Waco area under wind advisory
The National Weather Service has issued a wind advisory until 6 pm for all of North Texas, including Waco and surrounding counties. Winds from the north to northwest of 25 to 30 mph are expected, with stronger gusts during daylight hours.
Home > Waco Breaking News > Archives > 2008 > September > 02
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Hippodrome “Tuna” performances postponed until January
Austin actors Joe Sears and Jaston Williams, best known for their two-man comedies about fictional Tuna, Texas, have postponed their Waco Hippodrome Theatre performances of “Tuna Does Vegas!” this month to January, 2009, after Hurricane Gustav forced cancellations of the production’s September performances in cities near the Gulf Coast.
Waco Performing Arts Company executive director Scott Baker said the Tuna company asked the Waco theater today to postpone its Sept. 12-14 Hippodrome stop to avoid compounding financial problems caused by canceled shows in Lafayette, La., Orange and Galveston due to the approaching hurricane.
Baker said the Waco dates would be rescheduled in January in a similar Friday-through-Sunday time frame to minimize disruptions for ticket-holders. Almost 1,900 tickets had been sold for the five “Tuna Does Vegas!” performances and the Hippodrome box office staff will begin contacting those buyers with refund information.
The WPAC director expected to discuss specific rescheduled dates and refund procedure with the Austin production company Wednesday morning. Those wishing ticket refund information may call the Hippodrome box office at 752-9797.
For more information, see Carl Hoover’s blog entry.
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Wiley school group won’t pursue lawsuit
The G.L. Wiley Middle School supporters calling themselves Fighting to Save the Children have decided not to continue with their lawsuit against the Waco Independent School District.
“We thought that the fight to keep Wiley open was noble, but we thought it was a far more noble thing to let the children of Wiley get back to normal,” said spokesman for the group, Rev. Delvin Atchison.
“We intend to continue to engage the school board on the future of Wiley,” Atchison said. “We still want a school in East Waco.”
Atchison said the group intends to peacefully protest the closing of Wiley outside the Waco ISD administration building from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. every Friday until the school board election in May.The group also plans to be active in the school board election process.
State District Judge Jim Meyer on Friday denied the temporary injunction that would have kept the school open while two Wiley families and an East Waco support group pressed a lawsuit against the Waco school district.
WISD trustees voted Aug. 7 to close the school, which for five years was labeled unacceptable by the state and which had dwindling enrollment.
Wiley supporters got a temporary injunction that kept the school open for a week, but Meyer’s ruling — and an Aug. 23 vote by WISD again to shut it down — resulted in students beginning their second school week at different campuses around Waco.
Atchison said something positive that came from the fight for Wiley is the rallying by leaders of the community to get involved in the school system.
“There was an awakening of a sense of unity and community around Wiley,” Atchison said.
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Singer/actor Jerry Reed dies; co-starred in ‘Smokey and the Bandit’ films
Jerry Reed, the singer/actor perhaps best known as Burt Reynolds’ truck-driving sidekick in Smokey and the Bandit (for which Reed also wrote and sang the main theme, “East Bound and Down”), has died at 71 of complications from emphysema.
A gifted guitarist who worked with Chet Atkins, Reed wrote songs for Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Tom Jones, Nat King Cole and others before becoming a preformer in his own right in the early ’70s. Other hits included “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot,” “Amos Moses” and “The Bird.”
Here’s Reed singing “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot” at a concert in Toledo, Ohio, in 1983.
The Associated Press has more.
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Coble trial update: Prosecutors cross-examine sister
A good portion of the remainder of this morning’s testimony in the retrial of convicted murderer Billie Wayne Coble centered on cross-examination of the defendant’s sister, Mary Coble Ivey Oller.
District Attorney John Segrest disputed many of Oller’s assertions about her younger brother, such her testimony that Coble was despondent about the failure of his marriages and felt he was the victim in those breakups.
Segrest displayed police photographs of each of the three ex-wives showing their bruises after being battered by Coble. That was the reason the marriages fell apart, Segrest said.
He also asked Oller why she didn’t recall occasions that Coble made inappropriate gestures and later forced himself on her daughter at a family gathering. Segrest also shot down her comments about Coble’s civic involvement, saying that those trips of taking children to the lake enabled him to molest girls.
Oller also testified that she went with Coble to spy on his second wife, and saw her cheating on him with another man. Oller said Coble asked her to come along so he had proof of his wife’s infidelity.
Segrest also questioned what Oller knew about her brother’s kidnapping charge in his abduction of third wife, Karen Vicha, prior to the killings. Coble hid in Vicha’s car and surprised her, brandishing a knife, Segrest said.
“I knew he wanted to talk with her,” Oller replied. “I didn’t know about the knife.”
