Houston News

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Volunteer gift wrappers needed today at GRB

The presents are here, but volunteers are needed to help wrap them.

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- If you have the creativity bug, this may be the perfect opportunity for you to give back to the community this holiday season.

The "Be an Angel" gift program provides gifts to underprivileged and disabled children. The presents are already taken care of, and now they just need to be wrapped.

Organizers are asking any volunteer gift wrappers to meet at noon at the George R. Brown Convention Center, Hall B: 1001 Avenida de las Americas to wrap 14,000 gifts for more than 4,500 children.

Please bring scissors, tape and wrapping paper that you can spare.

(Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)
Get more Local »

local
// perform JavaScript after the document is scriptable.OTV.common.modules.promoCarousel.promoCarouselInit("/ktrk/xml?id=5758258&ptnr=promoCarousel");

View the original article here

Stable fire kills 11 horses in NW Harris County

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Fire officials are looking for the cause of a stable fire in northwest Harris County that killed 11 horses.

The fire broke out around 4:30am Saturday at an independently-owned, 12-stall barn with stalls for rent in the 2800 block of Spears Road at Walters Road.

While firefighters were able to rescue several horses, they were not able to save them all.

The horse owners have been near the damaged barn all day, hoping to get some answers.

Investigators say they don't have many clues on what started the deadly blaze.

"It's a phone call everyone dreads to hear," horse owner Patrick McKenzie said.

McKenzie kept his horse "Classy" at the stable. He learned she's among the 11 that died there as one of the barns collapsed from flames.

Four other horses were rescued as the fire continued spreading.

"You wake up in the morning to find out something that you love burned. It's a horrible way to go," McKenzie said.

Investigators say a total of 40 horses were being housed in five barns on the property.

A large barn with 12 stables was already fully involved when firefighters with the Little York Fire Department got to the scene, and flames were quickly spreading toward the other buildings.

"The barn had already collapsed, and firefighters were faced with having to remove some heavy metal roofing structure from the top of the barn in order to fight the fire," said Mitchell Weston with the Harris County Fire Marshal's Office.

As Little York firefighters tackled the charred debris, worried horse owners gathered nearby, watching and wondering exactly what happened.

"We don't have any reason to believe [there was] anything suspicious or foul play at this time," Weston said.

For now, the upset horse owners say they just want some answers.

"Hopefully, we'll just move on from here," McKenzie said.

The investigation into this fire is ongoing.

Veterinarians are keeping a close eye on one of the rescued horses because it suffered severe burns.

local, demond fernandez

View the original article here

Fake utility worker shoots homeowner during robbery

LEAGUE CITY, TX (KTRK) -- Police say a man impersonating a utility worker shot a homeowner during an aggravated robbery in an upscale League City neighborhood.

It happened Saturday morning at a home in the 2800 Block of Carrera Court in the Tuscan Lakes neighborhood.

According to officials, a man came to the home dressed as a construction worker, telling the homeowners he needed to come inside to check on the water pressure.

The homeowners allowed the man inside, but then they became suspicious and told him to leave.

A struggle ensued between the male homeowner and the suspect and the suspect shot the man in the leg, police said.

Officials said the suspect then fled the home and ran to a waiting vehicle. The getaway driver drove them away via Porta Rosa Lane.

The male victim was transported by Life Flight to Memorial Herman Hospital. Police said the gunshot wound appears to be non-life-threatening.

It was unclear if the gunman stole anything from the home.

The gunman is described as a white or light-skinned Latino male in his early 20s with a slender build and medium length dark hair. He was wearing a utility jacket, blue hat and a utility belt.

The getaway driver is also described as a white or light-skinned Latino male. He was driving a grey coupe with a trunk (not a hatchback), with lightly tinted windows, similar to a Honda Civic or Honda Accord. The car was also described as being about four to five years old.

Police are urging anyone who might have information about this case to contact Detective Hammann at 281-554-1819. League City police are also asking for anyone who lives in the area that has video surveillance that may have captured the incident to call the same number.

Police are reminding residents to check credentials and obtain verification from the employee's business office of any worker who shows up for an unscheduled appointment prior to allowing them inside the home. If residents have suspicions about whether or not a person has legitimate business at their home, they should immediately contact the police department.

According to Michael Huynh, City of League City Water Production Superintendent, water department employees will only be sent to a home to check on water pressure at the request of the homeowner. The city employee will then check the water pressure from the outside of the home. All city employees will be dressed in a city uniform to include a city logo and name on the shirt and will be driving a city vehicle with a city logo on the vehicle.

local

View the original article here

Southern Miss ruins No. 7 Houston's BCS hopes

HOUSTON -- Houston lost much more than a game in Saturday's Conference USA championship.

Austin Davis threw four touchdown passes and No. 24 Southern Mississippi ruined Houston's perfect season and Bowl Championship Series hopes with a 49-28 victory over the seventh-ranked Cougars.

It was star quarterback Case Keenum's last home game for Houston for sure, and could've also been the finale for coach Kevin Sumlin, who's mentioned as a top candidate for virtually every higher-profile job opening.

