s where he came up,” he said.

River otters had been here. Continue reading

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What goes up … must come down the mountain

A Jeep claws for traction as the driver pilots it up a Barnwell Mountain trail. The 1,800-acre site that looks like a maze opened in 2000.

A Jeep claws for traction as the driver pilots it up a Barnwell Mountain trail. The 1,800-acre site that looks like a maze opened in 2000.

GILMER – Rumbling past dogwoods in full bloom on an iron-ore “mountain” high above East Texas, a trail rider mashed the brakes of his Land Rover and slid to a stop.

The trail veered hard right, dodging a pine tree. Then it vanished into thin air.

The driver parked a safe distance from the steep edge and stepped through mud to have a look around.

What he saw wasn’t pretty. Continue reading

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Forest giants weather age, development

Loblolly pine in Mount Enterprise. Photo by Les Hassell.

Loblolly pine in Mount Enterprise. Photo by Les Hassell.

Run your hand across the bark of the ancient tree. It is craggy and weathered, splotched by moss and pale green lichens.

Now look up. You’re in the presence of a giant.

Scattered throughout East Texas are a handful of trees that have escaped the logging and clearing of the past 150 years. With help from a state program that identifies and protects the biggest of the big, many of them will still be here long after their current owners are gone.

“Big trees really capture people’s imaginations,” said Pete Smith, a Texas Forest Service employee who manages the state program called Big Tree Registry.

“Especially the biggest of the big, they really dwarf us, and I think there’s some connection that people have with the biggest trees. Of course, this is Texas, so the biggest of anything is noteworthy,” Smith said. “And finding a true champion really does spark the imagination because the tree is older than us, in all likelihood, and anything that lasts longer than a human’s lifespan we memorialize in some way.” Continue reading

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Gilmer man can't slither out of this ticket

The only good snake is a dead snake, as Ricky Huey sees it.

So when he spied a water moccasin crossing Texas 300 at the Clear Creek bridge, five miles southeast of Gilmer, he pulled over and got out his pellet gun.

“I thought I’d sit on that creek bank in the shade for a little while and doctor me some snakes,” said Huey, a 45-year-old Gilmer resident.

To doctor a snake, he explained, you shoot it dead. Continue reading

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New gas gold rush grips the area

“Natural gas find in Louisiana makes Jed Clampetts of property owners”

- The Los Angeles Times, Aug. 1

“A no-holds-barred, all-American gold rush for natural gas is under way in this forgotten corner of the South … Jalopies are being traded in for Cadillacs, plans for swimming pools are being hatched in rusty trailers.”

- The New York Times, July 29

* * *

The way the big-city newspapers tell it, every land-owning yokel on the wrong side of the state line is getting rich these days.

Our neighbors in northwestern Louisiana are lucky. They live on top of what many believe will be the largest natural gas discovery in the United States. It’s called the Haynesville Shale, except when it’s called the Bossier Shale, and it stretches into a good chunk of East Texas.

And the land rush is on. Continue reading

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Small town, big night

On Friday nights in the fall, the crowd at Buckeye Stadium in Gilmer can outnumber the population of the town.

Neighbors greet each other on their way to reserved seats. Little girls wear orange and black ribbons in their hair, and little boys toss footballs and tackle each other on the hill that overlooks the field. Continue reading

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Cattle ranchers dwindling in East Texas

Rusk County rancher Danny Jordan

Rusk County rancher Danny Jordan. Photo by Kevin Green.

Tidy rows of pine trees grow where cattle once grazed through the rolling hills of East Texas.

Housing developments and lignite mines have swallowed prime pasture land.

Around Longview, cows and calves are dotting fewer landscapes, and local ranchers blame rising costs, fluctuating markets and changing lifestyles for pushing people from cattle production, a rural business with long ties to East Texas. Continue reading

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Death Row: 'I was a bad guy. I thought I was a gangster'

You didn’t mess with Big Al in the 1980s.

