News from the Lone Star State
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Neighborhood Watch: Northwest Garland
GARLAND, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - Thursday's Neighborhood Watch looks at northwest Garland in an area bordered by Plano Road on the west, Shiloh Lane on the east, Buckingham Road on the north and Forest Lane on the south.
Three homes were burglarized, and two of those were on the same street on Dec. 14th.
Three cars were also broken into between Dec. 14 and the 16.
If you know anything about the crimes, you can call the Garland Police Department at 972-272-TIPS.
And again, if you are in a neighborhood group or crime watch anywhere send us your tips to help keep neighborhoods safe.
GARLAND, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - Thursday's Neighborhood Watch looks at northwest Garland in an area bordered by Plano Road on the west, Shiloh Lane on the east, Buckingham Road on the north and Forest Lane on the south.
Three homes were burglarized, and two of those were on the same street on Dec. 14th.
Three cars were also broken into between Dec. 14 and the 16.
If you know anything about the crimes, you can call the Garland Police Department at 972-272-TIPS.
And again, if you are in a neighborhood group or crime watch anywhere send us your tips to help keep neighborhoods safe.
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Lakeview placed under lockdown after shooting
GARLAND, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - Lakeview Centennial High School in Garland was placed under lockdown on Friday, after three female pupils were injured in a shooting.
Garland police say the weapon used - a small caliber pistol - was found hidden behind a bathroom ceiling tile.
A 16-year-old pupil, who has been turned over the parents and is now in Garland jail, could face charges of Class B misdemeanor for disrupting a school activity or second degree felony for carrying a weapon in a gun free zone.
Students say they don't think he was trying to hurt anyone.
Two of the pupils who were injured have already been treated - one of them had been hit by shrapnel, say police. The three girls are now back in class.
"I didn't really notice it until I went to the bathroom - then I saw a piece of metal sticking out of my leg," said shooting victim Tiara Hall.
"I saw two kids bleeding in the hallway - there's no need for this," said another pupil.
The incident took place before 7:30 a.m.
GARLAND, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - Lakeview Centennial High School in Garland was placed under lockdown on Friday, after three female pupils were injured in a shooting.
Garland police say the weapon used - a small caliber pistol - was found hidden behind a bathroom ceiling tile.
A 16-year-old pupil, who has been turned over the parents and is now in Garland jail, could face charges of Class B misdemeanor for disrupting a school activity or second degree felony for carrying a weapon in a gun free zone.
Students say they don't think he was trying to hurt anyone.
Two of the pupils who were injured have already been treated - one of them had been hit by shrapnel, say police. The three girls are now back in class.
"I didn't really notice it until I went to the bathroom - then I saw a piece of metal sticking out of my leg," said shooting victim Tiara Hall.
"I saw two kids bleeding in the hallway - there's no need for this," said another pupil.
The incident took place before 7:30 a.m.
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Man charged with UT-Arlington student's murder
ARLINGTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - The search is over for a man accused of killing a University of Texas at Arlington student.
He's charged with capital murder, for the strangulation of Samuel Lea.
Lea's body was discovered in October, after neighbors called police complaining of a foul odor coming from inside his residence.
Investigators say the men knew each other.
ARLINGTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - The search is over for a man accused of killing a University of Texas at Arlington student.
He's charged with capital murder, for the strangulation of Samuel Lea.
Lea's body was discovered in October, after neighbors called police complaining of a foul odor coming from inside his residence.
Investigators say the men knew each other.
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TexasStooge wrote:Man charged with UT-Arlington student's murder
ARLINGTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - The search is over for a man accused of killing a University of Texas at Arlington student.
He's charged with capital murder, for the strangulation of Samuel Lea.
Lea's body was discovered in October, after neighbors called police complaining of a foul odor coming from inside his residence.
Investigators say the men knew each other.
im glad they got the evildoer
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Man, woman found dead in Flower Mound
By BRETT SHIPP / WFAA ABC 8
FLOWER MOUND, Texas — Police were trying to piece together the series of events leading to two fatal shootings at a residence in Flower Mound Friday night.
A 911 call at 7:47 p.m. alerted officials to a possible domestic disturbance at the house on a six-acre horse ranch in the 6900 block of Hidden Valley Drive.
Police said they received an emergency call 10 minutes later from inside the residence saying someone had been shot.
By the time the first units could reach the address three minutes later, two people—a man and a woman—were found inside; both had been fatally shot.
No other information about the victims was available. Investigators would not speculate whether they were looking into the possibility of a murder-suicide.
By BRETT SHIPP / WFAA ABC 8
FLOWER MOUND, Texas — Police were trying to piece together the series of events leading to two fatal shootings at a residence in Flower Mound Friday night.
A 911 call at 7:47 p.m. alerted officials to a possible domestic disturbance at the house on a six-acre horse ranch in the 6900 block of Hidden Valley Drive.
Police said they received an emergency call 10 minutes later from inside the residence saying someone had been shot.
By the time the first units could reach the address three minutes later, two people—a man and a woman—were found inside; both had been fatally shot.
No other information about the victims was available. Investigators would not speculate whether they were looking into the possibility of a murder-suicide.
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Suspicious devices detonated at Arlington motel
ARLINGTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) — The Arlington police bomb squad detonated two suspicious devices that were found in the motel room of a guest who died earlier this week.
Police said they were summoned to the In Town Suites in the 1700 block of Oak Village Blvd. Friday night after a motel manager went to clear out the unidentified man's room and discovered two devices that looked like pipe bombs.
The first arriving officers cleared the area and called for the bomb squad.
The two devices were removed using robotic devices and detonated. No one was hurt.
It was not immediately clear whether the devices had posed any danger to other motel guests.
No information was available about the deceased guest, who died in a hospital several days ago.
WFAA-TV photojournalist Mike Zukerman contributed to this report
ARLINGTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) — The Arlington police bomb squad detonated two suspicious devices that were found in the motel room of a guest who died earlier this week.
Police said they were summoned to the In Town Suites in the 1700 block of Oak Village Blvd. Friday night after a motel manager went to clear out the unidentified man's room and discovered two devices that looked like pipe bombs.
The first arriving officers cleared the area and called for the bomb squad.
The two devices were removed using robotic devices and detonated. No one was hurt.
It was not immediately clear whether the devices had posed any danger to other motel guests.
No information was available about the deceased guest, who died in a hospital several days ago.
WFAA-TV photojournalist Mike Zukerman contributed to this report
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Man rescued after 4 days in woods
By HOLLY YAN / The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - Jesse Stevens was 14 miles from home when he took a wrong turn in his SUV and soon found himself lost in the woods.
The 78-year old Oak Cliff resident left his vehicle and wandered aimlessly in the dark until he became trapped in a Grand Prairie thicket.
There he lay, Saturday night, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday ...
"I thought that maybe I'll just lay here and die, and that's the way it's supposed to be," he said.
He said he survived four days on rainwater – from the first significant rain in weeks across drought-starved North Texas. Mr. Stevens caught a few trickles in his mouth.
He didn't eat anything.
"Every day I screamed, hoping somebody would hear me," he said. "I lost my voice."
He said he tried several times to start walking again, but his sore legs wouldn't travel far. By the fourth day, he was too weak to move.
"Every time I got up, I used all the strength I had, and I went right back down," he said in a telephone interview Friday from Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he was recovering.
Finally, on Wednesday afternoon, relief came. Two bicyclists told police they noticed an SUV abandoned in the woods near the 4200 block of East Westcliff in Grand Prairie, several hundred yards from Interstate 20.
Sgt. Eric Hansen said officers ran the license plate number through a state database and learned that the driver, Mr. Stevens, had been reported missing.
Officers Nick Daugherty and Leslie Burkett started scouring the woods on foot.
"It's a pretty heavily wooded area, about 15 to 20 acres of wooded forest," Officer Daugherty said.
About an eighth of a mile into the woods, out of the corner of his eye, Officer Daugherty saw a small metal shack and a body lying near it.
"I was pretty sure it was him," Officer Daugherty said. "He wasn't moving at all. I didn't think it was going to be a good outcome."
He ran toward Mr. Stevens, who was remarkably coherent. He remembers the old man's first words: "Boy, am I glad to see you!"
"When I first found him, he was a lot more alert than I thought he was going to be," Officer Daugherty said.
Officer Daugherty, Officer Burkett and four paramedics carried him to safety. Although starved and dehydrated, Mr. Stevens was otherwise OK.
"This is one of the highlights of my job, that you can help save somebody," Officer Daugherty said.
Mr. Stevens credits his training from his time in the Navy in the late 1940s as part of the reason he survived his ordeal.
"They gave me the will to survive and taught me not to panic," he said.
Mr. Stevens was coming home from an old college buddy's funeral in Wills Point on Saturday when he missed his exit off Interstate 20. It wasn't until he reached Grand Prairie that he realized his mistake.
He tried to make a U-turn to the other side of the interstate but ended up on a service road. It dead-ended, but it was dark and he kept driving into a wooded area.
"There wasn't going to be no road, so I stopped and started walking," Mr. Stevens said.
By this time, it was pitch black. He didn't wander far until he tripped and fell. He got up, tried again and fell again.
After a while, he couldn't get up again. He lay in the middle of the woods, still dressed in his nice dark slacks and shiny black shoes.
For the next four days, Mr. Stevens could hear all the commuters on Interstate 20, but no one could hear him.
But he didn't feel alone. He had faith.
"It looked like at night there was a blanket of stars over me," Mr. Stevens said. "It kind of comforted me. It felt like the cold wasn't as cold as it was."
By HOLLY YAN / The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - Jesse Stevens was 14 miles from home when he took a wrong turn in his SUV and soon found himself lost in the woods.
The 78-year old Oak Cliff resident left his vehicle and wandered aimlessly in the dark until he became trapped in a Grand Prairie thicket.
There he lay, Saturday night, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday ...
"I thought that maybe I'll just lay here and die, and that's the way it's supposed to be," he said.
He said he survived four days on rainwater – from the first significant rain in weeks across drought-starved North Texas. Mr. Stevens caught a few trickles in his mouth.
He didn't eat anything.
"Every day I screamed, hoping somebody would hear me," he said. "I lost my voice."
He said he tried several times to start walking again, but his sore legs wouldn't travel far. By the fourth day, he was too weak to move.
"Every time I got up, I used all the strength I had, and I went right back down," he said in a telephone interview Friday from Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he was recovering.
Finally, on Wednesday afternoon, relief came. Two bicyclists told police they noticed an SUV abandoned in the woods near the 4200 block of East Westcliff in Grand Prairie, several hundred yards from Interstate 20.
Sgt. Eric Hansen said officers ran the license plate number through a state database and learned that the driver, Mr. Stevens, had been reported missing.
Officers Nick Daugherty and Leslie Burkett started scouring the woods on foot.
"It's a pretty heavily wooded area, about 15 to 20 acres of wooded forest," Officer Daugherty said.
About an eighth of a mile into the woods, out of the corner of his eye, Officer Daugherty saw a small metal shack and a body lying near it.
"I was pretty sure it was him," Officer Daugherty said. "He wasn't moving at all. I didn't think it was going to be a good outcome."
He ran toward Mr. Stevens, who was remarkably coherent. He remembers the old man's first words: "Boy, am I glad to see you!"
"When I first found him, he was a lot more alert than I thought he was going to be," Officer Daugherty said.
Officer Daugherty, Officer Burkett and four paramedics carried him to safety. Although starved and dehydrated, Mr. Stevens was otherwise OK.
"This is one of the highlights of my job, that you can help save somebody," Officer Daugherty said.
Mr. Stevens credits his training from his time in the Navy in the late 1940s as part of the reason he survived his ordeal.
"They gave me the will to survive and taught me not to panic," he said.
Mr. Stevens was coming home from an old college buddy's funeral in Wills Point on Saturday when he missed his exit off Interstate 20. It wasn't until he reached Grand Prairie that he realized his mistake.
He tried to make a U-turn to the other side of the interstate but ended up on a service road. It dead-ended, but it was dark and he kept driving into a wooded area.
"There wasn't going to be no road, so I stopped and started walking," Mr. Stevens said.
By this time, it was pitch black. He didn't wander far until he tripped and fell. He got up, tried again and fell again.
After a while, he couldn't get up again. He lay in the middle of the woods, still dressed in his nice dark slacks and shiny black shoes.
For the next four days, Mr. Stevens could hear all the commuters on Interstate 20, but no one could hear him.
But he didn't feel alone. He had faith.
"It looked like at night there was a blanket of stars over me," Mr. Stevens said. "It kind of comforted me. It felt like the cold wasn't as cold as it was."
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College seeks strip-mall land for campus
Irving: Officials trying to buy land; new campus will focus on job skills
By KATHERINE LEAL UNMUTH / The Dallas Morning News
IRVING, Texas – The strip mall at the northeast corner of MacArthur Boulevard and Shady Grove Road is filled with vacant trash-filled storefronts. The parking lot is mostly empty, except for a handful of customers at the four remaining businesses.
North Lake College hopes to give this part of south Irving an economic and educational boost with plans to build a $10.2 million campus on the 15.6-acre site.
But college officials must first acquire the three parcels of land. The Dallas County Community College District is negotiating with the owners, Albertsons and Shady Grove Square L.P. If no agreement is reached soon, the district plans to move forward with eminent domain proceedings.
"We are on the verge of condemnation action," said the district's legal counsel, Robert Young. "We try not to do that. We'd rather work out a voluntary sale."
This month, the district's board approved an offer of $1.6 million to each owner. Neither company could be reached for comment.
The campus would be the last of five satellite locations approved in the college district's $450 million 2004 bond issue. North Lake also is planning a campus in Coppell.
The 40,000- to 50,000-square-foot south campus will focus on job training and workforce development, with courses in areas such as business entrepreneurship, English as a second language and GED certification.
"We have been looking for land for more than a year, and our choices have been very limited," North Lake president Herlinda Glasscock said. "The presence of the campus will contribute to economic development, which is a very important goal of the city."
Dr. Glasscock said academic core courses would also be offered, with the amount depending on the demand expressed at community forums that have yet to be scheduled.
The college's current South Irving Center is squeezed into about 3,500 square feet of space in the city's health and human services building.
"It's definitely too small," said the center's dean, Rene Castilla. "We're limited in how many classes we can offer."
Mr. Castilla said a main goal is to offer English instruction to the large population of immigrants in the area. This fall, about 900 students enrolled in the college's workforce English program.
Irving: Officials trying to buy land; new campus will focus on job skills
By KATHERINE LEAL UNMUTH / The Dallas Morning News
IRVING, Texas – The strip mall at the northeast corner of MacArthur Boulevard and Shady Grove Road is filled with vacant trash-filled storefronts. The parking lot is mostly empty, except for a handful of customers at the four remaining businesses.
North Lake College hopes to give this part of south Irving an economic and educational boost with plans to build a $10.2 million campus on the 15.6-acre site.
But college officials must first acquire the three parcels of land. The Dallas County Community College District is negotiating with the owners, Albertsons and Shady Grove Square L.P. If no agreement is reached soon, the district plans to move forward with eminent domain proceedings.
"We are on the verge of condemnation action," said the district's legal counsel, Robert Young. "We try not to do that. We'd rather work out a voluntary sale."
This month, the district's board approved an offer of $1.6 million to each owner. Neither company could be reached for comment.
The campus would be the last of five satellite locations approved in the college district's $450 million 2004 bond issue. North Lake also is planning a campus in Coppell.
