[SamAdams76]

I am reading a book called "Friday Night Lights" (great book by the way) about high school football in Texas. This high school football team in Odessa built a 20,000 seat stadium for their team. Some of their road games are 500 miles away (still in Texas) and they charter a 737 to get to them. No kidding. The book is blowing my mind.

[deport]

Texas is the only state to enter the U.S. by TREATY

---

The Treaty was never ratified by both parties ..... thus Texas enter the Union through a Joint Resolution as approved in Congress on Mar. 1, 1845 and accepted/finalized on Dec. 29, 1845.....

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

Heisman who was the first full time coach for Rice University

He never coached for Rice University, he did however coach for Rice Institute!

[Quix]

tHANKS.

HOWEVER,

Would have been a lot more interesting and readable

IF

you had formatted perhaps as bulleted items.

Masses of text like that tend to be annoying to almost painful for some of us.

[Senator Pardek]

FACT: in 32 seasons The Texas Rangers have never won a World Series (let alone a pennant) while the NY Yankees have won 6 during the same period.

Oh - and 10 pennants - BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

[Cathryn Crawford]

See how special Texas is? I certianly don't want to hear any more of your jokes about "crazy Texans"!!!!

[Rightly Biased]

Texas also gave us these fine flags

More Here about Texas and Freedom

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

For those interested in the breakdown of Alamo defenders by place of birth, here it is:

Texas - 9

Unknown - 21

Tennessee - 34
Virginia - 13
Kentucky - 12
Pennsylvania - 10
New York - 7
North Carolina - 7
South Carolina - 7
Massachusetts - 5
Missouri - 5
Alabama - 4
Georgia - 4
Louisiana - 4
Mississippi - 4
Arkansas - 3
Ohio - 3
Connecticut - 1
Illinois - 1
Maryland - 1
New Jersey - 1
Rhode Island - 1
Vermont - 1

England - 12
Ireland - 12
Scotland - 4
Germany - 2
Denmark - 1
Wales - 1

[PurVirgo]

Also - Texans have the right to abolish it's government by majority vote any time it wants to. Texas has had four Constitutions. Justices of the Peace (prospective ones anyways) need only be registered voters to be on the ballot. The Governor of Texas has the weakest power of all Governor's of the US. Texas legislators MUST operate on a balanced budget. All positions of the 3 branches of government in Texas are elected officials, even in the Supreme Court of Texas. There are 2 Supreme courts of Texas, one for Civil cases, and one for Criminal Appeals.

=) Just learned this today in my Government Class!!

not bad for a New Texan

[Vic3O3]

*An interesting bit of trivia about the armadillo is they always have four babies! They have one egg which splits into four and they either have four males or four females. Well... I thought it was interesting anyway!

They're also a vector for leprosy...oh joy...

[dtel]

bttt

[anotherdubya]

I lived in Alvin during the 1979 storm (July 25th/26th), the actual rainfall amount was closer to 48", but the roof to weather station collapsed at 43" thus the lower number. It was raining so hard to could put your hand in front of your face and not be able to see it. Truely amazing event.

[dfwgator]

"Don't you DARE take the name of Texas in vain!"

[TC Rider]

IT IS THE ONLY STATE THAT CAN HAVE A REFERENDUM AND DIVIDE ITSELF INTO FIVE (5) STATES, PER ITS TREATY TO BECOME PART OF THE UNITED STATES.

An interesting way to pick up 8 Senate Seats.

[Rushmore Rocks]

My great uncle, Jerry Sadler, wrote a fun read about Texas politics..."Politics, Fat-Cats, and Honey-Money Boys".

Uncle Jerry was many things in his lifetime--FBI agent, lawyer, candidate for governor, railroad commissioner, land commissioner, oilman and good friend of Franklin Roosevelt. I'm sure he was a bit on the shady side, but my cousins and I thought he was wonderful. He could tell stories like no other. He was greatly loved in Texas, and almost equally hated. As I recall, he even spent some time in Iran during WWII.

If you want an understanding of Texas politics, read his "Mem-Wars".

[TheWriterInTexas]

Here are some more:

Texas was the birthplace of the Amber Missing Child Alert Network to help locate missing and abducted children.

Texas was the birthplace of the Homeland Security Network's information sharing strategy. The Dallas model is being implemented nation wide.

The Greater Dallas area was the birthplace of the first region-wide Hotel Security Network to combat fraud and other non-violent crimes. The process will be introduced in other cities this year.

But that's okay...we're just country bumpkins down here.