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Jacksonville tackle shot, in critical condition
The NFL season gets under way this week, but the news out of Jacksonville today is that offensive tackle Richard Collier was shot and critically wounded outside an apartment building early today.
Collier and a former Jacksonville teammate waited for two women they had met at a nightclub, police said.
Collier, 26, and former Jaguars defensive end Kenneth Pettway were waiting in a Cadillac Escalade when a gunman fired into the vehicle, said Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office spokesman Ken Jefferson. Collier was shot several times, but it wasn’t clear where he was hit.
Collier was in critical condition at Shands Jacksonville Medical Center, a nursing supervisor said early today. Later, spokesman Chris Turner said the hospital was no longer giving updates on Collier’s condition. There are a variety of reasons that can happen, such as a request by relatives.
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Brothers admit plundering corpses in Philadelphia
Two brothers who ran a Philadelphia funeral home have pleaded guilty to selling corpses to a company that trafficked in stolen body parts.
Louis and Gerald Garzone pleaded guilty today in Philadelphia to charges including conspiracy, theft and abuse of corpse. The pleas came on the day their trial was to begin.
The mastermind of the scheme, Michael Mastromarino, pleaded guilty Friday to hundred of charges that could send him to prison for life.
Mastromarino’s company took bodies from funeral homes in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania and carved them up without families’ permission and without medical tests. Among the corpses plundered was that of “Masterpiece Theatre” host Alistair Cooke.
— Associated Press
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U.S. probe finds fewer Afghan deaths than U.N. claimed
A U.S. investigation into U.N. and Afghan allegations that dozens of civilians were killed during an operation in a small village found today that up to seven civilians died but that the overwhelming majority of the dead were Taliban.
An Afghan government commission concluded that 90 civilians were killed in the Aug. 22 fighting in Azizabad — a claim backed by a preliminary U.N. report. The U.S. report today said 30 to 35 of those killed were Taliban fighters.
The civilian death claims in Azizabad has caused new friction between President Hamid Karzai and his Western supporters. Karzai has long castigated Western military commanders over civilian deaths resulting from their raids.
The U.S. report said American and Afghan forces took fire from militants while approaching Azizabad. The incoming fire “justified use of well-aimed small-arms fire and close air support to defend the combined force,” the report said.
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Coble’s sister testifies at trial
The older sister of Billie Wayne Coble trial told 54th State District Court jurors this morning that her brother returned from Vietnam a far darker person than he had been before he left.
The defense began calling witnesses today in the retrial of Coble, 59, whose punishment for killing his estranged wife’s parents, Robert and Zelda Vicha, and her brother, Waco police Sgt. Bobby Vicha, in August 1989 is being determined again because his death sentence was overturned by a federal appeals court.
Mary Coble Ivey Oller, 63, testified about their upbringing. They grew up in Waco, but their father died in a workplace accident before Billie was born, she said.
Their mother remarried quickly, but the new stepfather was an alcoholic who never held jobs long, she said. They grew up in a two-room house at 12th and Dutton streets.
She described her mother as only smiling twice and then dealing with mental issues. Their mother didn’t remember having children and didn’t know them, Oller testified.
Because of their mother’s mental state, Mary and Billie went to live at the Corsicana State Home and Austin State School.
On Coble’s 17th birthday he enlisted in Marines. He turned 18 while on board a ship to Vietnam.
Mary Oller teared up as she talked about her once happy-go-lucky, always smiling and bubbly brother changing in even in letters he wrote from Vietnam. “He just didn’t show his happy personality in his letters,” she said.
That continued when he returned after the war, she said.
“He would always give me a big hug and always a big smile, and that wasn’t there anymore,” she said under questioning from defense attorney Russ Hunt Jr.
He had been active in the community as a member of the Waco Jaycees and a peewee football coach, she said. He even had an entry in a book titled “Outstanding Young Men of America,” she recalled.
Coble had moved in with her after he separated from Karen Vicha, but a few days before the killings he began to get more withdrawn and depressed, acting similar to their mother during her mental breakdown, she said.
Once he was looking in the basement for their dog Scruffy, a dog long since dead, she said.
The Saturday before the Aug. 29 killings (a Tuesday), Coble began throwing out a lot of his belongings, including the “Outstanding Young Men of America” book.
Oller said Coble tossed his truck keys to her and said, “If anything happens, the truck is yours.” She was afraid he was going to take his life, she testified.
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Bush to address convention via satellite
The Republican National Convention is back on track todays after a pause for Hurricane Gustav, giving President Bush a prime-time speaking slot to promote John McCain’s candidacy for the White House.
Former Democrat Joe Lieberman and TV star and former Sen. Fred Thompson also got speaking roles, the Associated Press reported.