The 40,000- to 50,000-square-foot south campus will focus on job training and workforce development, with courses in areas such as business entrepreneurship, English as a second language and GED certification.
"We have been looking for land for more than a year, and our choices have been very limited," North Lake president Herlinda Glasscock said. "The presence of the campus will contribute to economic development, which is a very important goal of the city."
Dr. Glasscock said academic core courses would also be offered, with the amount depending on the demand expressed at community forums that have yet to be scheduled.
The college's current South Irving Center is squeezed into about 3,500 square feet of space in the city's health and human services building.
"It's definitely too small," said the center's dean, Rene Castilla. "We're limited in how many classes we can offer."
Mr. Castilla said a main goal is to offer English instruction to the large population of immigrants in the area. This fall, about 900 students enrolled in the college's workforce English program.
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Richardson family survives 'Fear Factor'
Richardson: Mom, son tackled daring reality show together
By KAREN AYRES / The Dallas Morning News
RICHARDSON, Texas – Joanna Jackson plays tennis and takes yoga. She doesn't usually drive racecars or shove her face in a bowl of tarantulas.
But at 50 years old, the high school teacher craved a little adventure.
Over the summer, Ms. Jackson and her son Rob competed against three teams in a special mother-and-son episode of Fear Factor, an NBC reality show featuring daring stunts. The episode airs Tuesday at 7 p.m.
The duo won't reveal if they won the $50,000 prize, but they say it was a fun, and often disgusting, experience.
"You can't be a normal person," said Rob, 18, a senior at Pearce High School in Richardson. "You have to be a little out there."
Ms. Jackson prompted her son to audition in April. When they were accepted, Rob had his doubts about his mom.
"I knew she was up to go on the show, but I didn't know how good she would be," he said. "She's not like the daredevil-crazy type. She worries all the time."
When they arrived in California in August, the first stunt required Ms. Jackson to stand on her son's shoulders while he balanced on a tiny ledge 100 feet in the air. The yoga came in handy.
Then they had to navigate a kitchen filled with snakes and tarantulas. Vomit buckets conveniently lined the walls. As a last hurrah, Ms. Jackson, a marketing teacher at Berkner High School, drove a racecar under a moving semi-truck.
Ms. Jackson said she was stressed out – not from the stunts, but for fear of embarrassing her son.
Rob said he might have underestimated his mother.
"I didn't think she still had anything in her because she's getting old," Mr. Jackson said. "She impressed me."
Richardson: Mom, son tackled daring reality show together
By KAREN AYRES / The Dallas Morning News
RICHARDSON, Texas – Joanna Jackson plays tennis and takes yoga. She doesn't usually drive racecars or shove her face in a bowl of tarantulas.
But at 50 years old, the high school teacher craved a little adventure.
Over the summer, Ms. Jackson and her son Rob competed against three teams in a special mother-and-son episode of Fear Factor, an NBC reality show featuring daring stunts. The episode airs Tuesday at 7 p.m.
The duo won't reveal if they won the $50,000 prize, but they say it was a fun, and often disgusting, experience.
"You can't be a normal person," said Rob, 18, a senior at Pearce High School in Richardson. "You have to be a little out there."
Ms. Jackson prompted her son to audition in April. When they were accepted, Rob had his doubts about his mom.
"I knew she was up to go on the show, but I didn't know how good she would be," he said. "She's not like the daredevil-crazy type. She worries all the time."
When they arrived in California in August, the first stunt required Ms. Jackson to stand on her son's shoulders while he balanced on a tiny ledge 100 feet in the air. The yoga came in handy.
Then they had to navigate a kitchen filled with snakes and tarantulas. Vomit buckets conveniently lined the walls. As a last hurrah, Ms. Jackson, a marketing teacher at Berkner High School, drove a racecar under a moving semi-truck.
Ms. Jackson said she was stressed out – not from the stunts, but for fear of embarrassing her son.
Rob said he might have underestimated his mother.
"I didn't think she still had anything in her because she's getting old," Mr. Jackson said. "She impressed me."
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Ads on shelves designed to prompt purchase
2 Texas companies market way to show ads to shoppers
By MARIA HALKIAS / The Dallas Morning News
Two Texas companies have built a device for store shelves that plays commercials as shoppers decide to buy or not to buy.
Brands including Coke, Colgate, Maxwell House and Tyson are participating for free in a test of P.O.P. ShelfAds that's under way in Dallas at the Fiesta Mart on Webb Chapel Road.
The wireless device kicks on as shoppers pause during the critical eight-second window that researchers say it takes to decide which toothpaste or soda is going in the basket.
For more than three years, Houston-based Point of Product Broadcasting Co. and Irving-based Avidwireless have been working on the device.
It has a 3.5-inch screen, a digital readout and a sensor that knows when a shopper is standing nearby.
The unit also can send out scents of fresh bread or coffee.
P.O.P. ShelfAds is the brainchild of Earl Littman, a 79-year-old previously retired Houston advertising executive.
Mr. Littman is the L in GDL&W, which was the largest and oldest advertising agency in Houston when it was old to Saatchi & Saatchi in 1993.
"For years, I spent the clients' money on TV advertising, and we weren't sure if it worked. I think this prevents waste," Mr. Littman said.
Later this year, the test will be expanded to all Fiesta Mart locations.
Additional brands that have commercials running on Fiesta's shelves this weekend and all next week are Energizer, Bush's Beans, Mrs Baird's, Bimbo Bakeries, Reynolds, Kikkoman and Rotel.
When the test is done, Mr. Littman estimates that it will cost about 16 cents an hour to hire one device for a year– a total of $1,460.
"Technology had to catch up to Earl's idea," said John McGinnis, senior vice president of sales and business development at Avidwireless.
"Sharp Electronics developed the HDTV screen that was small enough but still had a quality picture that could run on batteries. We had to be able to deliver the commercials to the boxes remotely and on and on. We had to have speakers loud enough. We're still working on the kinks."
The timing of the new medium may be right as product manufacturers and retailers try to reach shoppers at several levels due to media fragmentation.
"This sounds very promising. The fact that it's small and wireless and truly at the point-of-purchase level makes it very intriguing," said Bill Schober, editorial director of the In-Store Marketing Institute, an industry research and trade group.
In-store marketing has gained clout, with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. selling ads on its own TV network, industry analysts said.
Overall in-store ad spending this year is estimated to be in the range of $17 billion to $18 billion, Mr. Littman said.
"We think eventually we can double that," he said. "Today, we've heard from several more companies – Kraft, General Mills and Nestlé."
Reaching shoppers with video at the point of purchase fits the way people shop today and is something the industry has been talking about for years, Mr. Schober said.
"Your grandma made a shopping list and stuck to it. You don't. You walk through familiar aisles and have a basic idea of what you want to buy," he said.
With 30,000 new products introduced every year in the supermarket – mainly from brand extensions and new flavors – effective advertising provides product information "right there where the person is going to buy it," he said.
"That's a problem with TV screens up on the walls. It may be showing you a coffee commercial when you're in the cleaning products aisle. You're in a different frame of mind in each aisle," Mr. Schober said.
Asked whether consumers might eventually find the 10-second commercials intrusive, Mr. Schober said that hasn't been the industry's concern.
The risks are costs and the reception of store personnel, he said. "We've seen good ideas in the past die because they ended up being too expensive to execute, or store personnel were bothered by it."
2 Texas companies market way to show ads to shoppers
By MARIA HALKIAS / The Dallas Morning News
Two Texas companies have built a device for store shelves that plays commercials as shoppers decide to buy or not to buy.
Brands including Coke, Colgate, Maxwell House and Tyson are participating for free in a test of P.O.P. ShelfAds that's under way in Dallas at the Fiesta Mart on Webb Chapel Road.
The wireless device kicks on as shoppers pause during the critical eight-second window that researchers say it takes to decide which toothpaste or soda is going in the basket.
For more than three years, Houston-based Point of Product Broadcasting Co. and Irving-based Avidwireless have been working on the device.
It has a 3.5-inch screen, a digital readout and a sensor that knows when a shopper is standing nearby.
The unit also can send out scents of fresh bread or coffee.
P.O.P. ShelfAds is the brainchild of Earl Littman, a 79-year-old previously retired Houston advertising executive.
Mr. Littman is the L in GDL&W, which was the largest and oldest advertising agency in Houston when it was old to Saatchi & Saatchi in 1993.
"For years, I spent the clients' money on TV advertising, and we weren't sure if it worked. I think this prevents waste," Mr. Littman said.
Later this year, the test will be expanded to all Fiesta Mart locations.
Additional brands that have commercials running on Fiesta's shelves this weekend and all next week are Energizer, Bush's Beans, Mrs Baird's, Bimbo Bakeries, Reynolds, Kikkoman and Rotel.
When the test is done, Mr. Littman estimates that it will cost about 16 cents an hour to hire one device for a year– a total of $1,460.
"Technology had to catch up to Earl's idea," said John McGinnis, senior vice president of sales and business development at Avidwireless.
"Sharp Electronics developed the HDTV screen that was small enough but still had a quality picture that could run on batteries. We had to be able to deliver the commercials to the boxes remotely and on and on. We had to have speakers loud enough. We're still working on the kinks."
The timing of the new medium may be right as product manufacturers and retailers try to reach shoppers at several levels due to media fragmentation.
"This sounds very promising. The fact that it's small and wireless and truly at the point-of-purchase level makes it very intriguing," said Bill Schober, editorial director of the In-Store Marketing Institute, an industry research and trade group.
In-store marketing has gained clout, with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. selling ads on its own TV network, industry analysts said.
Overall in-store ad spending this year is estimated to be in the range of $17 billion to $18 billion, Mr. Littman said.
"We think eventually we can double that," he said. "Today, we've heard from several more companies – Kraft, General Mills and Nestlé."
Reaching shoppers with video at the point of purchase fits the way people shop today and is something the industry has been talking about for years, Mr. Schober said.
"Your grandma made a shopping list and stuck to it. You don't. You walk through familiar aisles and have a basic idea of what you want to buy," he said.
With 30,000 new products introduced every year in the supermarket – mainly from brand extensions and new flavors – effective advertising provides product information "right there where the person is going to buy it," he said.
"That's a problem with TV screens up on the walls. It may be showing you a coffee commercial when you're in the cleaning products aisle. You're in a different frame of mind in each aisle," Mr. Schober said.
Asked whether consumers might eventually find the 10-second commercials intrusive, Mr. Schober said that hasn't been the industry's concern.
The risks are costs and the reception of store personnel, he said. "We've seen good ideas in the past die because they ended up being too expensive to execute, or store personnel were bothered by it."
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Dramatic demise for Dallas office tower
DALLAS, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - A demolition crew used less than 100 pounds of dynamite to bring down a 10-story office tower in North Dallas Sunday morning.
The NorthPark III tower, across North Central Expressway from the NorthPark Center shopping mall, was razed to make way for the new Park Lane Place development.
The reinforced concrete building with a glass exterior was gutted before its dramatic demise, which took less than 30 seconds after the explosions were triggered.
VIP guests got a front-row seat at a "Breakfast at the Blast" fundraising event, with proceeds going to the Vickery Meadow Improvement District.
Hundreds of others lined nearby streets and parking garages to catch a glimpse of the building's finale.
North Central Expressway and other roads in the immediate vicinity of the blast were closed for a short time until the cloud of dust and debris lifted.
Click here to see the implosion
DALLAS, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - A demolition crew used less than 100 pounds of dynamite to bring down a 10-story office tower in North Dallas Sunday morning.
The NorthPark III tower, across North Central Expressway from the NorthPark Center shopping mall, was razed to make way for the new Park Lane Place development.
The reinforced concrete building with a glass exterior was gutted before its dramatic demise, which took less than 30 seconds after the explosions were triggered.
VIP guests got a front-row seat at a "Breakfast at the Blast" fundraising event, with proceeds going to the Vickery Meadow Improvement District.
Hundreds of others lined nearby streets and parking garages to catch a glimpse of the building's finale.
North Central Expressway and other roads in the immediate vicinity of the blast were closed for a short time until the cloud of dust and debris lifted.
Click here to see the implosion
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Rural poor living from checkup to checkup
Doctor helps patient, who pays what he can; it's the rural way
By KAREN M. THOMAS / The Dallas Morning News
RANGER, Texas – Earl Hernandez works at a small gas station in this rural community, where he was born and raised. Mostly he fixes tires, and his hands are essential for work.
Mr. Hernandez has Type 2 diabetes and has been without health insurance for most of his adult life. He knows he's at increased risk for a heart attack and more likely to suffer a stroke or the complications that lead to the loss of his fingers and toes.
"It's been 20 years carrying this disease," says the 39-year-old married father of two. "The goal is to go to the grave with 10 fingers and 10 toes."
Mr. Hernandez figures he has a decent shot at making that happen. Ranger, which is 100 miles west of Fort Worth and has a population of 2,500, is the kind of place where folks pride themselves on taking care of one another. If a customer needs a tire repaired but is short of cash, Mr. Hernandez will fix it for free. And if Mr. Hernandez needs expensive medication to control his diabetes, his doctor, Robert DeLuca in nearby Eastland, gives him samples.
In small, tight-knit communities, the uninsured aren't some faceless statistic. They are neighbors, friends and members of families whom physicians have treated for years.
"We do have the indigent clinic across the street. It's federally funded, and I think they work on a sliding scale," says Dr. DeLuca. "But when you are treating someone's family and have been treating the family, you just take care of people."
But not every rural resident will forge a close relationship with a physician, and not all will stay relatively healthy despite a chronic illness such as Mr. Hernandez. The relationship between Mr. Hernandez and Dr. DeLuca is an example of what works well in rural health care and what doesn't work at all.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 45 million Americans were uninsured in 2004. Of those, one in five lived in a rural area.
Compared with people in urban areas, rural residents are more likely to be older, sicker, poorer and less likely to work for companies that offer health benefits, according to the Center for Rural Health at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences.
Fewer safety nets
Rural physicians such as Dr. DeLuca must cover a wide swath of towns because there are not enough doctors to go around. Rural areas offer fewer safety nets such as public clinics and hospitals. Private hospitals often teeter on fragile budgets supported by Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements.
Texas has more uninsured residents than any other state. According to the Urban Institute and Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, one out of four Texans, or 5.4 million people, lacked health insurance at some point in 2004, compared with the U.S. average of more than one in six Americans for the same time period.
And rural residents from more remote areas tend to stay uninsured longer, according to the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.
Dr. DeLuca says Mr. Hernandez is typical of his uninsured patients: "He has a minimum-wage job. He pays everything out of his pocket. He has a wife and two children. He's working hard to make ends meet."
The station where Mr. Hernandez works sits several miles north of Interstate 20 in Ranger. It was once a Conoco, but the sign is long gone and has never been replaced. The cafe next door is closed. A gravel plant that once guaranteed the station a steady stream of customers has gone out of business.
In Eastland, where Dr. DeLuca, 54, lives and works, the arrival of a new Wal-Mart Supercenter is celebrated with a huge "Welcome" billboard. Eastland thrives, in part, because of its proximity to the interstate. Ranger struggles because it is several miles away.
But Mr. Hernandez has never considered leaving.
"In towns of less than 3,000 people, you can walk up and down the streets," he says. "Your kids can go out and mess around. We don't have gangs, and while you might know that people do dope, you don't see that around here. It's quiet. It's why I never left. We like that."
