Free Republic

Perry talks up conservatism in campaign kickoff BY JOHN REYNOLDS AVALANCHE-JOURNAL Gov. Rick Perry kicked off his re-election campaign in the Hub City on Tuesday morning, saying he's the only conservative in the race for governor. "My friends, there will be only one conservative on the ballot this November," he told an enthusiastic crowd of about 100 on the Texas Tech campus. "The promise I have kept, and that I renew to you today is this - I will not only campaign as a conservative, I will continue to govern as a conservative," he said. Perry is seeking a second...

Laney plans end of distinguished political career BY JOHN REYNOLDS AVALANCHE-JOURNAL State Rep. Pete Laney, D-Hale Center, won't run for re-election next year, closing the curtain on a 33-year legislative career that included a record-tying 10 years as House speaker. He didn't go into specifics Friday on his decision to leave. "I think it was time, there's no particular reason," he said. "There are other things I may want to do with my life." The 62-year-old cotton farmer and grandfather of four has spent more than half his life as a state representative. He was first elected in 1972, knocking...

Three people are in custody Wednesday morning after Lubbock police discovered the possible makings of a meth lab and explosive devices. NewsChannel 11's Suleika Acosta uncovers the details.At around 7:30 Tuesday night officers stopped a truck near the Driftwood Apartments located at 5800 Toledo. They searched the vehicle and found what looked like a mobile meth lab. That's not all officers found. They also discovered what appeared to be two pipe bombs, one in the bed and one behind the seat of the truck. Officers called in the bomb squad to assist. The squad removed the devices with a special...

WASHINGTON - David Miller looked relieved. After weeks of preparing slides, videos and speeches for this moment, the work was finally done - at least for now. In front of President Bush's chief of staff, Andrew Card, advisers Karl Rove and Harriet Miers and even the president's brother Marvin, Miller and 19 West Texas representatives finally had the opportunity on Wednesday morning to make the case about why Texas Tech should be home to the George W. Bush Presidential Library. In the 21/2-hour presentation at the prominent Washington hotel The Mayflower, Tech Chancellor David Smith, President Jon Whitmore and others...

A personal diary can be powerful reading and Wednesday at Texas Tech, the Tram family was moved to tears. A U.S. soldier saved Doctor Dang Thuy Tram's diaries after she was killed in the Vietnam War and, after all these years, her family read them for the first time Wednesday. Thuy's Sister Kim describes her sister saying, "My sister was a very gentle girl and liked music and painting." Thuy was a Vietnamese physician in her late twenties when she left for her country's war-torn jungles in winter of 1966. Her sister Phuong recalls it was a very cold winter...

Police Looking for Suspected "Peeping Tom" Police say he's been looking in windows across Lubbock and they need your help in finding him. Police are calling Pedro Gonzales a "peeping Tom." He's accused of looking through windows. He is 6' tall and weighs 260 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes. Gonzales has the letter "P" tattooed on his left thumb. He also has a spider tattooed on his left wrist, and a cat on his right. One Lubbock family has been on the lookout for this suspected "Peeping Tom" since May. "We walked out around 6 a.m. and...

City officials learned early Thursday morning that the state plans to fly as many 2,000 Hurricane Rita evacuees to Lubbock some time today. The first plane, believed to be a Boeing 737 carrying about 130 people from Beaumont, is expected to land between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. today at the Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport. City officials do not yet have an exact arrival time. Aviation Director James Loomis said the airport's control tower will give city officials at least 30 minutes notice of the plane's arrival. Mayor Pro Tem Tom Martin said the city expects most of the...

It`s an effort others have taken on before. Now a Texas Tech student has started a website about the latest efforts to bring alcohol into the city limits. So how is this effort different from past ones? Well, instead of going after a city-wide vote, this group is targeting individual precincts. Royce Watson, 21, created the "Make Lubbock Wet" website. He says it all started out as a site where people could voice their opinions but now has gained momentum and has become a movement. This is the latest of several attempts to bring alcohol sales into the city limits....

LUBBOCK — Desmond Bemiss stood at the open doors of the yellow school bus and watched three of his children get aboard for their first day of school. Bemiss had been up since 5 a.m. His 5-year-old daughter, Dachannice, woke him as she often did in their home on Urseline Street in New Orleans. None of the Bemisses, 20 of them in all, had slept much the night before or the nights before that. Even when some of the lights were turned out, the conversations, televisions and boom boxes made the old Air Force hangar roar again into the early...

Storm survivors are quickly becoming Lubbock residents. The city and Worksource held a job and apartment fair today to try and get a more stable living condition for survivors planning on staying in the area. NewsChannel 11 was at the job fair and spoke with families moving into Lubbock for shelter, and now making it their homes. Day five, and spirits were high. "I'm having fun, I'm enjoying myself in Lubbock, Texas." When Keith Kelsey got to Reese Center on Sunday, he didn't even know what city he was in. "They said we were going to Texas. I said Dallas?...