Bush had been in line to speak to the convention in person Monday night but instead went to Texas to be with disaster workers as Gustav threatened the Gulf.
Republicans also were distracted by the revelation that McCain running mate Sarah Palin’s unmarried 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. That news seems to stirring quite a debate in online realms as well as fodder for news programs and tabloids, like the New York Post, whose top story is about the father of the child.
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TD10 now Tropical Storm Josephine
The 10 am advisory from the National Hurricane Center has upgraded Tropical Depression Ten, south of the Cape Verde Islands, to Tropical Storm Josephine. It’s still a long way out and stands a good chance of being a “fish storm,” curving back out to sea.
The one to keep an eye on is Tropical Storm Ike, whose forecast track puts it into position to move into the Gulf of Mexico next week.
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‘That announcer guy’ dies
You may not know the face, but you’ve definitely heard the voice of Don LaFontaine, who did more than 5,000 movie trailers and was seen and heard during this Geico insurance commercial as “that announcer guy.” He died Monday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications from a collapsed lung, ETOnline reported.
He had a voice you can’t forget. LaFontaine was 68. You can find out more about him at his Web site.
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Near-drowning in Lake Whitney hospitalizes 17-year-old girl
A 17-year-old girl was hospitalized after nearly drowning in Lake Whitney Monday.
Gisela Vizuedh was swimming in the lake near Loafer’s Bend with her mother and other family members, said Larry Armstrong, a patrol lieutenant with the Hill County Sheriff’s office. Her mother, Macrina Vizuedh, 40, slipped into a deeper section of water while attempting to swim to a sand bar in the lake. Gisela tried to save her mother, but also was pulled under by water currents.
Armstrong said boaters preparing to leave the sand bar heard the women hollering and pulled them out of the water.
Macrina Vizuedh was treated at Lake Whitney Medical Center. Gisela was airlifted to a local hospital. Armstrong said he did not know where the girl had been sent for treatment or her current condition.
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New Orleans mayor asks evacuees to wait
Anxious evacuees scattered across the country clamored to come home today after their city was largely spared by Hurricane Gustav, but Mayor Ray Nagin warned they may have to wait in shelters and motels a few days longer.
The city’s improved levee system helped avert a disaster like Hurricane Katrina, which flooded most of the city, and officials got an assist from a disorganized and weakened Gustav, which came ashore about 72 miles southwest of the city Monday morning. Eight deaths were attributed to the storm in the U.S. after it killed at least 94 people across the Caribbean.
But New Orleans was still a city that took a glancing blow from a hurricane: A mandatory evacuation order and curfew remained in effect. Electric crews started work on restoring power to the nearly 80,000 homes in New Orleans — and more than 1 million in the region — that remained without power after the storm damaged transmission lines that snapped like rubber bands in the wind and knocked 35 substations out of service.
— Associated Press
In the photograph above, Richard Voisin, 47, checks on the damage to his collapsed trailer that was destroyed during the height of Hurricane Gustav Monday in Houma, La. Voisin and his sister escaped the collapsed trailer just before the roof caved in. (AP photo/Houston Chronicle by Brett Coomer)
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Woman killed this morning while trying to cross I-35 in Lacy-Lakeview
A woman was struck and killed by a pickup truck on Interstate 35 early Tuesday as she attempted to cross the highway.
Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Frank McKinney said the driver of a 2005 Nissan pickup was headed northbound on I-35 near the Craven Avenue exit at 4:19 a.m. when he struck the pedestrian. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene, McKinney said. He said the driver had not seen the woman.
“That time of morning, the lighting is not very good, and when you have a vehicle traveling at interstate speeds and there’s a pedestrian attempting to cross the interstate, it’s not a good situation,” McKinney said.
The victim has not yet been identified.
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To the east lies Hanna, Ike and another storm
Those folks at The Weather Channel and National Hurricane Center are going to be plenty busy this week. While Gustav continues to degrade, there’s Hurricane Hanna drenching the southeastern Bahamas along with the Turks and Caicos Islands.
The hurricane could hit the southeast United States later in the week.
And then there’s Tropical Storm Ike headed toward the Caribbean while another tropical depression emerged as a new threat in the Atlantic, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
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So what will Gustav bring our way?
Good morning, Waco. Many of us probably spent at least part of Labor Day checking out the latest reports and coverage of Gustav’s landfall in Louisiana. For those who evacuated those areas as well as Southeast Texas, now comes the wait of when they can return home.
It doesn’t appear that Gustav will be much of a rainmaker for us, however, there’s a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms today. Otherwise, it’ll be mostly cloudy, with a high near 91 degrees. The forecast calls for a north wind between 15 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph.
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