Mr. Hernandez works six days a week, shivering during the winter and sweltering during the summer. The station is a hulk of a building, partitioned into a garage and an office. Old car seats serve as chairs, and a cooler hums, stocked with chilled soda and water. The store's walls are covered with professional photographs of the Dallas Cowboys, a gift from former Cowboy Jay Novacek, who once lived several miles away and struck up a friendship with E. Vasquez Jr., the station's owner.
Besides Mr. Hernandez, Mr. Vasquez has one other full-time employee and occasionally has part-time help.
The station specializes in fixing tires. The men also do some light mechanical work. While they fill tanks for customers who pull up to the aged pumps in front, the men clean windshields and check oil levels. They also fix tires for those who may not be able to pay them right away, Mr. Vasquez says.
"It's the right thing to do," the 48-year-old station owner says. "I try to help all of us."
Mr. Vasquez, who also lives in Ranger, says he has never been able to offer his employees health insurance. Once – he can't remember exactly when – Mr. Vasquez asked an insurance company how much it would cost to provide benefits for himself and his employees. He doesn't remember the figure he was quoted. It didn't matter. It was high enough that it was never a consideration.
"We're a small business in a small town. You just can't," he says.
Instead, Mr. Vasquez has a life insurance policy, a practice he says is common among his friends.
"None of us have insurance. We do carry life insurance policies so that if anything happens to us, our families will have something. I work 24-7. It takes that to make ends meet. I have a little girl who is 11. I make sure she has health insurance" through a private provider, he says.
Outside the plate glass window, Mr. Hernandez works on a truck. He began fixing tires at 16. He learned he had diabetes just after he graduated from high school. Before he married and before he had children, he saw a specialist to help manage his chronic illness.
The couple's children, Meagan, 15, and Carter, 4, have had health insurance either through their mother's employment or through the state Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP. Because of Mr. Hernandez's diabetes, the premium for him has been too costly.
"I made $900 a month, and the insurance for all of us would have cost $500. So we couldn't do that," says his wife, Rhonda, a home health aide. So Mr. Hernandez does what he can.
He shops for fresh vegetables, eats sugar-free ice cream and sometimes skips the bun on his hamburger because the bread can make his blood sugar level too high. Every two months, he travels 11 miles west to see Dr. DeLuca.
The connection
Dr. DeLuca, who grew up in Fort Worth, has practiced in Eastland for nearly 20 years and now sees all but the youngest of the Hernandez family. There are two other doctors in his practice, and he is one of five doctors who also staff Eastland Memorial Hospital, across the street from his office.
Rural medicine attracted him because of the freedom it offered.
"A lot of the doctors like to hunt and fish," he says. "I don't like any of those things. But you have more involvement in a town than you would in a city. We are part of the government, the school meetings, the hospital board. You get involved, and I like being active."
By being his own boss, he can set his own hours, allowing him to attend his children's activities. He doesn't have a long commute. He often can make decisions without waiting for a committee vote.
Not that rural doctors don't have concerns, he says. Some physicians are isolated, unable to take vacations or even break away for sessions designed to keep their skills current because there is no one to cover their patients. It's hard to recruit younger doctors to take their place when they retire. Specialists are miles away.
And while he enjoys seeing his patients and finds it helpful to not only know their medical history but to understand how they live, he has come to relish his privacy.
"A great day for me is to be in Fort Worth at Target shopping without anyone knowing me," he says.
Mr. Hernandez became his patient after Dr. DeLuca met Mrs. Hernandez through her job.
"I remember when he first came here," Mrs. Hernandez says. "I like his personality. He's good to work with, and he's real good to Earl, too."
Mr. Hernandez says he pays for his doctor visits out of his pocket. His condition requires two types of medication. He pays $11 a month for one to control his blood pressure. A prescription to control his diabetes would cost him about $100 a month. For that, Dr. DeLuca often gives him samples.
"More than two-thirds of my patients are struggling with affording their medication even if they have coverage. Everybody would like to have samples, no doubt," Dr. DeLuca says.
Dr. DeLuca enrolls qualified patients into pharmaceutical company programs that provide free medications.
"Samples were originally intended to see how someone tolerated a medication before you gave them a prescription. Now, though, the companies know that samples are for those who can't afford the medicine," he says.
The pharmaceutical industry is starting to scale back its assistance programs because, industry officials say, Medicare's drug coverage is stepping in for older adults.
And even with such help, the Hernandezes say it's sometimes financially tough.
Nearly three years ago, Mr. Hernandez became very sick. He had a high fever and pain and went to Eastland Memorial Hospital's emergency room, where doctors diagnosed a kidney infection. He wasn't admitted and didn't stay overnight, but his treatment cost more than $1,400.
"I'm still paying on that," Mr. Hernandez says.
Hope ahead
During one visit, Mr. Hernandez sits on a narrow examining table. Dr. DeLuca orders blood drawn and sees other patients while he waits for the results. Then he returns.
"Your blood sugar level is higher than I like it. Watch your sugar. But other than that, you are doing well," he says.
Actually, the Hernandezes are doing better than they expected. In late 2004, Mrs. Hernandez started a new job. The home health care company that she now works for in Eastland offered a full benefits plan. She and the children have dental, health care and vision coverage. She asked how much it would cost to add her husband.
Mr. Hernandez has waited a year, a requirement under the plan because of his diabetes. In November, he was added to his wife's health insurance. The plan for the entire family will cost $360 a month – expensive, they say, but worth the cost.
Mrs. Hernandez says she looks forward to having dental work done that she couldn't afford before. The children had dental and physical checkups at the start of the school year.
"It will be a big help," Mrs. Hernandez says. "When he needs blood draws or if he has to go to the ER, now he will have some coverage. I'm excited."
Still, Mr. Hernandez is cautious. Mostly he has made do without insurance. He's been lucky; he's gotten by. What he can count on is the relationships he's developed with his employer and his doctor.
"I love my doctor," Mr. Hernandez says. "He's like an older brother to me. I trust him. ... You have to have good communication in a small town. I strongly believe in the saying, 'Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.' That's what we do here."
Doctor helps patient, who pays what he can; it's the rural way
By KAREN M. THOMAS / The Dallas Morning News
RANGER, Texas – Earl Hernandez works at a small gas station in this rural community, where he was born and raised. Mostly he fixes tires, and his hands are essential for work.
Mr. Hernandez has Type 2 diabetes and has been without health insurance for most of his adult life. He knows he's at increased risk for a heart attack and more likely to suffer a stroke or the complications that lead to the loss of his fingers and toes.
"It's been 20 years carrying this disease," says the 39-year-old married father of two. "The goal is to go to the grave with 10 fingers and 10 toes."
Mr. Hernandez figures he has a decent shot at making that happen. Ranger, which is 100 miles west of Fort Worth and has a population of 2,500, is the kind of place where folks pride themselves on taking care of one another. If a customer needs a tire repaired but is short of cash, Mr. Hernandez will fix it for free. And if Mr. Hernandez needs expensive medication to control his diabetes, his doctor, Robert DeLuca in nearby Eastland, gives him samples.
In small, tight-knit communities, the uninsured aren't some faceless statistic. They are neighbors, friends and members of families whom physicians have treated for years.
"We do have the indigent clinic across the street. It's federally funded, and I think they work on a sliding scale," says Dr. DeLuca. "But when you are treating someone's family and have been treating the family, you just take care of people."
But not every rural resident will forge a close relationship with a physician, and not all will stay relatively healthy despite a chronic illness such as Mr. Hernandez. The relationship between Mr. Hernandez and Dr. DeLuca is an example of what works well in rural health care and what doesn't work at all.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 45 million Americans were uninsured in 2004. Of those, one in five lived in a rural area.
Compared with people in urban areas, rural residents are more likely to be older, sicker, poorer and less likely to work for companies that offer health benefits, according to the Center for Rural Health at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences.
Fewer safety nets
Rural physicians such as Dr. DeLuca must cover a wide swath of towns because there are not enough doctors to go around. Rural areas offer fewer safety nets such as public clinics and hospitals. Private hospitals often teeter on fragile budgets supported by Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements.
Texas has more uninsured residents than any other state. According to the Urban Institute and Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, one out of four Texans, or 5.4 million people, lacked health insurance at some point in 2004, compared with the U.S. average of more than one in six Americans for the same time period.
And rural residents from more remote areas tend to stay uninsured longer, according to the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.
Dr. DeLuca says Mr. Hernandez is typical of his uninsured patients: "He has a minimum-wage job. He pays everything out of his pocket. He has a wife and two children. He's working hard to make ends meet."
The station where Mr. Hernandez works sits several miles north of Interstate 20 in Ranger. It was once a Conoco, but the sign is long gone and has never been replaced. The cafe next door is closed. A gravel plant that once guaranteed the station a steady stream of customers has gone out of business.
In Eastland, where Dr. DeLuca, 54, lives and works, the arrival of a new Wal-Mart Supercenter is celebrated with a huge "Welcome" billboard. Eastland thrives, in part, because of its proximity to the interstate. Ranger struggles because it is several miles away.
But Mr. Hernandez has never considered leaving.
"In towns of less than 3,000 people, you can walk up and down the streets," he says. "Your kids can go out and mess around. We don't have gangs, and while you might know that people do dope, you don't see that around here. It's quiet. It's why I never left. We like that."
Mr. Hernandez works six days a week, shivering during the winter and sweltering during the summer. The station is a hulk of a building, partitioned into a garage and an office. Old car seats serve as chairs, and a cooler hums, stocked with chilled soda and water. The store's walls are covered with professional photographs of the Dallas Cowboys, a gift from former Cowboy Jay Novacek, who once lived several miles away and struck up a friendship with E. Vasquez Jr., the station's owner.
Besides Mr. Hernandez, Mr. Vasquez has one other full-time employee and occasionally has part-time help.
The station specializes in fixing tires. The men also do some light mechanical work. While they fill tanks for customers who pull up to the aged pumps in front, the men clean windshields and check oil levels. They also fix tires for those who may not be able to pay them right away, Mr. Vasquez says.
"It's the right thing to do," the 48-year-old station owner says. "I try to help all of us."
Mr. Vasquez, who also lives in Ranger, says he has never been able to offer his employees health insurance. Once – he can't remember exactly when – Mr. Vasquez asked an insurance company how much it would cost to provide benefits for himself and his employees. He doesn't remember the figure he was quoted. It didn't matter. It was high enough that it was never a consideration.
"We're a small business in a small town. You just can't," he says.
Instead, Mr. Vasquez has a life insurance policy, a practice he says is common among his friends.
"None of us have insurance. We do carry life insurance policies so that if anything happens to us, our families will have something. I work 24-7. It takes that to make ends meet. I have a little girl who is 11. I make sure she has health insurance" through a private provider, he says.
Outside the plate glass window, Mr. Hernandez works on a truck. He began fixing tires at 16. He learned he had diabetes just after he graduated from high school. Before he married and before he had children, he saw a specialist to help manage his chronic illness.
The couple's children, Meagan, 15, and Carter, 4, have had health insurance either through their mother's employment or through the state Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP. Because of Mr. Hernandez's diabetes, the premium for him has been too costly.
"I made $900 a month, and the insurance for all of us would have cost $500. So we couldn't do that," says his wife, Rhonda, a home health aide. So Mr. Hernandez does what he can.
He shops for fresh vegetables, eats sugar-free ice cream and sometimes skips the bun on his hamburger because the bread can make his blood sugar level too high. Every two months, he travels 11 miles west to see Dr. DeLuca.
The connection
Dr. DeLuca, who grew up in Fort Worth, has practiced in Eastland for nearly 20 years and now sees all but the youngest of the Hernandez family. There are two other doctors in his practice, and he is one of five doctors who also staff Eastland Memorial Hospital, across the street from his office.
Rural medicine attracted him because of the freedom it offered.
"A lot of the doctors like to hunt and fish," he says. "I don't like any of those things. But you have more involvement in a town than you would in a city. We are part of the government, the school meetings, the hospital board. You get involved, and I like being active."
By being his own boss, he can set his own hours, allowing him to attend his children's activities. He doesn't have a long commute. He often can make decisions without waiting for a committee vote.
Not that rural doctors don't have concerns, he says. Some physicians are isolated, unable to take vacations or even break away for sessions designed to keep their skills current because there is no one to cover their patients. It's hard to recruit younger doctors to take their place when they retire. Specialists are miles away.
And while he enjoys seeing his patients and finds it helpful to not only know their medical history but to understand how they live, he has come to relish his privacy.
"A great day for me is to be in Fort Worth at Target shopping without anyone knowing me," he says.
Mr. Hernandez became his patient after Dr. DeLuca met Mrs. Hernandez through her job.
"I remember when he first came here," Mrs. Hernandez says. "I like his personality. He's good to work with, and he's real good to Earl, too."
Mr. Hernandez says he pays for his doctor visits out of his pocket. His condition requires two types of medication. He pays $11 a month for one to control his blood pressure. A prescription to control his diabetes would cost him about $100 a month. For that, Dr. DeLuca often gives him samples.
"More than two-thirds of my patients are struggling with affording their medication even if they have coverage. Everybody would like to have samples, no doubt," Dr. DeLuca says.
Dr. DeLuca enrolls qualified patients into pharmaceutical company programs that provide free medications.
"Samples were originally intended to see how someone tolerated a medication before you gave them a prescription. Now, though, the companies know that samples are for those who can't afford the medicine," he says.
The pharmaceutical industry is starting to scale back its assistance programs because, industry officials say, Medicare's drug coverage is stepping in for older adults.
And even with such help, the Hernandezes say it's sometimes financially tough.
Nearly three years ago, Mr. Hernandez became very sick. He had a high fever and pain and went to Eastland Memorial Hospital's emergency room, where doctors diagnosed a kidney infection. He wasn't admitted and didn't stay overnight, but his treatment cost more than $1,400.
"I'm still paying on that," Mr. Hernandez says.
Hope ahead
During one visit, Mr. Hernandez sits on a narrow examining table. Dr. DeLuca orders blood drawn and sees other patients while he waits for the results. Then he returns.
"Your blood sugar level is higher than I like it. Watch your sugar. But other than that, you are doing well," he says.
Actually, the Hernandezes are doing better than they expected. In late 2004, Mrs. Hernandez started a new job. The home health care company that she now works for in Eastland offered a full benefits plan. She and the children have dental, health care and vision coverage. She asked how much it would cost to add her husband.
Mr. Hernandez has waited a year, a requirement under the plan because of his diabetes. In November, he was added to his wife's health insurance. The plan for the entire family will cost $360 a month – expensive, they say, but worth the cost.
Mrs. Hernandez says she looks forward to having dental work done that she couldn't afford before. The children had dental and physical checkups at the start of the school year.
"It will be a big help," Mrs. Hernandez says. "When he needs blood draws or if he has to go to the ER, now he will have some coverage. I'm excited."
Still, Mr. Hernandez is cautious. Mostly he has made do without insurance. He's been lucky; he's gotten by. What he can count on is the relationships he's developed with his employer and his doctor.
"I love my doctor," Mr. Hernandez says. "He's like an older brother to me. I trust him. ... You have to have good communication in a small town. I strongly believe in the saying, 'Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.' That's what we do here."