Strung out on methamphetamine, Alvin Andrew Kelly collected debts for a drug operation in Kilgore. In 1984, he shot his own roommate, set the man’s truck on fire and dumped the body on a road near Lake Cherokee.

He sold drugs. He stole. He sexually assaulted two of his fellow inmates in the Gregg County Jail.

“I was a bad guy,” said Kelly, who’s scheduled to be executed Tuesday. “I thought I was a gangster, you know what I’m saying?” Continue reading

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Area schools' wealth gap widening

An era of constant construction and renovation is under way at the wealthiest schools around the state, including Tatum and Carthage.

Through an exception to the Texas school finance system, districts the state considers wealthy can hang on to more of their local property taxes by taking on debt for construction and other projects. It’s an exception that is widening the gap between rich and poor schools, according to detractors. Continue reading

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Despite 30 years of losses, Sabine stays optimistic

DIANA – An artificial fog drifted across Eagle Stadium a week ago.

High school boys were trying to play football – the biggest show going on a Friday night in Texas – but a smoky haze had settled on the field.

Long passes and the smaller players were lost as the third quarter began between New Diana and Sabine.

“It’s just hanging, but it’ll blow out,” said Tobie Turner, the Sabine athletic booster club president.

He grinned sheepishly. He was responsible for all the smoke.

“If we’d just get a little breeze, it would dissipate,” he said. Continue reading

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East Texans recall the Great Depression

Many East Texans, such as this man shown in his Jefferson home in 1939, lived in poverty during the Great Depression. Photograph by Russell Lee, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Whether they plowed behind mules, fried up bacon for hungry drifters or rode the oil boom out of poverty, five East Texans recall their experiences during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

They also offer their thoughts on today’s economic crisis. Continue reading

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Virginity rules the sex ed of East Texas

For the past seven years, virginity has ruled the sex education of area teenagers.

In that time, abstinence-only programs have come under fire nationwide, and after a cut in federal funding, the future is uncertain for the East Texas Abstinence Program’s Virginity Rules campaign.

Virginity Rules reaches 8,000 students in 25 area schools, according to its director. The program counsels teens, teaches them about pregnancy and the risks of sex, and encourages them to sign a “virginity vow” to wait until marriage to have sex. Continue reading

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A return to 'The Front'

Have you driven through the poorest neighborhoods in Longview recently?

Prostitutes and drug dealers wave to passing cars in residential areas. Spray-painted warnings to “keep out” sprawl across boarded windows.

Houses, some abandoned but most occupied, rot alongside rutted, single-lane streets.

“Families coming from the north side (of town) would probably be in a culture shock,” said Demetrius Davis, a family assistance coordinator for the city. Continue reading

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Area mystery mounds delight archaeologists

A couple of archeologists walk atop a mound. Photo by Les Hassell.

Locked away and hidden from the nearby town of Longview, largely undisturbed for a thousand years, is an ancient and mysterious place that guards the secrets of a vanished people.

It is a sacred place. It is a wide, grassy clearing set in the middle of a forest.

But the truly remarkable discovery — what intrigues and inspires archaeologists — cannot be found inside the clearing, but just beyond it. Continue reading

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The Bigfoot hunter

Charlie DeVore, investigator with the Texas Bigfoot Research Center, paddles through a marshy area of Caddo Lake, near where there have been alleged sightings of Bigfoot.

Charlie DeVore, investigator with the Texas Bigfoot Research Center, paddles through a marshy area of Caddo Lake while watching for Bigfoot. Photo by Les Hassell.

BIG CYPRESS BAYOU – The motor sputtered, then died, and as the canoe drifted deeper into the swamp, gray tangles of bearded Spanish moss gave way to murky water and black cypress.

Knuckles whitened as Charlie DeVore ripped the pull cord. His two-man canoe, 3 decades old and uneasy under the weight of three men, teetered dangerously with every tug.

DeVore yanked the cord once more, then gave up.

“We’ll just have to paddle,” he said.