Sumlin shot down a media report that he'll soon become the coach at Texas A&M, which fired Mike Sherman only two days ago.

"That is not true," Sumlin said. "I said a few weeks ago I wasn't going to talk to anybody, period, during the football season. Many of the things that have been reported have been found out to be false already.

"I haven't talked to anybody," he said. "I haven't said anything to anybody about it."

Houston athletics director Mack Rhoades will discuss a contract extension soon with Sumlin, who was an offensive assistant under R.C. Slocum at A&M from 2001-02. Sumlin is 35-17 in four seasons here.

"People are crazy if they don't think we are working our tails off to do what we can to keep him," Rhoades said. "He's a terrific person and a terrific head coach, and we're going to continue to (communicate), and that is all I am going to say about that."

On a grander scale, the Cougars (12-1) blew its big chance to impress a national-television audience and show that they had finally climbed to the top in their state after years of playing in the shadows of A&M and Texas.

Keenum could've also bolstered his case for an invitation to next week's Heisman Trophy ceremony.

Instead, the Golden Eagles (11-2) turned it into their showcase, shackling Houston's high-powered offense and striking with several big plays of their own to win their first league title and reach 11 victories for the first time.

"Everybody thought Houston was just going to walk away with this thing," Southern Miss coach Larry Fedora said. "So our guys obviously took objection to that. They had something to prove. They were going to play with a chip on their shoulders. They wanted everybody to know that Southern Miss is really a good football team."

Southern Miss won the C-USA championship for the first time, and the league for the fifth time overall.

Tracey Lampley caught two touchdown passes and the Golden Eagles became the first team to hold Houston, averaging more than 50 per game, below 35 points this season.

Keenum completed 41 of 67 passes for 373 yards and two touchdowns and two interceptions. He became the first quarterback to reach 5,000 yards passing in three seasons, one more record to tack onto his magnificent career.

But the only goal he cared about reaching Saturday was lifting the program to its first undefeated season and first BCS berth.

Now, all he and the Cougars have to look forward to is a disappointing, lower-tier bowl.

"It was in our grasp," Keenum said, "and we let it slip away."

The Cougars nimbly played through the groundswell of rumors about Sumlin in recent weeks, and vowed that they wouldn't lose focus leading up to the biggest game in program history.

It was obvious from the start, though, that the Cougars were off-kilter.

Southern Miss jumped to a 14-0 lead before Keenum finally started clicking midway through the second quarter.

"We weren't affected at all," Keenum said of dealing with distractions. "We went out there, and it was just about the conference championship game."

Charles Sims gained 31 yards on a screen pass, and Keenum found Justin Johnson for a 9-yard touchdown pass with 7:48 left in the half.

Keenum went 3 for 3 on the next series, hitting Johnson in stride down the middle for a tying 50-yard touchdown.

Houston's defense, vastly improved from last season, never got a handle on Davis, who also rushed for 47 yards.

Southern Miss went up 21-14 at the break, and the Cougars looked just as shaky after halftime.

Golden Eagles' defensive back Furious Bradley blocked Richie Leone's punt, scooped up the loose ball and took it 11 yards for a score and Deron Wilson intercepted a Keenum pass in the end zone.

The Cougars got that one back, when Houston's Philip Steward picking off a deflected pass and returning it to the Southern Miss 5. Michael Hayes scored on the next play to cut the deficit to 28-21, and a Houston rally seemed to be coming.

Instead, Southern Miss scored twice over the next seven minutes to stretch the margin to 42-21.

Sumlin called his players together and gave them a fiery pep talk between the third and fourth quarters, but that changed nothing.

Southern Miss linebacker Ronnie Thornton intercepted a Keenum pass and returned it 26 yards for a score with 2:41 left. As the Golden Eagles celebrated, Keenum unstrapped his helmet and slowly trudged off the field.

Keenum, a sixth-year senior, set Football Bowl Subdivision career records for total offense, yards passing and touchdown passes this year after missing most of last season with a torn knee ligament.

None of that mattered on Saturday.

"I knew at halftime I had 30 minutes left," Keenum said, "and that was the last time I would walk off that field in my jersey. It was not the way we wanted to go out.

"I'm not going to accept this," he said. "Whatever bowl game that is, we are going to prepare and go out winners."

university of houston, ncaa, sports

View the original article here

Marvin Zindler's family helps fight pancreatic cancer

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- It's been four years since we lost our friend and colleague Marvin Zindler to pancreatic cancer, and the KTRK Action 13 star will never be forgotten by us, or Houston TV viewers.

On Saturday, his family started the Houston area's first ever PurpleStride event to raise awareness and funds for pancreatic cancer research.

Marvin's son Mark Zindler, a senior account executive at KLTV in Tyler, spoke at the opening ceremony and then joined his sister, Helen Rodgers, and brothers Marvin Jr., Don and Dan on the 5K run/walk.