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- Contact:
Kinko's deal is costly to Dallas ISD
Exclusive: Principals lament expense; firm stands by copying, printing program
By KENT FISCHER and TAWNELL D. HOBBS / The Dallas Morning News
EXCLUSIVE: When the Dallas schools announced a groundbreaking plan to outsource copying and printing to industry giant Kinko's, W.T. White High School jumped on board.
Company reps told Principal Joy Barnhart that she could slash copying and printing expenses by 21 percent, money she could plow back into classrooms. Instead, those expenses nearly quadrupled, according to district records. From 2003 to 2005, such expenses rose from $42,000 to $158,000.
Across the entire Dallas Independent School District, copying and printing costs more than doubled. In 2003, the district spent $5.87 million; by 2005 it was spending $12.82 million, according to records obtained by The Dallas Morning News.
"I just think that somebody needed to scrutinize that contract, and I'm not sure anybody did," Mrs. Barnhart said.
FedEx/Kinko's spokeswoman Maggie Thill referred requests for cost figures to DISD. She did not dispute The News' findings, which were based on DISD's figures, but said the company stands by the program – which, she said, allows DISD to opt out with only 30 days' notice
"Based on a school-by-school assessment, we are in fact saving the district money," she said.
District records and interviews don't support that claim, however. Kinko's based its estimates on industry averages and other assumptions that DISD says do not apply and which ended up inflating estimates of the district's expenditures. For example, Kinko's included such things as estimated time workers spent making copies and repairing machines, as well as office supplies like toner.
"It has been said by FedEx/Kinko's that we simply didn't understand our total cost to copy equation and the expenses are not out of line," the district's purchasing director, Greg Milton, wrote to his boss in September. "My professional opinion is that they've come up with this explanation as a means to justify their costs, but the argument is ridiculous when analyzed. ... [Current charges] are double to eight times our real costs!"
In addition to complaints of excessive cost, public records examined by The News indicated that:
•DISD's handling of the project was led by Ruben Bohuchot, DISD's former director of technology, who was ousted last fall after becoming the subject of an FBI investigation into a separate computer-services contract. Mr. Bohuchot, who did not return phone calls from reporters, played in an exclusive golf tournament subsidized by FedEx/Kinko's that was included as part of the deal with DISD. A FedEx/Kinko's spokeswoman said the company has not been contacted by the FBI. No charges have been filed in the FBI investigation.
•The contract obliges schools to lease equipment from FedEx/Kinko's, so hundreds of perfectly functional printers the district already owned now sit in warehouses, wrapped in plastic.
•The project's grand vision was to create a network of high-tech printers and copiers throughout the district, allowing teachers and administrators to print anything, anywhere. Two and a half years into the three-year deal, that remains only a dream.
•Some school budgets are breaking under the cost of operating new equipment leased through the program. T.C. Marsh Middle School's copying charges for the current school year would amount to more than $80,000, Principal Kyle Richardson estimated. He said the amount he had budgeted for the year "would not even cover three months of charges."
"One of my chief responsibilities is to be a good steward of public funds," he wrote in a November e-mail to central office administrators. "How can that goal be accomplished when we have a system that is much slower and costs twice as much to use?"
Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said he's heard complaints about the contract since arriving in the district in May.
"We're concerned not only with the cost, but also the service," Dr. Hinojosa said. "We've started looking at it."
Origins of the deal
The idea to privatize the district's copying and printing needs gained steam in early 2003.
Enthusiasm for the contract went to the top of Kinko's corporate ladder.
The company's stake went beyond this one deal. Records and interviews indicate that top executives hoped to establish a trend-setting program with DISD that could then be marketed to other large districts around the country.
The potential of such a deal was "huge, huge, huge" according to one former executive who was involved in the early stages of the project.
DISD "was a huge deal for the company," said the former Kinko's executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We simply could not fail."
Once the deal was inked in 2003, then-Superintendent Mike Moses urged his employees to sign up with Kinko's, telling them they could redirect any savings into their schools.
Trustee Hollis Brashear, who was board president at the time, voted against the contract. He questioned why the administration pushed for the deal even though schools were not complaining about their equipment.
"Kinko's was never able to prove they could save the district money," he said.
Kinko's had told DISD it could save $6.7 million on equipment alone over the first three years of the deal. More than 60 schools and numerous district departments signed onto the deal, each hoping for a piece of those savings.
The contract called for Kinko's, which was soon bought by FedEx, to analyze how every school and office could improve productivity. Its suggestions centered on replacing old equipment and handing large printing jobs over to local FedEx/Kinko's stores.
Rising costs
As schools signed on with Kinko's, they began to wonder why anyone had thought it could save them money. From the principals' perspectives, costs were rising steeply.
When FedEx/Kinko's looked at W.T. White High School, for example, it concluded that the school was spending $104,116 per year running its Oce copiers. The company said it could save the school an average of $45,000 a year.
Principal Barnhart told The News she can't figure out how the company arrived at its figures. In previous years she spent $42,000 annually for equipment rental, copying costs, toner and repairs – the same costs included in FedEx/Kinko's billing, district officials say.
The principal at Reinhardt Elementary also stated that her school's estimates were way off. The company told her that Reinhardt ran 20,000 sheets through its ink jet printers per year and made between 400,000 and 600,000 copies. The principal, Jill Barney, told central office administrators that the actual figures were 2,500 ink jet printouts and more than 1 million copies.
"Their original estimate of what we spent on inkjet cartridges and printers was too high so the savings they were claiming to give us was incorrect," Ms. Barney wrote in an e-mail to district officials.
In an effort to better understand how FedEx/Kinko's arrived at its estimates, the district's purchasing department examined financial records at 10 campuses before and after the schools joined the FedEx/Kinko's project.
The conclusion: district officials could not figure out how Kinko's came up with the estimates, which were based on a complicated formula that included not just what schools paid for copying, but also things like the time teachers spent in the copy room and the amount of time repairmen spent on campuses. The estimates also included supplies like toner, which schools had received for free under previous contracts.
To DISD's bookkeepers, however, those labor costs were irrelevant. Teachers got paid whether they were standing over a copier or doing other things to prepare for class. The district also said Kinko's used industry average costs in its estimates, but presented the figures as if they were actual DISD expenses.
By late 2004, some managers warned that the program was blowing school budgets. Records show that top officials were unsure what to do. In July 2005, DISD froze the project and stopped allowing new schools to join. However, they continued paying for schools that had already signed up.
One of the first administrators to question the deal was Mr. Milton, DISD's purchasing director. Last summer, he wrote his bosses to share his concerns: Nobody at DISD really understood how Kinko's arrived at its estimates, and therefore all were surprised at the expenses that followed, he said. Plus, he said, upper management didn't make addressing the concerns a top priority.
"I think we are throwing good money after bad trying to salvage something that doesn't even meet the needs of the campuses," he later wrote in a September e-mail to his boss. ... "We are spending millions of dollars ... which the competition [other companies] offers for millions less."
In response to complaints from principals, DISD's central office began absorbing the cost overruns incurred by the participating campuses.
The total copying charges, however, were rising fast enough to put a dent even in DISD's $2 billion budget.
In 2003, the year before trustees ratified the deal, DISD spent $5.87 million on copying, printing, equipment and associated costs, according to district records. In 2005, districtwide spending for copying hit $12.82 million – $2.1 million more than DISD had budgeted. Those costs do not include charges to school credit cards many principals used for copying expenses after becoming frustrated with the contract. The district has not provided complete records of those transactions.
Earlier this month, The News reviewed 15 months of billing records from FedEx/Kinko's. Those records indicated that the company has billed the 64 participating schools and some departments $7.1 million in printing and copying charges for 2005. Copying expenses for the rest of the district, 153 schools, were about $5.7 million, according to district records.
Ms. Thill, the company spokeswoman, said The News' figures were "exactly in line" with the company's records.
FedEx/Kinko's said that if the deal is indeed bad for the district, DISD can simply cancel it with 30 days' written notice. That the district has failed to do so for 2 ½ years indicates that the program is working, Ms. Thill said.
Superintendent Hinojosa, however, said terminating the contract would require the district to have a plan to provide copy and printing services to campuses. Some schools had been renting their equipment.
Reached last week, Mr. Moses said through a spokeswoman: "It is very disappointing if printing costs have increased, because the idea was presented to our purchasing department as a way to bring cost-effectiveness to the district's printing and copying expenses. If costs have not been driven down as promised, then the board definitely should review and cancel the contract."
District officials, including Superintendent Hinojosa, say what's needed is a thorough examination of the costs, and a detailed analysis of where the projected savings have gone.
"We have to question why we're doing so much, and what's causing it to be so high," Dr. Hinojosa said.
Exclusive: Principals lament expense; firm stands by copying, printing program
By KENT FISCHER and TAWNELL D. HOBBS / The Dallas Morning News
EXCLUSIVE: When the Dallas schools announced a groundbreaking plan to outsource copying and printing to industry giant Kinko's, W.T. White High School jumped on board.
Company reps told Principal Joy Barnhart that she could slash copying and printing expenses by 21 percent, money she could plow back into classrooms. Instead, those expenses nearly quadrupled, according to district records. From 2003 to 2005, such expenses rose from $42,000 to $158,000.
Across the entire Dallas Independent School District, copying and printing costs more than doubled. In 2003, the district spent $5.87 million; by 2005 it was spending $12.82 million, according to records obtained by The Dallas Morning News.
"I just think that somebody needed to scrutinize that contract, and I'm not sure anybody did," Mrs. Barnhart said.
FedEx/Kinko's spokeswoman Maggie Thill referred requests for cost figures to DISD. She did not dispute The News' findings, which were based on DISD's figures, but said the company stands by the program – which, she said, allows DISD to opt out with only 30 days' notice
"Based on a school-by-school assessment, we are in fact saving the district money," she said.
District records and interviews don't support that claim, however. Kinko's based its estimates on industry averages and other assumptions that DISD says do not apply and which ended up inflating estimates of the district's expenditures. For example, Kinko's included such things as estimated time workers spent making copies and repairing machines, as well as office supplies like toner.
"It has been said by FedEx/Kinko's that we simply didn't understand our total cost to copy equation and the expenses are not out of line," the district's purchasing director, Greg Milton, wrote to his boss in September. "My professional opinion is that they've come up with this explanation as a means to justify their costs, but the argument is ridiculous when analyzed. ... [Current charges] are double to eight times our real costs!"
In addition to complaints of excessive cost, public records examined by The News indicated that:
•DISD's handling of the project was led by Ruben Bohuchot, DISD's former director of technology, who was ousted last fall after becoming the subject of an FBI investigation into a separate computer-services contract. Mr. Bohuchot, who did not return phone calls from reporters, played in an exclusive golf tournament subsidized by FedEx/Kinko's that was included as part of the deal with DISD. A FedEx/Kinko's spokeswoman said the company has not been contacted by the FBI. No charges have been filed in the FBI investigation.
•The contract obliges schools to lease equipment from FedEx/Kinko's, so hundreds of perfectly functional printers the district already owned now sit in warehouses, wrapped in plastic.
•The project's grand vision was to create a network of high-tech printers and copiers throughout the district, allowing teachers and administrators to print anything, anywhere. Two and a half years into the three-year deal, that remains only a dream.
•Some school budgets are breaking under the cost of operating new equipment leased through the program. T.C. Marsh Middle School's copying charges for the current school year would amount to more than $80,000, Principal Kyle Richardson estimated. He said the amount he had budgeted for the year "would not even cover three months of charges."
"One of my chief responsibilities is to be a good steward of public funds," he wrote in a November e-mail to central office administrators. "How can that goal be accomplished when we have a system that is much slower and costs twice as much to use?"
Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said he's heard complaints about the contract since arriving in the district in May.
"We're concerned not only with the cost, but also the service," Dr. Hinojosa said. "We've started looking at it."
Origins of the deal
The idea to privatize the district's copying and printing needs gained steam in early 2003.
Enthusiasm for the contract went to the top of Kinko's corporate ladder.
The company's stake went beyond this one deal. Records and interviews indicate that top executives hoped to establish a trend-setting program with DISD that could then be marketed to other large districts around the country.
The potential of such a deal was "huge, huge, huge" according to one former executive who was involved in the early stages of the project.
DISD "was a huge deal for the company," said the former Kinko's executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We simply could not fail."
Once the deal was inked in 2003, then-Superintendent Mike Moses urged his employees to sign up with Kinko's, telling them they could redirect any savings into their schools.
Trustee Hollis Brashear, who was board president at the time, voted against the contract. He questioned why the administration pushed for the deal even though schools were not complaining about their equipment.
"Kinko's was never able to prove they could save the district money," he said.
Kinko's had told DISD it could save $6.7 million on equipment alone over the first three years of the deal. More than 60 schools and numerous district departments signed onto the deal, each hoping for a piece of those savings.
The contract called for Kinko's, which was soon bought by FedEx, to analyze how every school and office could improve productivity. Its suggestions centered on replacing old equipment and handing large printing jobs over to local FedEx/Kinko's stores.
Rising costs
As schools signed on with Kinko's, they began to wonder why anyone had thought it could save them money. From the principals' perspectives, costs were rising steeply.
When FedEx/Kinko's looked at W.T. White High School, for example, it concluded that the school was spending $104,116 per year running its Oce copiers. The company said it could save the school an average of $45,000 a year.
Principal Barnhart told The News she can't figure out how the company arrived at its figures. In previous years she spent $42,000 annually for equipment rental, copying costs, toner and repairs – the same costs included in FedEx/Kinko's billing, district officials say.
The principal at Reinhardt Elementary also stated that her school's estimates were way off. The company told her that Reinhardt ran 20,000 sheets through its ink jet printers per year and made between 400,000 and 600,000 copies. The principal, Jill Barney, told central office administrators that the actual figures were 2,500 ink jet printouts and more than 1 million copies.
"Their original estimate of what we spent on inkjet cartridges and printers was too high so the savings they were claiming to give us was incorrect," Ms. Barney wrote in an e-mail to district officials.
In an effort to better understand how FedEx/Kinko's arrived at its estimates, the district's purchasing department examined financial records at 10 campuses before and after the schools joined the FedEx/Kinko's project.
The conclusion: district officials could not figure out how Kinko's came up with the estimates, which were based on a complicated formula that included not just what schools paid for copying, but also things like the time teachers spent in the copy room and the amount of time repairmen spent on campuses. The estimates also included supplies like toner, which schools had received for free under previous contracts.
To DISD's bookkeepers, however, those labor costs were irrelevant. Teachers got paid whether they were standing over a copier or doing other things to prepare for class. The district also said Kinko's used industry average costs in its estimates, but presented the figures as if they were actual DISD expenses.
By late 2004, some managers warned that the program was blowing school budgets. Records show that top officials were unsure what to do. In July 2005, DISD froze the project and stopped allowing new schools to join. However, they continued paying for schools that had already signed up.
One of the first administrators to question the deal was Mr. Milton, DISD's purchasing director. Last summer, he wrote his bosses to share his concerns: Nobody at DISD really understood how Kinko's arrived at its estimates, and therefore all were surprised at the expenses that followed, he said. Plus, he said, upper management didn't make addressing the concerns a top priority.
"I think we are throwing good money after bad trying to salvage something that doesn't even meet the needs of the campuses," he later wrote in a September e-mail to his boss. ... "We are spending millions of dollars ... which the competition [other companies] offers for millions less."
In response to complaints from principals, DISD's central office began absorbing the cost overruns incurred by the participating campuses.
The total copying charges, however, were rising fast enough to put a dent even in DISD's $2 billion budget.
