|
Brazoria County Year in Review
Published December 25, 2005
January
4 — Police arrest a Bay City man charged with capital murder, 17 days after the bodies of his parents were found. Justin Wayne Smith, 25, was arrested outside Ruidoso, N.M. His wife, Elizabeth, 20, and 9-month-old daughter also were found unharmed. Elizabeth later also was charged with murder in the deaths of her in-laws.
5 — Burglars strike the home of a national guardsman preparing to leave for Iraq. The family of Sgt. Vivian Casiano returns from ceremonies marking his unit’s departure to find the front door kicked in and more than $2,000 in tools, yard equipment and home entertainment gear gone.
5 — Doors to the new $8.375 million Velasco Elementary are flung open for business, marking the first new school completed under the $128.5 million bond issue Brazosport ISD voters approved in September 2002.
10 — Angleton ISD students and staff enjoys the $4.5 million addition to the Early Childhood Campus funded by $26 million in bonds approved by voters in 1999.
11 — Three masked men hold a Freeport woman at gunpoint, searching her house while her three young children are inside, but injuring no one.
12 — Federal regulators cleared the final permitting obstacle for developers of a liquefied natural gas terminal on Quintana Island.
18 — An 11-year-old Passmore Elementary sixth-grader shot himself in the leg after a .22-caliber gun he brought to school accidentally discharges as he sits at his desk. The boy faced criminal charges and expulsion from school.
30 — A Lake Jackson widow turns herself in on a charge of criminally negligent homicide. Police said she gave her 58-year-old husband a sherry enema in May 2004, causing him to die after his blood alcohol level surged to 0.47 percent, court documents state. Tammy Jean Warner, 42, also was charged with burning her husband’s will a month before his death.
Feburary
1 — A Manvel couple is arrested on obscenity charges after authorities say they found pictures from a swingers group on a laptop the wife had on loan from Alvin Community College.
4 — A 10-year-old Pearland boy repeats as the Brazoria County Spelling Bee champ and is chosen to compete in the Houston competition. Anjay Ajodha would eventually compete in the national competition in Washington, D.C., for the second time.
9 — A Lake Jackson man died in a fire that scorched the inside of a one-story home on Fairground Lane in Angleton. Joseph Michael Jordan, 49, was trapped in the living room and died at the scene.
10 — About 18 Surfside Beach residents were left homeless and a 28-year-old business was destroyed after fire consumed the Village Motel and Grocery. No one was injured in the blaze, but the building was a total loss.
14 — A Lake Jackson man already serving a six-year prison sentence for criminally negligent homicide pleaded guilty to charges of driving while intoxicated and unlawfully carrying a weapon. Mark Douglas Montana, who ran M&M Financial until federal agents seized the business after allegations he stole money from clients, was sentenced to time served on the DWI and weapons charges.
21 — No one was hurt when flames ripped through the Family Dollar store in Freeport, forcing the evacuation of the Four Corners shopping center and closing the Family Dollar, Palais Royal and the CVS pharmacy.
23 — Columbia High School student Terrence Lynn James, 18, was arrested on a felony charge of assault on a public servant, six misdemeanor charges of unlawful restraint and a misdemeanor assault charge, after an attempted bus-jacking. The unlawful restraint charges later were elevated to felonies. Bus driver Heather Jeane told deputies a man tried to take over her bus, which had five students on board.
March
3 — Braselton Construction Co., the general contractor for the new Lake Jackson fire station, defaulted on its $2.57 million contract with the city, leaving officials unsure when the project will be completed.
4 — Michael Almaraz, 24, and Dexter Chapa, 18, are arrested on murder charges about three months after 27-year-old Delancy Jay Ambern was found shot to death in the 1400 block of Stockwell in Damon.
8 — A Louisiana man convicted of threatening the life of his ex-wife and State District Judge Randall Hufstetler was sentenced to 10 — years in prison. Simeon Lebleu, 44, of Lake Charles received the maximum sentence for threatening to put a stick of dynamite in Hufstetler’s mouth.
14 — Alvin ISD becomes the first district to institute random drug testing of students.
17 — The bitterness surrounding the site of a new junior high school for Columbia-Brazoria ISD surfaced again with a lawsuit filed to keep the school from being built on land donated by the city of Brazoria. West Columbia resident Matthew Paine contends the city acted illegally when it gave the land to the school district and claims two school board members who voted to accept the donation violated conflict of interest statutes.
18 — A Clute police officer suspected of stealing cocaine from the department’s evidence locker was arrested at the station while on duty. Bryan Burkhalter, 39, of West Columbia was charged with tampering with physical evidence, a third-degree felony. He was fired upon his arrest.
24 — Fourteen people were confirmed dead and more than 70 company employees injured in an explosion at the BP refinery in Texas City.
26 — Army Specialist Robert Tipp Jr., 20, of Lake Jackson dies Easter Sunday in an all-terrain vehicle accident days after he returned home unscathed from Baghdad.
April
1 — Containers of essentials destined for the island of Nias, Indonesia, are loaded at World in Need, an Angleton-based charity. An earthquake caused further damage to an area ravaged late in 2004 by a tsunami that killed tens of thousands of people.