The event was held at 8am Saturday at Oyster Creek Park. Organizers expected about 500 people to participate, but more than 1,200 runners attended for the timed 5K run/walk and 1K kids' fun run. There was also music, refreshments and children's activities.

Marvin's family told us the event raised more than $200,000 for the cause.

The Houston Affiliate of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network commemorates November as National Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, but funds are needed and accepted year-round.

If you would like to send a donation, make checks out to PurpleStride and mail them to: Zindler Service Co., 2450 Fondren Suite 113, Houston, Texas 77063.

local

View the original article here

Houston mayor's mailbag is always full

HOUSTON -- The letter was different from its opening: "Dear Annise."

Not many of the 11,658 letters sent to the mayor of Houston last year began in such a familiar tone.

That is how the man from the Dallas suburbs remembered Mayor Annise Parker, and he wanted to know if she remembered him.

"You babysat me when I was growing up," he wrote. "I am hoping your memory might be a little fuzzy -- we could be a tad on the bratty side. Then again, maybe it was your babysitting experience that gave you the wisdom to deal with some of the people with whom you must deal."

That is the kind of letter that not only reached Parker's eyes but generated a personal answer. It only did so, however, because Madeleine Appel put the letter in the mayor's hands.

"She can't read 11,000 letters. That's why she has me," said Appel, the mayor's deputy chief of staff. "But she sees a sampling of every subject they write about."

One of Appel's duties is reading the mail -- all of it. About two-thirds of the messages arrive via email, but a third still correspond the old-fashioned way. They all land on Appel's desk on the north end of the mayor's third-floor suite in City Hall at 5 p.m. each day. Appel takes them home each night and reads them, and at the 8:30 a.m. staff meeting the next day sometimes hands four or five to the mayor.

If that face-to-face meeting does not occur, Appel finds other ways. Parker gets two plastic folders from Appel a few times a week. One is green with the label, "Read." The other is blue. Its label has the words "Needs Answer or Timely Read." That is for deadline requests, things Appel cannot make happen on her own, but the mayor can. Sometimes Appel will leave a particularly poignant or important letter on the mayor's chair.

There are a couple of ways to rise above the pack to get a letter before the mayor's eyes, Appel said. The most successful is to be different. The mayor does not need to read another letter about the drainage fee to get a sense of public opinion. If it is a hot issue and the writer sends a note that Appel considers a representative sample of how the larger pool of correspondence is trending, she will pass it along to the mayor. The rest get reported in numbers -- how many for, how many against.

Parker, of course, has 2.1 million constituents, and connects with many at speaking engagements, ceremonies, ribbon-cuttings and civic club meetings. Anyone who can get to the open microphone in council chambers can get three minutes before the mayor and city council each Tuesday afternoon.

However, you have to wait in a line of lobbyists, interest group leaders, individual citizens with beefs about agenda items and protesters.

A letter is an opportunity at a one-on-one conversation with the mayor.

If there's an overriding theme to most of the incoming correspondence, Appel said, it's "Fix it." She runs a complaint department of sorts, answering 4,000 letters last year in what often are her words but the mayor's mind and computerized signature. Form letters are logged, but not necessarily responded to, and other letters are passed to the appropriate city departments.

Appel even answered the one from a man in an institution who was worried that he had not heard from his mother and asked the mayor to call her on his behalf. Appel's assistant, constituent services coordinator Lindsay Lanagan, called the mother.

"She was fine," Appel said. "She just didn't want to talk to her son."

The responses do two things. First, they prompt Appel to seek a solution by calling the department in charge of the solution. A new stop sign. A pothole filled. Sending a commemorative Houston pin to a man in Georgia who collects them as a hobby to cope with depression. Complaint letters about long hold times for calls about water bills even led to the hiring of more call takers. The second thing, Appel said, is that a response sends the message that the mayor cares.

"We are an extension of the mayor," Appel explained. "Public service is what she loves about the job. We are part of what allows her to provide that public service."

The mayor personally composed the response to the man she once baby-sat.

"One of the pleasures of being elected mayor of Houston is reconnecting with old friends," Parker's response letter stated. "Of course, I remember you."

local

View the original article here

Study finds fewer students graduating from HS

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Graduation rates in Harris County are higher than they were a decade ago. But a new report from the Houston-based research group Children at Risk shows a third of students are still dropping out.

The study shows Harris County public schools are graduating more students than they did 10 years ago, but says one-third of students are still leaving without a diploma. Some districts, including HISD, dispute that.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Children at Risk found that the graduation rate for public schools in Harris County is at 61 percent with students from low income households graduating at a lower rate than those from more affluent families. The study was done on students who entered 9th grade in 2004 and graduated in 2010.

While Children at Risk finds graduation rates for all public schools in the county are about eight points higher when using its own calculations, for HISD -- the largest district in Texas -- Children at Risk finds its graduation rate at 60 percent. But the state disputes that and says HISD's rate is higher, at 74 percent.

The TEA and some local school districts, including HISD, say it stands by the state's calculations and questions Children at Risk's data.

local, samica knight

View the original article here

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

infolinks