In 2003, the year before trustees ratified the deal, DISD spent $5.87 million on copying, printing, equipment and associated costs, according to district records. In 2005, districtwide spending for copying hit $12.82 million – $2.1 million more than DISD had budgeted. Those costs do not include charges to school credit cards many principals used for copying expenses after becoming frustrated with the contract. The district has not provided complete records of those transactions.
Earlier this month, The News reviewed 15 months of billing records from FedEx/Kinko's. Those records indicated that the company has billed the 64 participating schools and some departments $7.1 million in printing and copying charges for 2005. Copying expenses for the rest of the district, 153 schools, were about $5.7 million, according to district records.
Ms. Thill, the company spokeswoman, said The News' figures were "exactly in line" with the company's records.
FedEx/Kinko's said that if the deal is indeed bad for the district, DISD can simply cancel it with 30 days' written notice. That the district has failed to do so for 2 ½ years indicates that the program is working, Ms. Thill said.
Superintendent Hinojosa, however, said terminating the contract would require the district to have a plan to provide copy and printing services to campuses. Some schools had been renting their equipment.
Reached last week, Mr. Moses said through a spokeswoman: "It is very disappointing if printing costs have increased, because the idea was presented to our purchasing department as a way to bring cost-effectiveness to the district's printing and copying expenses. If costs have not been driven down as promised, then the board definitely should review and cancel the contract."
District officials, including Superintendent Hinojosa, say what's needed is a thorough examination of the costs, and a detailed analysis of where the projected savings have gone.
"We have to question why we're doing so much, and what's causing it to be so high," Dr. Hinojosa said.
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Death raises questions at mental hospital
As father mourns, state hospital worker faces trial in patient's death
By DIANE JENNINGS / The Dallas Morning News
MOODY, Texas – Raymond Fiala said his son was crying the last time he called home from the North Texas State Hospital.
Standing at a pay phone last Feb. 8, Michael Fiala said – as he had for months – that staff members at the Vernon hospital were beating him.
"Daddy, please get me out of here," Michael, 35, begged.
Early the next morning, a security camera in a seclusion room captured Michael's slow surrender. He falls to his knees. He struggles unsuccessfully to sit up on a padded blue mat, the fingers on one hand curled inward. Later, he soils his pants, and he is helpless to feed himself.
According to an investigation report by Adult Protective Services, provided to The News by the Fiala family, a nurse asked Michael how he felt. He replied: "Michael Fontenot just beat me up."
Eventually, the video shows Michael Fiala being sent to a hospital. By the time Raymond Fiala could get to Wichita Falls from his home near Waco, Michael was brain-dead.
The autopsy said he died of blunt-force trauma, his brain bleeding and his body covered in bruises.
The grieving father had a request just before the casket was lowered into the ground last Valentine's Day. He wanted the coffin opened so he could talk to his son once more. He put Michael's favorite tractor patch, a childhood blanket and a valentine next to the body.
Nearly a year later, the investigation has only made Mr. Fiala angrier about what happened to his son, allegedly at the hands of a hospital employee.
Officials with the state hospital system, including caseworkers and administrators, declined to answer questions on the Fiala case. They cited pending litigation, including the upcoming manslaughter trial of Mr. Fontenot, and a possible lawsuit by Mr. Fiala.
Mr. Fontenot also declined to comment when contacted by The News. He faces two to 20 years in prison if convicted next month.
The hospital is appealing APS' findings, including investigators' concerns that information about abuse and injury to Michael Fiala were neither documented nor reported as suspected abuse by hospital staff, as required by law.
Deaths like Mr. Fiala's are rare, said Joe Lovelace, outgoing executive director of the Texas branch of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. State statistics support that: Michael Fiala was the only patient to die from assault at a Texas state hospital last year.
All indications are that Michael's was an isolated case. But that doesn't mitigate the anger of a father who doesn't understand why his son, even though he had a lengthy history of violent episodes, had to die.
"I'll fight them the rest of my life," Raymond Fiala says of the Texas Department of State Health Services, which runs the state hospital. "I'll never give up on it, because if I could talk to Michael right now, he'd say, 'Daddy, keep on fighting.' "
From bad to worse
Michael Fiala's parents, who divorced in 1987, first got him professional help when he was 6. He attended special education classes in the small central Texas town of Granger. According to one report, his behavior was sometimes bizarre. He also was prone to angry outbursts.
For instance, while at the dinner table he might suddenly hurl his plate across the room.
"He didn't hurt anybody," Raymond Fiala said. "We'd ask him, 'Why'd you do that?' He'd say, 'Something told me to do it'.
"Other than that, he was fine."
When Michael was 19, the outbursts became too much for his parents to handle.
"I was getting older, he was getting older," Mr. Fiala said.
Doctors recommended hospitalizing Michael. He eventually was placed in a private treatment center, where his parents and an older sister could visit every few weeks. He also went home for visits for days at a time.
In 2003, after more than 12 years at the private center, Michael was sent home permanently. He did well initially and helped his dad restore antique tractors. But after a few weeks, Michael "started getting out of hand," his father said.
"He started throwing things and wanted to hurt somebody."
Mr. Fiala attributes the change to a switch in medication. Michael was admitted to the state hospital in Austin, but after more than 100 incidents of assault, he was declared "manifestly dangerous" by a review board and transferred in July 2004 to the North Texas State Hospital in Vernon.
The 270-bed campus serves as the state's forensic hospital, where courts send people deemed incompetent to stand trial or those acquitted by reason of insanity. Vernon also is home to patients committed by a civil court who need intensive supervision because they can be violent.
There's plenty of evidence Michael was difficult to handle. Laurance Priddy, regional managing attorney for the North Texas office of Advocacy Inc., a protection and advocacy agency that investigated Michael Fiala's death, said he was prone to fighting.
Michael "had an inclination to attack people because of his mental condition," Mr. Priddy said. "He did that fairly frequently."
According to a psychiatric evaluation in 2004, Michael had "severe defects in his conscience and bears no guilt over injuring people. He is suffused with hatred and this is highly reminiscent of the borderline personality." The evaluation said he suffered from mixed-personality disorder and impulse-control disorder, among other problems.
Mr. Fiala worried about the move to Vernon, 50 miles northwest of Wichita Falls, and how far he would be from his son. But he says officials assured him Michael's condition would improve there.
Michael, who with an IQ of 58 is classified as mildly retarded, did not improve.
Instead, his life deteriorated from bad to worse.
An inconsistent record
Michael Fontenot started working at the Vernon hospital in 1999, around his 23rd birthday. Records indicate he was months removed from probation for a misdemeanor marijuana-possession charge.
His responsibilities included helping patients with meals and interacting with them to improve their social and life skills. In addition, he was supposed to observe and report unusual behaviors and intervene verbally and physically, "within guidelines ..."
His performance evaluations, obtained from the Texas Department of State Health Services, indicate Mr. Fontenot was competent at his job and generally got along well with patients and colleagues.
In 2003 and 2004, however, he hit a rough patch. He showed up late or not at all, took long breaks and was admonished for carrying cigarettes in the unit. In the middle of June 2004, according to documents, he became loud and belligerent with a supervisor who wrote that he was becoming concerned about "the safety of our staff and patients due to your [Mr. Fontenot's] behavior."
A few days later, Mr. Fontenot was placed on "decision-making leave" – the most serious level of formal corrective action – for one day, to consider his future with the hospital.
"Your unprofessional actions have jeopardized the quality of care of our clients," another supervisor wrote.
But when Mr. Fontenot returned to work, he did well, showing up regularly and on time.
"You are a positive role model for the staff," read an evaluation that also lauded Mr. Fontenot for getting along well with staff and patients, using verbal skills effectively and using limited physical intervention.
That evaluation was dated March 16, 2005, several weeks after the death of Michael Fiala.
Escalating complaints
Michael's plaintive plea on Feb. 8 was not the first time he had begged his father for help, Mr. Fiala said.
"I talked to my son almost every day," he said, offering his phone bill as proof. "He kept telling me that he was being abused up there."
Mr. Fiala said he encouraged Michael to report the abuse, and he also reported the allegations to Michael's caseworker, John Hamby.
Mr. Fiala said Mr. Hamby always told him he'd check into it. Later, he'd tell Mr. Fiala everything was fine. But when Mr. Fiala planned to visit for Christmas 2004, Mr. Hamby discouraged him from coming because Michael had been in a fight, the father said.
"First Christmas I didn't see him in ... 35 years," Mr. Fiala said.
Mr. Hamby did not return calls for comment.
In the last month of his life, Michael's complaints escalated.
"He would say, 'Daddy, I know what they'll tell you – they'll tell you I started a fight – and I didn't,' " Raymond Fiala said. Or, he would ask, "What do you do when somebody beats on you?'
"I said, "Michael, you've got to fight back – you can't just take it.' " Mr. Fiala recalled.
Under the law, abuse allegations should have triggered a report to Adult Protective Services. No report was made.
According to the APS investigation report, which was completed in May, several nurses noted large, dark bruises on Michael's thighs on Feb. 5. He couldn't explain to the nurses how he got the bruises. A doctor said he didn't suspect abuse.
Michael spent much of his final weeks in what's called the "quiet room." Its floor is covered with a gymnastics-like blue mat, with white padded walls and a small window in the door. A video camera hangs from the ceiling.
He slept in the quiet room frequently. A doctor advised the staff against giving him sheets, blankets or pillows in order to entice him back into a shared room.
"It would be the worst possible thing for us to accede to his terroristic threat," a physician wrote.
The APS report, which relied on witness accounts and videotapes, said Michael spent much of the night of Feb. 8 and the following morning in the quiet room. Shortly before 9 p.m., he went to the room he shared with another patient and then to the shower.
Both before and after the shower, Mr. Fontenot spent time with Michael in the bedroom. The second time, the lights were off and another staffer reported hearing "faint hollers from Michael Fiala."
Another employee, hearing the screams, went to investigate. Michael was leaving the room, and the employee said Mr. Fontenot asked: "Did you hear me hit him?" No, the staffer replied.
Michael Fiala was sent to the quiet room, where for the next 12 hours the camera silently recorded his decline. Apparently no one at the nursing station, where the surveillance video was to be monitored, noticed a problem until the next morning. Even then, staffers didn't realize he was injured. A doctor did not assess Michael until more than an hour after he told a nurse he was beaten by Mr. Fontenot.
Mr. Fontenot, now 29, told investigators he followed Michael Fiala into the bedroom because he "had been trying to hit people." Mr. Fontenot said he grabbed Michael's hands to keep him from hitting his roommate, then "redirected" him out of the room and into the quiet room.
APS investigator Gary Chapman concluded that Mr. Fontenot was "not credible."
"The only time Mr. Fiala was alone with a staff is when he is in his bedroom with Michael Fontenot," Mr. Chapman wrote. The timing of the injury meshed with the time Michael was alone with Mr. Fontenot and the size and shape of the bruise on Michael Fiala's abdomen matched the size and shape of a bedpost in the room.
Mr. Fontenot faced no action immediately after the death, and he continued to work with patients for several weeks. After the APS investigation, he was reassigned to a maintenance position "outside the fence," said department attorney Chris Lopez.
Mr. Fontenot has since been moved to a job in food service, but he still works at the hospital while awaiting trial.
Trend or isolated case?
Mr. Lovelace, the advocate for mentally ill patients, said that, in general, the state gives "a first-class level of treatment," especially at Vernon, which he said is known as a top forensic hospital.
Mr. Priddy, of the watchdog group Advocacy Inc., is less sanguine. He fears that what happened to Michael could happen to someone else.
"With the number of patients they're dealing with ... and the fact that not all their staff is as good as they ought to be, it'll probably happen again," Mr. Priddy said.
Jeff Bearden, director of forensic psychiatric programs at North Texas State Hospital, said employee training isn't perfect, but it's more than adequate.
"I'll put our training up against every psychiatric hospital in the country," he said.
In 2004, the year after lawmakers grappled with a massive deficit, the budget for all mental health services was cut by more than $32 million. The budget for this year is $748 million, still less than the $758 million it was in 2003.
That year, the most recent year for which figures are available, Texas ranked 47th nationally in per-capita mental health expenditures and 22nd in per-patient hospital spending, according to the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors Research Institute.
Raymond Fiala said he won't attend Mr. Fontenot's trial. He wants justice but said he has no desire to see or talk to the man accused of killing his son. A year later, he still finds himself picking up the phone around 4 o'clock every afternoon to call his son.
"I used to always tell him, I'd say, 'Michael ... someday I'm not going to be here – whatcha going to do?' Then he'd say, 'We have to get things ironed out.'
"But guess what?" Mr. Fiala says with a shrug.
"He's gone and I'm still here."
As father mourns, state hospital worker faces trial in patient's death
By DIANE JENNINGS / The Dallas Morning News
MOODY, Texas – Raymond Fiala said his son was crying the last time he called home from the North Texas State Hospital.
Standing at a pay phone last Feb. 8, Michael Fiala said – as he had for months – that staff members at the Vernon hospital were beating him.
"Daddy, please get me out of here," Michael, 35, begged.
Early the next morning, a security camera in a seclusion room captured Michael's slow surrender. He falls to his knees. He struggles unsuccessfully to sit up on a padded blue mat, the fingers on one hand curled inward. Later, he soils his pants, and he is helpless to feed himself.
According to an investigation report by Adult Protective Services, provided to The News by the Fiala family, a nurse asked Michael how he felt. He replied: "Michael Fontenot just beat me up."
Eventually, the video shows Michael Fiala being sent to a hospital. By the time Raymond Fiala could get to Wichita Falls from his home near Waco, Michael was brain-dead.
The autopsy said he died of blunt-force trauma, his brain bleeding and his body covered in bruises.
The grieving father had a request just before the casket was lowered into the ground last Valentine's Day. He wanted the coffin opened so he could talk to his son once more. He put Michael's favorite tractor patch, a childhood blanket and a valentine next to the body.
Nearly a year later, the investigation has only made Mr. Fiala angrier about what happened to his son, allegedly at the hands of a hospital employee.
Officials with the state hospital system, including caseworkers and administrators, declined to answer questions on the Fiala case. They cited pending litigation, including the upcoming manslaughter trial of Mr. Fontenot, and a possible lawsuit by Mr. Fiala.
Mr. Fontenot also declined to comment when contacted by The News. He faces two to 20 years in prison if convicted next month.
The hospital is appealing APS' findings, including investigators' concerns that information about abuse and injury to Michael Fiala were neither documented nor reported as suspected abuse by hospital staff, as required by law.
Deaths like Mr. Fiala's are rare, said Joe Lovelace, outgoing executive director of the Texas branch of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. State statistics support that: Michael Fiala was the only patient to die from assault at a Texas state hospital last year.
All indications are that Michael's was an isolated case. But that doesn't mitigate the anger of a father who doesn't understand why his son, even though he had a lengthy history of violent episodes, had to die.
"I'll fight them the rest of my life," Raymond Fiala says of the Texas Department of State Health Services, which runs the state hospital. "I'll never give up on it, because if I could talk to Michael right now, he'd say, 'Daddy, keep on fighting.' "
From bad to worse
Michael Fiala's parents, who divorced in 1987, first got him professional help when he was 6. He attended special education classes in the small central Texas town of Granger. According to one report, his behavior was sometimes bizarre. He also was prone to angry outbursts.