There wasn’t time to fix the propeller, and there wasn’t time for precaution. The party pressed farther into the swamp, because that’s where Bigfoot was. Continue reading

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Bad air. Blame the trees?

Curse those pesky pines for ozone woes in Longview, where air quality is once again under state and federal scrutiny.

To understand why trees must shoulder their share of blame, walk into the woods and pluck a handful of long, prickly pine needles. Now inhale. Smell familiar? Continue reading

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Go north, young town

Drive north toward Diana, along the fastest-growing stretch of commerce in Gregg County.

Dotting the roadway, “For Sale” signs announce acres of skinny pine trees and fields that have been cleared in anticipation of new building. Strings of retailers, car lots and other commercial properties line the major thoroughfare, U.S. 259.

It’s no secret that Longview is sprawling northward. That’s where the land is. Continue reading

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Baby mama

Cherelle Sparkman knew. She didn’t need a little blue “positive” sign to tell her what her body was already saying.

D'Niya Adams and Cherelle Sparkman.

D'Niya Adams and Cherelle Sparkman. Photo by Little Scotty Brunner.

Her boyfriend knew it, too.

“We just wanted to make sure,” she said.

So Wendallen “Pooh” Adams, then 19, bought a couple of pregnancy tests for his 16-year-old girlfriend. It was a summer morning on Timpson Street in Longview, and Adams was still asleep when Sparkman took the first test.

“I took it and I saw it, and I just dropped it,” she said. Continue reading

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Life on the Sabine

I. Ignored, but essential

Its reputation is foul and dirty, but some people who know it well believe the river that snakes through East Texas is a natural treasure and vital to life

kids on the sabine river

Children play in the Sabine River at the Yellow Dog campground. Photo by Jacob Croft Botter.

The Sabine River slinks ignored and unloved through the swamps and bottomlands of eastern Texas, below rolling pine hills, beneath uninviting walls of slick, red clay.

Alligators lurk in its backwater sloughs. Snakes – lots of snakes – writhe across its waters. They sun in the branches of hardwood trees, and, so the old-timers warn, they sometimes fall from low, hanging limbs, onto the laps of unsuspecting fishermen.

People die there, and bodies are dumped there. Every two or three years, one sheriff told me, his deputies pull a soggy corpse from some out-of-the-way crossing. Texans are taught to revere the Rio Grande, and they vacation beside the cool, clear waters of the Guadalupe. But around the Sabine, it seems, they tend to keep their distance.

“There are people that go over it every day and don’t even look at it,” laments Tom Gallenbach, a local game warden. Continue reading

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Small-town newspaper ruffles feathers

The Texan front pageThe monthly newspaper in Mount Enterprise  doesn’t report the news. It shouts it.

“CRACK METH & CRIME” cries the November front page of The Texan. “What are WE doing about it?”

Inside is a story bemoaning drug problems in the Rusk County town of 540. In the story, Texan owner Brandi Jo Newman describes a wild scene that must have been the talk of the town. She doesn’t tread lightly. Continue reading

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Some area towns put lots of cash in, get little out

Lake Gilmer

Lake Gilmer. Photo by Kevin Green

In 1989, the state Legislature authorized a new half-cent sales tax to fund economic growth in small- to medium-size towns. The measure has been lauded as a game-changing force for new jobs and financial prosperity across the state.

“I think overall it was one of the most successful pieces of legislation I carried,” said former Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant.

Ratliff authored the bill as a freshman in the Senate. Since then, towns whose voters decided to levy the tax have constructed business parks, abated taxes and offered direct incentives to lure – or keep – manufacturers and other businesses. Continue reading

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Local school board honors third-graders

On the day he became a legend, on the morning he should have died, the outlaw Danny Tidwell awoke at dawn. It was fall, the last day of September in 1982. He wandered down to the Sabine River’s edge, from his camp on the bank, and he drew a pot of river water to brew his morning coffee. Continue reading

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