This is a selection of stories I wrote for the Tyler Morning Telegraph. They have appeared on the front page, as well as sports, business, travel, page two and entertainment.
They Call Him Jay
Jay Newman is a single father of two, Kyle and Cody. Together, they live in the corner of a brick apartment building off a busy Tyler thoroughfare, and a porch bursting with color, pineapple plants and garden decor. Most nights, they, along with a handful of their neighbors, eat dinner as a family around a table set with pieces from Jay’s extensive china collection and filled with his cooking. The nearly inseparable trio goes to the zoo, swims at the complex’s pool and shops around town. Jay recently joined a gym to keep pounds on his wiry frame and loves cooking dinner for his sons and the neighbors. The boys want to spend lots of time on their tablet computers and are described as big flirts. Kyle, 21, loves animals; horses are his favorite. And Cody, 17, is all-action — sports, cars, skateboards. The brothers resemble each other so much that Jay took out a full-page ad in their school yearbook to declare “they are not twins.” The Newmans may sound like a normal family, but they are far from it. Kyle and Cody are autistic, both diagnosed near their first birthdays. Kyle has some brain damage and mild cerebral palsy; he’s had surgery that allows him to continue walking, but he will never run. Cody has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Read more She Is The Archive
Maybe the only thing more established than Mary Jane McNamara at the Carnegie History Center at College Avenue and Elm Street is the building itself. Since 1942, Ms. McNamara has by her own estimate missed only about two years. “I’m accused of having a bed in the basement. I don’t — I truly don’t,” the 86-year-old said. She began her career at age 18 as a librarian apprentice, working 45 hours a week at the Carnegie Library for three months without pay. She said she was lucky a position opened at the end of her summer training. Beginning librarians made $45 a week then. She spent 50 years working in the job she’d wanted since she was 11. “Libraries were magic,” she said. Read more JFK 50: A Solemn Tribute
DALLAS - Thousands poured into downtown Dallas on Friday morning just as many had a half-century ago. On Nov. 22, 1963, it was to catch a glimpse of the young president and his beautiful wife as they passed through the city during a sunny lunch hour. This Friday, however, under overcast skies, "The 50th: Honoring the Memory of President John F. Kennedy" brought people from far and near to pay tribute to the man at the place where he lost his life. But it was an important moment for Patrick Silke. "We're here to pay our respects," Silke said. He traveled 5,000 miles from Birmingham, England, to honor Kennedy after 35 years of interest and memorabilia collection. Read more Tyler gave birth to Adopt-a-Highway
Speeding down the highway, drivers pass sign after ubiquitous sign: exits, tolls, speed limits. But one of those signs was born in Tyler - Adopt-a-Highway. Just north of Loop 323 on U.S. Highway 69, signs mark the Tyler Civitan Club's two-mile stretch. Above the typical blue-and-white road sign rests a brown one boasting: "First Adopt a Highway in the world." The signs installed on March 9, 1985, now International Adopt-a-Highway Day. The idea sprang from one Texas Department of Transportation engineer driving through Tyler in 1984. The Tyler district's James R. "Bobby" Evans saw debris flying out of a truck bed he was behind, according to the TxDOT website. So Evans started appealing to local groups to "adopt" a highway section because he was concerned about litter and the rising cost to clean it up. It took a while to catch on. Eventually, Billy Black, the then-public information officer for the region, took up the cause, developing the program, creating a cleanup cycle, implementing the concept and installing the Adopt-a-Highway signs, according to TxDOT. Within months of the Civitan Club becoming the first adopting group, more than 50 organizations in the region were on board. Read more |
Roller Ruckus
JACKSONVILLE - Round and round they go. These skaters stop only when the whistle blows or they slam into the rink floor. Roller derby comes with an inherent violence - it's like being in "a fist fight for an hour," Amber Ramsour said. The 30-year-old nursing student, business owner and mother of two goes by "Homici-Doll" when she hits the track with the East Texas Bombers, the area's only flat-track roller derby team. "This is a one-of-a-kind sport. You don't find sports like this anywhere else, with the amount of adrenaline, the amount of contact, the amount of action you get," she said. "There's no other sport like this for women, especially in East Texas." But make no mistake - throwing elbows, tripping opponents and hitting on the back, above the shoulders or below the knees will land a player in the penalty box, a place to which Homici-Doll is no stranger. "I'm not afraid of the box," she said, bragging about how often she was sent there during the June bout. Read more Fish & More
Inside Lone Star Aquariums, it's water, water everywhere - more than 4,500 gallons, in fact. The store recently moved into a space on Troup Highway four times the size of its previous location. There is "not a pure fish store this size between Dallas and Shreveport, La.," said Jeff Morley, owner. Morley, 28, and his wife Aundrea started out with custom installing aquariums and providing maintenance but eventually moved on to owning a store. They have been in business since 2005. There was "a niche to fill," he said. The fish in the shop come from all over the world - the Philippines, Hawaii, the Red Sea - and are all hand caught, Morley said. Morley is at ease dipping his hand in this tank or that to show off his sea creatures. Read more Illustrated By
This isn't the typical story of a young man and a dog - it's the tale of an autistic young illustrator and a library dog. I met Paul Howell, Janet Mills and library dog Rhythm at East Texas Book Fest on Saturday (where I spent much of the day chatting with book enthusiasts and local authors including former Smith County Sheriff J.B. Smith, Marvin Mayer and Evelyn Byrne.) "Reading with Rhythm: The Tale of a Library Dog" is written by Ms. Mills, a substitute teacher in Glen Rose, and an animal-assisted therapy volunteer who takes her dogs to special-needs classrooms and reading programs at schools and libraries, and illustrated by Howell, a 2011 graduate of Glen Rose High School. Read more Damsels In Derby
JACKSONVILLE - Long and lean, Tere Pruett skates around the track with her pale blonde hair sticking out of her helmet. She doesn't look like she'd last long in a hard-hitting roller derby bout. When one skater mentions skinny girls and toothpicks in the same thought, she quipped back, "I'm not a toothpick - I'm more like a straw." But the skater who goes by Candy Carnage on the track will tell you otherwise. "I can take them, but I want my hits to be better," the 42-year-old Athens salon owner said. She's working with a trainer to get stronger. Candy Carnage is one of the East Texas Bombers' "fresh meat" skaters. Not that the veterans returning this season are "old meat." Read more |