For instance, while at the dinner table he might suddenly hurl his plate across the room.
"He didn't hurt anybody," Raymond Fiala said. "We'd ask him, 'Why'd you do that?' He'd say, 'Something told me to do it'.
"Other than that, he was fine."
When Michael was 19, the outbursts became too much for his parents to handle.
"I was getting older, he was getting older," Mr. Fiala said.
Doctors recommended hospitalizing Michael. He eventually was placed in a private treatment center, where his parents and an older sister could visit every few weeks. He also went home for visits for days at a time.
In 2003, after more than 12 years at the private center, Michael was sent home permanently. He did well initially and helped his dad restore antique tractors. But after a few weeks, Michael "started getting out of hand," his father said.
"He started throwing things and wanted to hurt somebody."
Mr. Fiala attributes the change to a switch in medication. Michael was admitted to the state hospital in Austin, but after more than 100 incidents of assault, he was declared "manifestly dangerous" by a review board and transferred in July 2004 to the North Texas State Hospital in Vernon.
The 270-bed campus serves as the state's forensic hospital, where courts send people deemed incompetent to stand trial or those acquitted by reason of insanity. Vernon also is home to patients committed by a civil court who need intensive supervision because they can be violent.
There's plenty of evidence Michael was difficult to handle. Laurance Priddy, regional managing attorney for the North Texas office of Advocacy Inc., a protection and advocacy agency that investigated Michael Fiala's death, said he was prone to fighting.
Michael "had an inclination to attack people because of his mental condition," Mr. Priddy said. "He did that fairly frequently."
According to a psychiatric evaluation in 2004, Michael had "severe defects in his conscience and bears no guilt over injuring people. He is suffused with hatred and this is highly reminiscent of the borderline personality." The evaluation said he suffered from mixed-personality disorder and impulse-control disorder, among other problems.
Mr. Fiala worried about the move to Vernon, 50 miles northwest of Wichita Falls, and how far he would be from his son. But he says officials assured him Michael's condition would improve there.
Michael, who with an IQ of 58 is classified as mildly retarded, did not improve.
Instead, his life deteriorated from bad to worse.
An inconsistent record
Michael Fontenot started working at the Vernon hospital in 1999, around his 23rd birthday. Records indicate he was months removed from probation for a misdemeanor marijuana-possession charge.
His responsibilities included helping patients with meals and interacting with them to improve their social and life skills. In addition, he was supposed to observe and report unusual behaviors and intervene verbally and physically, "within guidelines ..."
His performance evaluations, obtained from the Texas Department of State Health Services, indicate Mr. Fontenot was competent at his job and generally got along well with patients and colleagues.
In 2003 and 2004, however, he hit a rough patch. He showed up late or not at all, took long breaks and was admonished for carrying cigarettes in the unit. In the middle of June 2004, according to documents, he became loud and belligerent with a supervisor who wrote that he was becoming concerned about "the safety of our staff and patients due to your [Mr. Fontenot's] behavior."
A few days later, Mr. Fontenot was placed on "decision-making leave" – the most serious level of formal corrective action – for one day, to consider his future with the hospital.
"Your unprofessional actions have jeopardized the quality of care of our clients," another supervisor wrote.
But when Mr. Fontenot returned to work, he did well, showing up regularly and on time.
"You are a positive role model for the staff," read an evaluation that also lauded Mr. Fontenot for getting along well with staff and patients, using verbal skills effectively and using limited physical intervention.
That evaluation was dated March 16, 2005, several weeks after the death of Michael Fiala.
Escalating complaints
Michael's plaintive plea on Feb. 8 was not the first time he had begged his father for help, Mr. Fiala said.
"I talked to my son almost every day," he said, offering his phone bill as proof. "He kept telling me that he was being abused up there."
Mr. Fiala said he encouraged Michael to report the abuse, and he also reported the allegations to Michael's caseworker, John Hamby.
Mr. Fiala said Mr. Hamby always told him he'd check into it. Later, he'd tell Mr. Fiala everything was fine. But when Mr. Fiala planned to visit for Christmas 2004, Mr. Hamby discouraged him from coming because Michael had been in a fight, the father said.
"First Christmas I didn't see him in ... 35 years," Mr. Fiala said.
Mr. Hamby did not return calls for comment.
In the last month of his life, Michael's complaints escalated.
"He would say, 'Daddy, I know what they'll tell you – they'll tell you I started a fight – and I didn't,' " Raymond Fiala said. Or, he would ask, "What do you do when somebody beats on you?'
"I said, "Michael, you've got to fight back – you can't just take it.' " Mr. Fiala recalled.
Under the law, abuse allegations should have triggered a report to Adult Protective Services. No report was made.
According to the APS investigation report, which was completed in May, several nurses noted large, dark bruises on Michael's thighs on Feb. 5. He couldn't explain to the nurses how he got the bruises. A doctor said he didn't suspect abuse.
Michael spent much of his final weeks in what's called the "quiet room." Its floor is covered with a gymnastics-like blue mat, with white padded walls and a small window in the door. A video camera hangs from the ceiling.
He slept in the quiet room frequently. A doctor advised the staff against giving him sheets, blankets or pillows in order to entice him back into a shared room.
"It would be the worst possible thing for us to accede to his terroristic threat," a physician wrote.
The APS report, which relied on witness accounts and videotapes, said Michael spent much of the night of Feb. 8 and the following morning in the quiet room. Shortly before 9 p.m., he went to the room he shared with another patient and then to the shower.
Both before and after the shower, Mr. Fontenot spent time with Michael in the bedroom. The second time, the lights were off and another staffer reported hearing "faint hollers from Michael Fiala."
Another employee, hearing the screams, went to investigate. Michael was leaving the room, and the employee said Mr. Fontenot asked: "Did you hear me hit him?" No, the staffer replied.
Michael Fiala was sent to the quiet room, where for the next 12 hours the camera silently recorded his decline. Apparently no one at the nursing station, where the surveillance video was to be monitored, noticed a problem until the next morning. Even then, staffers didn't realize he was injured. A doctor did not assess Michael until more than an hour after he told a nurse he was beaten by Mr. Fontenot.
Mr. Fontenot, now 29, told investigators he followed Michael Fiala into the bedroom because he "had been trying to hit people." Mr. Fontenot said he grabbed Michael's hands to keep him from hitting his roommate, then "redirected" him out of the room and into the quiet room.
APS investigator Gary Chapman concluded that Mr. Fontenot was "not credible."
"The only time Mr. Fiala was alone with a staff is when he is in his bedroom with Michael Fontenot," Mr. Chapman wrote. The timing of the injury meshed with the time Michael was alone with Mr. Fontenot and the size and shape of the bruise on Michael Fiala's abdomen matched the size and shape of a bedpost in the room.
Mr. Fontenot faced no action immediately after the death, and he continued to work with patients for several weeks. After the APS investigation, he was reassigned to a maintenance position "outside the fence," said department attorney Chris Lopez.
Mr. Fontenot has since been moved to a job in food service, but he still works at the hospital while awaiting trial.
Trend or isolated case?
Mr. Lovelace, the advocate for mentally ill patients, said that, in general, the state gives "a first-class level of treatment," especially at Vernon, which he said is known as a top forensic hospital.
Mr. Priddy, of the watchdog group Advocacy Inc., is less sanguine. He fears that what happened to Michael could happen to someone else.
"With the number of patients they're dealing with ... and the fact that not all their staff is as good as they ought to be, it'll probably happen again," Mr. Priddy said.
Jeff Bearden, director of forensic psychiatric programs at North Texas State Hospital, said employee training isn't perfect, but it's more than adequate.
"I'll put our training up against every psychiatric hospital in the country," he said.
In 2004, the year after lawmakers grappled with a massive deficit, the budget for all mental health services was cut by more than $32 million. The budget for this year is $748 million, still less than the $758 million it was in 2003.
That year, the most recent year for which figures are available, Texas ranked 47th nationally in per-capita mental health expenditures and 22nd in per-patient hospital spending, according to the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors Research Institute.
Raymond Fiala said he won't attend Mr. Fontenot's trial. He wants justice but said he has no desire to see or talk to the man accused of killing his son. A year later, he still finds himself picking up the phone around 4 o'clock every afternoon to call his son.
"I used to always tell him, I'd say, 'Michael ... someday I'm not going to be here – whatcha going to do?' Then he'd say, 'We have to get things ironed out.'
"But guess what?" Mr. Fiala says with a shrug.
"He's gone and I'm still here."
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Future engineers offer a glimpse of cities to come
Arlington: Competition showcases students' abilities to plan, design
By TIM WYATT / The Dallas Morning News
ARLINGTON, Texas – Some of the brightest minds in Texas met Saturday for intense hearings on how best to solve urban problems like water pollution, alternative energy sources and transportation needs in the coming decades.
And on Monday, they'll all return to conquering seventh- and eighth-grade math.
More than 40 fresh designs from budding engineers were on display at the University of Texas at Arlington for the regional Future City Competition, an engineering outreach program designed to pique student interest in science and math.
Using recycled materials, donated software and months of research, hundreds of students presented their work to the judges, working engineers who grill the entrants on issues of urban infrastructure.
Lara Kakish, a seventh-grader at The Westwood School in Dallas, and her team created a town in Greenland in the year 2157.
"We're trying to take unused land in an arctic region and make it habitable," Lara said.
The Westwood team, which included members of last year's competition winners, collected some plastic here and cardboard there to build a model that tapped into Greenland's abundant fresh water and geothermal energy.
The skeletal remains of an old hoop skirt served to represent a magnetic shield that would protect downtown from arctic blasts.
Cissy Sylo, director of engineering for the city of Frisco and a volunteer judge for years, said the work students put in for the contest is far from classroom doodles and study hall daydreams.
One project she reviewed included plans for a shopping center that went to extreme measures.
"Those kids went out and researched how much wastewater would be used in toilet flushes at the mall," Ms. Sylo said. "That's the kind of detail that a lot of people don't begin to think about until they're assigned it in college."
Future City started in 1992, and is sponsored and mentored by professional engineering societies and large firms like EDS.
Besides parents and teachers, engineers also volunteer as mentors to lend advice on how to get through all the details to flesh out their plans.
Mark Mihm, an environmental engineer, has mentored the Westwood School team since September and described their effort as fantastic.
"The project evolved over the months, and the students captured a lot of emerging technology that could be applied," Mr. Mihm said.
Tina Sivinski, an executive vice president of human resources at EDS, said her son's involvement on a team isn't the only reason she's interested in Future City.
"The talent in this place is incredible," Ms. Siviniski said. "There are hundreds of would-be engineers here, and they're some of the smartest, hard-working 12- and 13-year-olds you're going to find."
On Saturday, the judges decided the best designs were from students from Kingwood Middle School in Kingwood, Texas. Second place went to Westwood School in Dallas, while North Hills School in Irving took third.
The other finalists were Carpenter Middle School in Plano, Country Day School in Arlington and McLean Middle School in Fort Worth.
Arlington: Competition showcases students' abilities to plan, design
By TIM WYATT / The Dallas Morning News
ARLINGTON, Texas – Some of the brightest minds in Texas met Saturday for intense hearings on how best to solve urban problems like water pollution, alternative energy sources and transportation needs in the coming decades.
And on Monday, they'll all return to conquering seventh- and eighth-grade math.
More than 40 fresh designs from budding engineers were on display at the University of Texas at Arlington for the regional Future City Competition, an engineering outreach program designed to pique student interest in science and math.
Using recycled materials, donated software and months of research, hundreds of students presented their work to the judges, working engineers who grill the entrants on issues of urban infrastructure.
Lara Kakish, a seventh-grader at The Westwood School in Dallas, and her team created a town in Greenland in the year 2157.
"We're trying to take unused land in an arctic region and make it habitable," Lara said.
The Westwood team, which included members of last year's competition winners, collected some plastic here and cardboard there to build a model that tapped into Greenland's abundant fresh water and geothermal energy.
The skeletal remains of an old hoop skirt served to represent a magnetic shield that would protect downtown from arctic blasts.
Cissy Sylo, director of engineering for the city of Frisco and a volunteer judge for years, said the work students put in for the contest is far from classroom doodles and study hall daydreams.
One project she reviewed included plans for a shopping center that went to extreme measures.
"Those kids went out and researched how much wastewater would be used in toilet flushes at the mall," Ms. Sylo said. "That's the kind of detail that a lot of people don't begin to think about until they're assigned it in college."
Future City started in 1992, and is sponsored and mentored by professional engineering societies and large firms like EDS.
Besides parents and teachers, engineers also volunteer as mentors to lend advice on how to get through all the details to flesh out their plans.
Mark Mihm, an environmental engineer, has mentored the Westwood School team since September and described their effort as fantastic.
"The project evolved over the months, and the students captured a lot of emerging technology that could be applied," Mr. Mihm said.
Tina Sivinski, an executive vice president of human resources at EDS, said her son's involvement on a team isn't the only reason she's interested in Future City.
"The talent in this place is incredible," Ms. Siviniski said. "There are hundreds of would-be engineers here, and they're some of the smartest, hard-working 12- and 13-year-olds you're going to find."
On Saturday, the judges decided the best designs were from students from Kingwood Middle School in Kingwood, Texas. Second place went to Westwood School in Dallas, while North Hills School in Irving took third.
The other finalists were Carpenter Middle School in Plano, Country Day School in Arlington and McLean Middle School in Fort Worth.
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Police: Argument leads to fatal teen shooting
By BERT LOZANO / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - A Saturday night shooting left a 16-year-old WW Samuell High School student dead in a Pleasant Grove neighborhood in southeast Dallas after police said they believe an argument turned deadly.
Homicide investigators have not made any arrests in the shooting, but said they believe the victim and the gunman knew each other.
Neighbors said they heard four gunshots and saw Billy Colbert, a football player at WW Samuell High School, fall into the street.
Colbert had been shot in the chest.
Investigators said a week long argument turned into a fight between Colbert and at least four others at the scene of the shooting.
One suspect left during the fight but returned with a handgun, police said.
"One person returned from the initial confrontation and then was involved in an actual shooting," said Sr. Cpl. Jamie Kimbrough. "This particular suspect shot the victim several times."
The victim's coach, Brian Maulpin, said Colbert was never in trouble at school and that he excelled on the football field and in the classroom as an honor roll student with a 3.5 GPA.
"Like they always say, it's always the good ones and in this case it's true," Maulpin said.
The Dallas Independent School District will have grief counselors at WW Samuell High School Monday for students who are having a hard time coping with the loss.
"I think it's a tragedy myself, but we have to move forward at school and the full impact won't be felt until Monday morning at school," Maulpin said.
Dallas police asked those with any information to call them.
By BERT LOZANO / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - A Saturday night shooting left a 16-year-old WW Samuell High School student dead in a Pleasant Grove neighborhood in southeast Dallas after police said they believe an argument turned deadly.
Homicide investigators have not made any arrests in the shooting, but said they believe the victim and the gunman knew each other.
Neighbors said they heard four gunshots and saw Billy Colbert, a football player at WW Samuell High School, fall into the street.
Colbert had been shot in the chest.
Investigators said a week long argument turned into a fight between Colbert and at least four others at the scene of the shooting.
One suspect left during the fight but returned with a handgun, police said.
"One person returned from the initial confrontation and then was involved in an actual shooting," said Sr. Cpl. Jamie Kimbrough. "This particular suspect shot the victim several times."