For many victims of Hurricane Katrina, an exodus from Lubbock may be days away. A fourth of about 400 New Orleans residents driven here by Hurricane Katrina will be reunited with their families through donated Southwest Airlines tickets. "The Southwest tickets have allowed us to take care of people that need immediate attention," Lubbock American Red Cross Chairman Greg Bruce said. Volunteers identified the residents - who could join family members or who had medical needs - as candidates for the tickets. Already 20 residents have left Lubbock on the tickets: Six left by 1 p.m. Wednesday and another 14...

Reese shelters fragile hopes BY JAMES GALLAGHER Stripped of home and all things familiar, hurricane evacuees find in Lubbock a place to rest. A place to regroup. And for some, a place to start again. Edward Collins dribbles a basketball outside a hangar at Reese Technology Center on Monday. He's wearing blue basketball shorts and white, high-top sneakers. He has a smile on his face. The 13-year-old had never heard of Lubbock or flown on an airplane before touching down here from New Orleans on Sunday afternoon, but he is glad to be here. "Since it's flooded there, I'm happy...

Tired, hungry evacuees set down in city Emergency personnel get to work BY JAMES GALLAGHER AVALANCHE-JOURNAL Some arrived dragging suitcases behind them. Others didn't have a shirt to wear. Most looked tired, but all were likely glad to be standing on dry ground and not far from warm food and a bed. Nearly a week after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, about 400 New Orleans, La., evacuees touched down Sunday in Lubbock. Three jetliners carried the bedraggled passengers from Louis Armstrong Airport to Lubbock, and more planeloads are expected. "They're just relieved," said local American Red Cross Chairman Greg...

Road to the Top Renaming of street spotlights sculptor's resounding success BY WILLIAM KERNS A-J ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Internationally revered sculptress Glenna Goodacre on Friday morning officially joined award-winning singer-songwriter Mac Davis with a Lubbock street renamed in her honor. Eighth Street between University Avenue and Avenue Q now is Glenna Goodacre Boulevard. Nearby is Mac Davis Lane, formerly Sixth Street. Even more streets in the same area could be renamed after Lubbock natives who shine a favorable light on the city, according to Mayor Marc McDougal. City Councilman Jim Gilbreath opened Friday's ceremony at The Centre, 2400 Glenna Goodacre Blvd.,...

Our son graduated from the Lubbock, Texas Police Academy last Friday. Needless to say Mrs. ladtx and I are extremely proud of him. He will make a good police officer. He's married with 2 step children and is an NCO in the Army Reserves with a year in Mosul, Iraq under his belt. Lubbock has gained a good man.

Fifty-six year-old Thomas Haynes is in the Lubbock County Jail awaiting extradition back to Arkansas where he's wanted for failing to register as a sex-offender, but it was Lubbock Police who caught up with him at a public library this week and some bizarre circumstances led to his arrest. This time around it's allegedly an instance of what police call "improper photography"and a very observant public library worker. Haynes walked into the Groves Public Library on 19th and Chicago on June 2nd and brazenly used a digital camera to peer up a woman's skirt and snap a picture. Branch Manager...

Our middle son will be graduating from the Lubbock, TX police academy in a couple of weeks. It's been a long haul for the last several months and needless to say we are extremely proud of him. He is probably one of the older guys in his class and I think his maturity and experience as an NCO in the Army Reserves with a tour in Iraq under his belt has served him well. I have no doubt that he will have a successful career in law enforcement. Now my question to any of the LEO's (or anyone else who...

Man kills self after slaying of wife Woman's 19-year-old son hospitalized after chase, stabbings near Ralls BY D. LANCE LUNSFORD AVALANCHE-JOURNAL A husband stabbed his wife to death and also stabbed her son early Tuesday morning in a roadside attack near Ralls before driving to Lubbock and shooting himself to death, authorities said. According to investigators, Gerald Thomas Wade, 40, of Lubbock, chased Sharon Wade, 39, of Lubbock eastbound in his 2004 Dodge pickup before finally coaxing her to a stop two miles west of Ralls on U.S. 62/82 at about 1 a.m. Tuesday. One of Sharon Wade's children, Jennifer...

It sits in the beaming sunlight...waiting for someone to sit and ponder these words. “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are. Ben Franklin” It's a memorial dedicated to victims of crime, but Criminal Defense Attorney Alton Griffin says it was all wrong to put it on the courthouse lawn. “I don't know who it’s a memorial to. A memorial to ‘Sock it to em, I guess.” Griffin says it's an attack on the justice system. “There are over 600 lawyers in town.” He says 90% of them want it gone....

The sales pitch for a planned subdivision promises safety: criminal background checks for homeowners and, guaranteed, no convicted sex offenders. It's a concept that might prove right for the times, said first-time developer Clayton Isom, one of three partners in a company that's creating Milwaukee Ridge on the outskirts of Lubbock. The high-profile deaths of two Florida girls allegedly killed by registered sex offenders inspired the idea, Isom said. "It makes me sick at my stomach every time I hear one of these stories about these innocent girls," said Isom, a graduate student in business administration at Texas Tech. He...