The victim's coach, Brian Maulpin, said Colbert was never in trouble at school and that he excelled on the football field and in the classroom as an honor roll student with a 3.5 GPA.
"Like they always say, it's always the good ones and in this case it's true," Maulpin said.
The Dallas Independent School District will have grief counselors at WW Samuell High School Monday for students who are having a hard time coping with the loss.
"I think it's a tragedy myself, but we have to move forward at school and the full impact won't be felt until Monday morning at school," Maulpin said.
Dallas police asked those with any information to call them.
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Father seeks answers in mental institution death
By BYRON HARRIS / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - A year after their son died from blunt-force trauma at a state institution where he said he was being beaten, the parents of Michael Fiala said they still don't know the truth behind his death.
Although Raymond Fiala's son was institutionalized much of the last 15 years, he was often able to visit home and the two talked on the phone almost daily.
And while his son was inside the mental hospital surrounded by barbed wire for dangerous patients before he died, Fiala likes to reflect on better memories with his son.
"I remember just a little bit of everything about him," Fiala said. "We were close, very close."
Out in his backyard, Fiala has vintage tractors from his days selling farm implements.
"That was my son's project," he said pointing to one he and his son were going to rebuild together.
However, now the father has dedicated all his energy to finding justice for his son's death.
"His head was so beat up all over it was unbelievable," Fiala said. "I understand they rushed him to emergency surgery. Blood was leaking on his brain. So when blood hits your brain, you know what happens don't you? It just kills you."
Video obtained from the Dallas Morning News from the mental institution Michael Fiala lived within caught the last moments of his life.
During the night of February 8, 2005 and early next morning, Fiala had been in a so-called quiet room with no furniture and a padded floor.
He had become lethargic, had soiled his pant, was unable to eat and video showed attendants trying to feed him. He passed into unconsciousness and was transported to a hospital.
Fiala was 35-years-old when he died of blunt force trauma to his skull.
Surveillance video from the hospital hallways became a key element in an investigation of his death.
Although the cameras showed no violence, they did show that hospital aide Michael Fontenot entered Fiala's room several times prior to the injury.
A staffer at the institution said "faint hollering" could be heard from Fiala's room.
Mr. Fontenot, now 29, told investigators he followed Michael Fiala into the bedroom because he "had been trying to hit people." Mr. Fontenot said he grabbed Michael's hands to keep him from hitting his roommate, then "redirected" him out of the room and into the quiet room.
APS investigator Gary Chapman concluded that Mr. Fontenot was "not credible."
"The only time Mr. Fiala was alone with a staff is when he is in his bedroom with Michael Fontenot," Mr. Chapman wrote. The timing of the injury meshed with the time Michael was alone with Mr. Fontenot and the size and shape of the bruise on Michael Fiala's abdomen matched the size and shape of a bedpost in the room.
According to an investigation report by Adult Protective Services, provided to The News by the Fiala family, a nurse asked Michael how he felt. He replied: "Michael Fontenot just beat me up."
He's now been charged with manslaughter.
Fiala said his son told him he had been abused on multiple occasions.
According to the APS investigation report, which was completed in May, several nurses noted large, dark bruises on Michael's thighs on Feb. 5. He couldn't explain to the nurses how he got the bruises. A doctor said he didn't suspect abuse.
"He says, 'Daddy, I got to get out of here. I don't belong here. These guys are beating me up," he said.
But what happened to Fiala is a story as complicated as mental illness. Fiala was mildly retarded.
A psychological evaluation obtained by the Dallas Morning News notes he first was put in a mental hospital at the age of 19. While at other state hospitals since 2003, he "committed 158 incidents of assault...kicking, hitting and throwing items such as chairs" at patients and staff.
In 2004 he was declared "manifestly dangerous" and transferred to Vernon where the state's most mental patients are placed.
But Fiala insists that his son was treated badly inside the institution.
"I want to know how they can do so much wrong and get away with it," Fiala said. "That's what I want to know."
Michael Fontenot was given a positive employee evaluation after Fiala's death. He still works at Vernon, but was switched to food service.
He declined to talk to News 8, but his trial is scheduled to begin next week.
The Dallas Morning News' Diane Jennings contributed to this report
By BYRON HARRIS / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - A year after their son died from blunt-force trauma at a state institution where he said he was being beaten, the parents of Michael Fiala said they still don't know the truth behind his death.
Although Raymond Fiala's son was institutionalized much of the last 15 years, he was often able to visit home and the two talked on the phone almost daily.
And while his son was inside the mental hospital surrounded by barbed wire for dangerous patients before he died, Fiala likes to reflect on better memories with his son.
"I remember just a little bit of everything about him," Fiala said. "We were close, very close."
Out in his backyard, Fiala has vintage tractors from his days selling farm implements.
"That was my son's project," he said pointing to one he and his son were going to rebuild together.
However, now the father has dedicated all his energy to finding justice for his son's death.
"His head was so beat up all over it was unbelievable," Fiala said. "I understand they rushed him to emergency surgery. Blood was leaking on his brain. So when blood hits your brain, you know what happens don't you? It just kills you."
Video obtained from the Dallas Morning News from the mental institution Michael Fiala lived within caught the last moments of his life.
During the night of February 8, 2005 and early next morning, Fiala had been in a so-called quiet room with no furniture and a padded floor.
He had become lethargic, had soiled his pant, was unable to eat and video showed attendants trying to feed him. He passed into unconsciousness and was transported to a hospital.
Fiala was 35-years-old when he died of blunt force trauma to his skull.
Surveillance video from the hospital hallways became a key element in an investigation of his death.
Although the cameras showed no violence, they did show that hospital aide Michael Fontenot entered Fiala's room several times prior to the injury.
A staffer at the institution said "faint hollering" could be heard from Fiala's room.
Mr. Fontenot, now 29, told investigators he followed Michael Fiala into the bedroom because he "had been trying to hit people." Mr. Fontenot said he grabbed Michael's hands to keep him from hitting his roommate, then "redirected" him out of the room and into the quiet room.
APS investigator Gary Chapman concluded that Mr. Fontenot was "not credible."
"The only time Mr. Fiala was alone with a staff is when he is in his bedroom with Michael Fontenot," Mr. Chapman wrote. The timing of the injury meshed with the time Michael was alone with Mr. Fontenot and the size and shape of the bruise on Michael Fiala's abdomen matched the size and shape of a bedpost in the room.
According to an investigation report by Adult Protective Services, provided to The News by the Fiala family, a nurse asked Michael how he felt. He replied: "Michael Fontenot just beat me up."
He's now been charged with manslaughter.
Fiala said his son told him he had been abused on multiple occasions.
According to the APS investigation report, which was completed in May, several nurses noted large, dark bruises on Michael's thighs on Feb. 5. He couldn't explain to the nurses how he got the bruises. A doctor said he didn't suspect abuse.
"He says, 'Daddy, I got to get out of here. I don't belong here. These guys are beating me up," he said.
But what happened to Fiala is a story as complicated as mental illness. Fiala was mildly retarded.
A psychological evaluation obtained by the Dallas Morning News notes he first was put in a mental hospital at the age of 19. While at other state hospitals since 2003, he "committed 158 incidents of assault...kicking, hitting and throwing items such as chairs" at patients and staff.
In 2004 he was declared "manifestly dangerous" and transferred to Vernon where the state's most mental patients are placed.
But Fiala insists that his son was treated badly inside the institution.
"I want to know how they can do so much wrong and get away with it," Fiala said. "That's what I want to know."
Michael Fontenot was given a positive employee evaluation after Fiala's death. He still works at Vernon, but was switched to food service.
He declined to talk to News 8, but his trial is scheduled to begin next week.
The Dallas Morning News' Diane Jennings contributed to this report
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News 8 viewers give $106,000 for lupus patient
By DEBBIE DENMON / WFAA ABC 8
After News 8 aired a story on a fundraiser to help raise $75,000 for a lupus patient in need of an experimental surgery, viewers answered generously and she will now receive the surgery.
Kim Freeman, 36, received tender loving care from her children after her most recent heart surgery.
Kim had eight surgeries in 10 years.
"The biggest fear was I wouldn't make it through that surgery," Freeman said of the last one.
Lupus has attacked every one of Freeman's organs except her brain and kidneys, and doctors said her last hope was an experimental treatment called stem cell transfusion.
"I didn't think it was a...long shot, but I didn't think it would happen this fast," Freeman said.
While the fundraiser aimed to pay for the surgery insurance kick started the fund collecting, it was News 8 viewers that donated $106,000 anonymously that insured she would receive the surgery.
"I sure would like to shake their hands or give them hug," Freeman said.
Her husband, Paul, was also appreciative of the donations.
"I want to say thank you for giving our life back," he said.
The surgery has an 80 percent full recovery rate.
"I was like really afraid, because every few days I go into the hospital saying, 'Mommy, I don't want you to die from lupus,'" said daughter Molly Freeman. "But now I know she won't."
Since the $75,000 was raised, the stem cell transfusion is set to take place in Chicago at Northwestern Medical Center.
"I want to be able to go upstairs to their room to play with them and not worry about how long I got before I start feeling too bad," Freeman said.
Freeman said once she gets well she promises to never take advantage of the little things.
WFAA ABC 8
Kim Freeman talks with her two children from her hospital bed after her eighth surgery in 10 years.
By DEBBIE DENMON / WFAA ABC 8
After News 8 aired a story on a fundraiser to help raise $75,000 for a lupus patient in need of an experimental surgery, viewers answered generously and she will now receive the surgery.
Kim Freeman, 36, received tender loving care from her children after her most recent heart surgery.
Kim had eight surgeries in 10 years.
"The biggest fear was I wouldn't make it through that surgery," Freeman said of the last one.
Lupus has attacked every one of Freeman's organs except her brain and kidneys, and doctors said her last hope was an experimental treatment called stem cell transfusion.
"I didn't think it was a...long shot, but I didn't think it would happen this fast," Freeman said.
While the fundraiser aimed to pay for the surgery insurance kick started the fund collecting, it was News 8 viewers that donated $106,000 anonymously that insured she would receive the surgery.
"I sure would like to shake their hands or give them hug," Freeman said.
Her husband, Paul, was also appreciative of the donations.
"I want to say thank you for giving our life back," he said.
The surgery has an 80 percent full recovery rate.
"I was like really afraid, because every few days I go into the hospital saying, 'Mommy, I don't want you to die from lupus,'" said daughter Molly Freeman. "But now I know she won't."
Since the $75,000 was raised, the stem cell transfusion is set to take place in Chicago at Northwestern Medical Center.
"I want to be able to go upstairs to their room to play with them and not worry about how long I got before I start feeling too bad," Freeman said.
Freeman said once she gets well she promises to never take advantage of the little things.

WFAA ABC 8
Kim Freeman talks with her two children from her hospital bed after her eighth surgery in 10 years.
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First lady's anti-gang mission marks first year
Some call her work 'real deal,' while others see need for 'real strategy'
By G. ROBERT HILLMAN and JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
Who would have thought it – Laura Bush taking on the Bloods and the Crips, or any of the other street gangs that prowl the country.
But she has – not in any back-alley brawl, but in her own first lady way – in speeches and round-table forums and conferences, at home and on the road.
A year after Mrs. Bush embarked on the mission given her by her husband, reviews are mixed. Any talent expended on the daunting gang problem is time well spent, some say. Others wonder whether she can have any effect on the gritty world of street gangs in cities such as Dallas without surrounding herself with homeboys.
"I'm a Republican, but I still don't believe that anybody gets it in Washington," said Antonio Montanez, a minister who counsels about 60 vulnerable young people in Pleasant Grove. "They don't understand the level of chaos being created by the gangs."
The first lady's new endeavor was announced by the president during last year's State of the Union address, when he turned to her with a new mandate to "focus on giving young people, especially young men in our cities, better options than apathy, or gangs, or jail."
Her gang mission, he told the packed House chamber and television audience of millions, would be part of a "broader outreach to at-risk youth, which involves parents and pastors, coaches and community leaders, in programs ranging from literacy to sports."
It's a new venture for Mrs. Bush, a former teacher and school librarian who's also raised her profile in the last year with trips to the Middle East and Africa. Her "Helping America's Youth" agenda has generated little of the flash of Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign against drugs, nor any of the roiling controversy of Hillary Clinton's health care initiative.
Still, Mrs. Bush has skeptics along with her supporters.
"I'm supportive of the first lady and President Bush," said Omar Jahwar, executive director of Vision Regeneration, a nonprofit Dallas gang intervention and youth development organization. "But at the same time, it has to be more real strategy."
"It doesn't happen from operating at 30,000 feet and throwing money down," he warned, alluding to her outreach trips around the country aboard an Air Force jet. "You have to get down on the street level."
For a year now, Mrs. Bush has been highlighting programs designed to bolster the nation's youth, particularly boys whom she notes get into much more trouble these days than girls and are more likely to drop out of high school, drink and use drugs.
But she's been listening, she says, and encouraging the kind of innovation she believes can make a difference
Alfonso Herrera, who works on gang issues with the Dallas Independent School District, is waiting. He had attended Mrs. Bush's conference on at-risk youth last October at Washington's Howard University – and came away hopeful after visiting with her.
"Dallas is on the radar for funding," he said. "The greatest thing that this administration could do is to make the money available to programs that work."
In all, the president proposed a three-year, $150 million anti-gang initiative. But he got much less. The administration reallocated the fund's resources to set aside $30 million for the anti-gang grants now being formulated.
"This is not the federal government coming in and solving all the problems, because the federal government can't," said Mrs. Bush's press secretary, Susan Whitson.
Across the country
In the last year, Mrs. Bush has done at least a dozen-and-a-half at-risk youth events across the country, in Washington, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and California, among other states. None, though, was in Texas.
And in Pleasant Grove, Mr. Montanez remains skeptical.
"The majority of the money, if it actually goes out, will go to African-Americans," he suggested. "It's not racism, but the African-Americans are organized and more vocal. We're overlooked."
Mr. Herrera is more optimistic, seeing a consensus building on how to effectively fight the gang problem: One-on-one intervention and mentoring that brings stability to youths who have little of that in their home lives.
"It's one thing to lock someone up three times," he said. "The money should be spent on prevention to keep them out of trouble."
Regardless of the effort, though, little of the first lady's good will filters down to gang members on the streets, said Antong Lucky, 29, who helped bring the Bloods to Dallas about 15 years ago.
To hard-core gangsters, the State of the Union is just a prime-time interruption, he said.
"I'm vaguely aware of [the president's initiative], and I'm paying attention," said Mr. Lucky, who's been shot, done drive-bys and seen countless friends and family die or go to jail because of gangs. He was released from prison in 2000 after four years for an array of drug and other charges and is trying to mentor gang members on ways to get out.
"It's a speech that sounds good to the public," he said, "but the message won't make it far."
Police response
Those on the front lines of law enforcement, though, see the new attention as aiding police, although not the thrust of Mrs. Bush's efforts.
"If the president is making comments about his concern about youths and gangs, I can't see how it wouldn't trickle down to people who are paying attention," said Dallas police gang Sgt. Mark Langford. "In the past year, we've had significant help and assistance from the federal agencies" including the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
"They've made a real concerted effort to provide us with manpower and equipment," he said.
On Oct. 27, as Mrs. Bush hosted her Helping America's Youth conference in Washington, 70 local, state and federal law enforcement officers coincidentally flooded north Oak Cliff, serving warrants on gang members.
In Los Angeles, the Rev. Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, which Mrs. Bush visited last spring, called her "the real deal," an effective advocate eager to learn more about the complicated issues surrounding youth at risk.
But he cautions that progress on such issues occurs slowly, "inches at a time."
"It's not like, now here comes the government money," he said. "Nobody has ever suggested that. And I certainly haven't expected that."
Little attention
Underscoring the difficulty in sometimes simply gaining attention for her initiative, Mrs. Bush had a tough time garnering much national press for her one-day forum in Washington. White House counsel Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court that same day, overshadowing everything else.
And Fred Greenstein, the professor of politics at Princeton University who's long studied the presidency, noted that Hurricane Katrina had earlier sent the White House scrambling for weeks to refashion its agenda.
"It's something good to say in the State of the Union message," he said of the first lady's new mission. "But I think it gets pushed side when you got Katrina."
In short, he said, looking back a year: "I don't think anyone is keeping score in Peoria."
Some call her work 'real deal,' while others see need for 'real strategy'
By G. ROBERT HILLMAN and JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
Who would have thought it – Laura Bush taking on the Bloods and the Crips, or any of the other street gangs that prowl the country.
But she has – not in any back-alley brawl, but in her own first lady way – in speeches and round-table forums and conferences, at home and on the road.
A year after Mrs. Bush embarked on the mission given her by her husband, reviews are mixed. Any talent expended on the daunting gang problem is time well spent, some say. Others wonder whether she can have any effect on the gritty world of street gangs in cities such as Dallas without surrounding herself with homeboys.
"I'm a Republican, but I still don't believe that anybody gets it in Washington," said Antonio Montanez, a minister who counsels about 60 vulnerable young people in Pleasant Grove. "They don't understand the level of chaos being created by the gangs."
The first lady's new endeavor was announced by the president during last year's State of the Union address, when he turned to her with a new mandate to "focus on giving young people, especially young men in our cities, better options than apathy, or gangs, or jail."
Her gang mission, he told the packed House chamber and television audience of millions, would be part of a "broader outreach to at-risk youth, which involves parents and pastors, coaches and community leaders, in programs ranging from literacy to sports."
It's a new venture for Mrs. Bush, a former teacher and school librarian who's also raised her profile in the last year with trips to the Middle East and Africa. Her "Helping America's Youth" agenda has generated little of the flash of Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign against drugs, nor any of the roiling controversy of Hillary Clinton's health care initiative.
Still, Mrs. Bush has skeptics along with her supporters.
"I'm supportive of the first lady and President Bush," said Omar Jahwar, executive director of Vision Regeneration, a nonprofit Dallas gang intervention and youth development organization. "But at the same time, it has to be more real strategy."
"It doesn't happen from operating at 30,000 feet and throwing money down," he warned, alluding to her outreach trips around the country aboard an Air Force jet. "You have to get down on the street level."
For a year now, Mrs. Bush has been highlighting programs designed to bolster the nation's youth, particularly boys whom she notes get into much more trouble these days than girls and are more likely to drop out of high school, drink and use drugs.
But she's been listening, she says, and encouraging the kind of innovation she believes can make a difference
Alfonso Herrera, who works on gang issues with the Dallas Independent School District, is waiting. He had attended Mrs. Bush's conference on at-risk youth last October at Washington's Howard University – and came away hopeful after visiting with her.
"Dallas is on the radar for funding," he said. "The greatest thing that this administration could do is to make the money available to programs that work."
In all, the president proposed a three-year, $150 million anti-gang initiative. But he got much less. The administration reallocated the fund's resources to set aside $30 million for the anti-gang grants now being formulated.
"This is not the federal government coming in and solving all the problems, because the federal government can't," said Mrs. Bush's press secretary, Susan Whitson.
Across the country
In the last year, Mrs. Bush has done at least a dozen-and-a-half at-risk youth events across the country, in Washington, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and California, among other states. None, though, was in Texas.
And in Pleasant Grove, Mr. Montanez remains skeptical.
"The majority of the money, if it actually goes out, will go to African-Americans," he suggested. "It's not racism, but the African-Americans are organized and more vocal. We're overlooked."
Mr. Herrera is more optimistic, seeing a consensus building on how to effectively fight the gang problem: One-on-one intervention and mentoring that brings stability to youths who have little of that in their home lives.
"It's one thing to lock someone up three times," he said. "The money should be spent on prevention to keep them out of trouble."
Regardless of the effort, though, little of the first lady's good will filters down to gang members on the streets, said Antong Lucky, 29, who helped bring the Bloods to Dallas about 15 years ago.
To hard-core gangsters, the State of the Union is just a prime-time interruption, he said.
"I'm vaguely aware of [the president's initiative], and I'm paying attention," said Mr. Lucky, who's been shot, done drive-bys and seen countless friends and family die or go to jail because of gangs. He was released from prison in 2000 after four years for an array of drug and other charges and is trying to mentor gang members on ways to get out.
"It's a speech that sounds good to the public," he said, "but the message won't make it far."
Police response
Those on the front lines of law enforcement, though, see the new attention as aiding police, although not the thrust of Mrs. Bush's efforts.
"If the president is making comments about his concern about youths and gangs, I can't see how it wouldn't trickle down to people who are paying attention," said Dallas police gang Sgt. Mark Langford. "In the past year, we've had significant help and assistance from the federal agencies" including the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
"They've made a real concerted effort to provide us with manpower and equipment," he said.
On Oct. 27, as Mrs. Bush hosted her Helping America's Youth conference in Washington, 70 local, state and federal law enforcement officers coincidentally flooded north Oak Cliff, serving warrants on gang members.
In Los Angeles, the Rev. Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, which Mrs. Bush visited last spring, called her "the real deal," an effective advocate eager to learn more about the complicated issues surrounding youth at risk.
But he cautions that progress on such issues occurs slowly, "inches at a time."
"It's not like, now here comes the government money," he said. "Nobody has ever suggested that. And I certainly haven't expected that."
Little attention
Underscoring the difficulty in sometimes simply gaining attention for her initiative, Mrs. Bush had a tough time garnering much national press for her one-day forum in Washington. White House counsel Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court that same day, overshadowing everything else.
And Fred Greenstein, the professor of politics at Princeton University who's long studied the presidency, noted that Hurricane Katrina had earlier sent the White House scrambling for weeks to refashion its agenda.
"It's something good to say in the State of the Union message," he said of the first lady's new mission. "But I think it gets pushed side when you got Katrina."
In short, he said, looking back a year: "I don't think anyone is keeping score in Peoria."
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'Dirty 30' upstarts on state ballot again
By GROMER JEFFERS JR. / The Dallas Morning News
Appalled by corruption, a mixed group of reform-minded Texans rises up and, against all odds, defeats the powers that be.
It's a story line from the 1970s, but some of the players are hoping for a repeat more than three decades later.
Several former Democratic state House members who were part of the anti-corruption group called the "Dirty 30" are running for statewide office. Former Texas Supreme Court Justice Bob Gammage, a candidate for governor, tops the Dirty 30 ticket. Joining him are former District Judge Ben Z. Grant, who is running for lieutenant governor, and Fred Head, who is running for comptroller.
Republicans say the group's portrayal of widespread wrongdoing is absurd, and they note that a 1970s revival shows how Democrats are bereft of strong candidates. But the Democratic crusaders have brought new attention to a group of legislators whose exploits had nearly faded from the political scene.
"They threw a speaker of the House out before, and half the House and half the Senate out before, when the Dirty 30 focused the light of day on what was going on," Mr. Gammage said. "If I can help focus attention on what's going on in Austin today, that's my mission."
The 1970s group was an unlikely coalition of big-city liberals, minority lawmakers and conservative Republicans who united in 1971 to challenge House Speaker Gus Mutscher, who had been implicated in the Sharpstown banking scandal.
Despite their diverse backgrounds, members said, they were thrown together by idealism about how lawmakers should behave.
"We all were committed to bringing about reform," said Frances "Sissy" Farenthold, a Houston human-rights activist who helped hold the Dirty 30 together. "We had a very strong coalition."
The scandal
The Sharpstown scandal is an essential part of Texas political lore.
It involved charges that Mr. Mutscher, a Democrat, and other lawmakers were given special deals on insurance stocks in exchange for pushing two bills that would have allowed the state to insure Texas bank deposits. Houston banker and real estate developer Frank Sharp, whose Sharpstown bank had run into trouble with federal regulators, backed the bills.
The Dirty 30 group got its ironic name after a vote on a resolution sponsored by Ms. Farenthold that called for an internal investigation of Mr. Mutscher. When the 30 legislators supported the resolution, a lobbyist in the House gallery called them "those 30 dirty bastards."
They paid a price, as Mr. Mutscher blocked their legislation. But they were ultimately proved right – Mr. Mutscher resigned the speaker's post at the end of the 1971 session, after which he was charged with conspiring to accept a bribe. He was convicted and sentenced to five years' probation.
Then and now
After Mr. Mutscher's resignation, lawmakers chose Democrat Rayford Price as their new speaker. But in 1972, Texas voters responded to the scandal by tossing 76 veteran lawmakers out of office. Among those was Mr. Price, who lost to Mr. Head after the Dirty 30 moved into his district to challenge him.
The new lawmakers enacted several laws governing public officials, including requirements to disclose more about their income and campaign donations. Current House Speaker Tom Craddick, a Dirty 30 member, said such measures changed the Legislature in ways still seen today.
"It was a totally different era," the Midland Republican said. "Things were a lot different than they are today."
But Rep. Paul Moreno, a Dirty 30 member also still in the House, said the Legislature and the leadership that Mr. Gammage and his cohorts are targeting resemble those of the Dirty 30 era.
The El Paso Democrat said that just as liberals didn't have a strong voice in 1971, the minority party is shut out in the Craddick-run House.
"What Tom Craddick is doing now are some of the things the Dirty 30 would have opposed," Mr. Moreno said.
Mr. Craddick countered: "There is no comparison."
Mr. Gammage draws the parallel in his campaign.
"The lobby ran rampant through the halls of the Legislature and ran roughshod over the public interest," he said during a stop in Dallas. "It's doing that today. It owns the state capital of Texas, and we have to take it back."
Still significant?
But he faces a debate on the relevance of the Dirty 30 within his own party as he takes on former U.S. Rep. Chris Bell for the nomination for governor.
"If everybody who ever heard of the Dirty 30 voted for Bob Gammage, Chris Bell would still be the winner of the Democratic primary," said Jason Stanford, a spokesman for Mr. Bell. "It's hard to base a campaign on a history lesson."
And Ms. Farenthold, the group's den mother, is backing Mr. Bell over Mr. Gammage. Mr. Moreno, though, supports his former colleague.
"Just as the Dirty 30 bonded long ago, we need to rally behind Bob Gammage," he said. "We were needed then, and we're needed now."
And Mr. Head, who was in Hurst this weekend for a candidate forum, said the ticket's long odds could work in the Democrats' favor.
After all, he noted, "Texans love an underdog."
By GROMER JEFFERS JR. / The Dallas Morning News
Appalled by corruption, a mixed group of reform-minded Texans rises up and, against all odds, defeats the powers that be.
It's a story line from the 1970s, but some of the players are hoping for a repeat more than three decades later.
Several former Democratic state House members who were part of the anti-corruption group called the "Dirty 30" are running for statewide office. Former Texas Supreme Court Justice Bob Gammage, a candidate for governor, tops the Dirty 30 ticket. Joining him are former District Judge Ben Z. Grant, who is running for lieutenant governor, and Fred Head, who is running for comptroller.
Republicans say the group's portrayal of widespread wrongdoing is absurd, and they note that a 1970s revival shows how Democrats are bereft of strong candidates. But the Democratic crusaders have brought new attention to a group of legislators whose exploits had nearly faded from the political scene.
"They threw a speaker of the House out before, and half the House and half the Senate out before, when the Dirty 30 focused the light of day on what was going on," Mr. Gammage said. "If I can help focus attention on what's going on in Austin today, that's my mission."
The 1970s group was an unlikely coalition of big-city liberals, minority lawmakers and conservative Republicans who united in 1971 to challenge House Speaker Gus Mutscher, who had been implicated in the Sharpstown banking scandal.
Despite their diverse backgrounds, members said, they were thrown together by idealism about how lawmakers should behave.
"We all were committed to bringing about reform," said Frances "Sissy" Farenthold, a Houston human-rights activist who helped hold the Dirty 30 together. "We had a very strong coalition."
The scandal
The Sharpstown scandal is an essential part of Texas political lore.
It involved charges that Mr. Mutscher, a Democrat, and other lawmakers were given special deals on insurance stocks in exchange for pushing two bills that would have allowed the state to insure Texas bank deposits. Houston banker and real estate developer Frank Sharp, whose Sharpstown bank had run into trouble with federal regulators, backed the bills.
The Dirty 30 group got its ironic name after a vote on a resolution sponsored by Ms. Farenthold that called for an internal investigation of Mr. Mutscher. When the 30 legislators supported the resolution, a lobbyist in the House gallery called them "those 30 dirty bastards."
They paid a price, as Mr. Mutscher blocked their legislation. But they were ultimately proved right – Mr. Mutscher resigned the speaker's post at the end of the 1971 session, after which he was charged with conspiring to accept a bribe. He was convicted and sentenced to five years' probation.
Then and now
After Mr. Mutscher's resignation, lawmakers chose Democrat Rayford Price as their new speaker. But in 1972, Texas voters responded to the scandal by tossing 76 veteran lawmakers out of office. Among those was Mr. Price, who lost to Mr. Head after the Dirty 30 moved into his district to challenge him.
The new lawmakers enacted several laws governing public officials, including requirements to disclose more about their income and campaign donations. Current House Speaker Tom Craddick, a Dirty 30 member, said such measures changed the Legislature in ways still seen today.
"It was a totally different era," the Midland Republican said. "Things were a lot different than they are today."
But Rep. Paul Moreno, a Dirty 30 member also still in the House, said the Legislature and the leadership that Mr. Gammage and his cohorts are targeting resemble those of the Dirty 30 era.
The El Paso Democrat said that just as liberals didn't have a strong voice in 1971, the minority party is shut out in the Craddick-run House.
"What Tom Craddick is doing now are some of the things the Dirty 30 would have opposed," Mr. Moreno said.
Mr. Craddick countered: "There is no comparison."
Mr. Gammage draws the parallel in his campaign.
"The lobby ran rampant through the halls of the Legislature and ran roughshod over the public interest," he said during a stop in Dallas. "It's doing that today. It owns the state capital of Texas, and we have to take it back."
Still significant?
But he faces a debate on the relevance of the Dirty 30 within his own party as he takes on former U.S. Rep. Chris Bell for the nomination for governor.
"If everybody who ever heard of the Dirty 30 voted for Bob Gammage, Chris Bell would still be the winner of the Democratic primary," said Jason Stanford, a spokesman for Mr. Bell. "It's hard to base a campaign on a history lesson."
And Ms. Farenthold, the group's den mother, is backing Mr. Bell over Mr. Gammage. Mr. Moreno, though, supports his former colleague.
"Just as the Dirty 30 bonded long ago, we need to rally behind Bob Gammage," he said. "We were needed then, and we're needed now."
And Mr. Head, who was in Hurst this weekend for a candidate forum, said the ticket's long odds could work in the Democrats' favor.
After all, he noted, "Texans love an underdog."
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