1 — The new Angleton Recreation Center, which features a pool, gym, exercise area and meeting rooms, officially opens to the public. Residents gather at the 35,000-square-foot building for a ceremony and ribbon-cutting.
7 — The man who represents District B for Alvin is kicked off City Council in a court-like hearing of council members. Dick Tyson’s dismissal from the seat he’s held since 1997 comes after a $1,200 fine assessed by the city’s Board of Ethics and Compliance for ethics violations was not paid directly to the city by a March 17 deadline.
15 — Texas Parks and Wildlife game wardens shoot a
3-foot, 1-inch alligator that had been lurking in a bayou behind the Bar X Ranch neighborhood.
18 — Capt. Doug Johnston and his friend, Donnie Fisher, are riding along Surfside Beach when they spot a dolphin that has beached itself. Johnston quickly has his wife call the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network, which picks up the dolphin and takes it to Galveston to be nursed back to health. Johnston names the dolphin “Lucky.”
28 — Sheriff’s deputies shut down a Clute eight-liner parlor, Jackpot Junction, for the second time in 27 months and arrest owner Phil Hurley on misdemeanor gambling charges after undercover officers on more than one occasion received cash winnings of $100 for playing the games that resemble slot machines. Hurley said he suspected two employees were giving out cash prizes and says he has already fired one of the employees.
May
3 — Searchers find the body of drowned fisherman Joseph Apostolo of Liverpool near San Luis Pass. Apostolo was an avid fisherman and was wade fishing near Bird Island in West Bay at the time of his disappearance. His daughter, Joyce Walker, said that, while tragic, the family takes comfort in the way Apostolo died. “When they found him, he had a fishing rod in his hand and a line full of fish,” Walker said. “His friends said he must have died a happy man.”
11 — A report released by the Environmental Protection Agency shows Brazoria County remains ranked eighth in the country for chemical emissions in 2003. The annual report measures chemicals released by each industrial site in the country. It shows Texas ranks third.
13 — The appearance of a 9-foot-tall vat of cement topped by criss-crossing steel beams marks the beginning of what will become the 72-foot statue of Stephen F. Austin beside Highway 288 just south of Highway 35 in Angleton.
18 — Brazos Mall officials announce they have landed a deal to bring Steve and Barry’s University Sportswear to Lake Jackson, creating 100 jobs and providing an outlet for shoppers to buy branded and non-branded clothing, shoes, hats and gear.
22 — More than 30 people gather at the new Freeport home of the Tamayo family for a ceremony to dedicate Habitat for Humanity of Southern Brazoria County’s 50th build.
22 — Staff and students at Brazosport College mourn the death of Isabel Evans, a longtime educator and Brazosport College regent, who died of cancer. Evans, 82, was one of the first faculty members at the college and had been a regent since 1996.
27 — High schools in Brazoria and Matagorda counties host graduation ceremonies as students of the Class of 2005 celebrate with smiles and tears before venturing into the next phase of their lives.
June
4 — Playing for the Class 3A state championship, the Columbia High School softball team loses a 7-1 decision to La Grange at McCombs Field on the University of Texas campus in the final, and finishes the season 27-4.
6 — A preliminary development plan draft is presented to Freeport City Council by a firm hired by the city in May to improve the city’s landscape. The plan includes hike-and-bike trails, beach improvements and a nature center. The city sets no timetable for implementing the plan, and discusses taking it on in phases.
16 — A Brazoria County sheriff’s deputy returns to regular duty after a grand jury voted to take no action on charges he sexually assaulted an inmate at the county jail. The inmate accused the jailer of sexually assaulting him on several occasions, but another inmate who first claimed he witnessed an assault later recanted.
19 — A statue of the Virgin Mary, a gift to Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic School in Richwood from its founder, Sister Antoinette Peltier, is chipped after culprits smashed the front of a display case inside the school. Sister Peltier brought the statue back from a 1985 pilgrimage to Rome and it had been blessed by Pope John Paul II.
21 — Larry Williams is introduced as the new principal of Angleton High School. A former principal at Jacksonville High School, about 50 miles northwest of Nacogdoches, Jackson brings 15 — years of experience in the position to the school.
22 — The razing of the old Lake Jackson Intermediate School building is under way and the new school just next door will be ready for students on the first day of the school year. The demolition, estimated to cost about $120,000, is scheduled to be completed in about five weeks.
July
1 — Conflicting testimony is cited as one reason a jury acquitted a 29-year-old Alvin man of beating another man to death in an April 2004 fight outside the Rosewood Apartments in Alvin. “Everybody that was there was either drunk or high on cocaine,” says Assistant District Attorney Jeremy Warren.
3 — A 46-year-old man wielding a fake handgun, who was shot and wounded by a Brazoria County deputy outside a Bonney convenience store, might have been trying to commit “suicide by cop,” officials say.
14 — A 21-year-old man is arrested after witnesses, including his mother, say they saw him walk out of a Freeport apartment where a 31-year-old man was shot and killed and three other adults wounded. Five children are sleeping in the apartment when the shots ring out at about 5:48 a.m., but none of them are hurt.
15 — Higher fuel, electricity and insurance costs, as well as employee pay raises, lead Clute city officials to propose a $6.189 million general fund, a 2.5 percent increase over the previous year. Expected rises in property values to fund the increases, officials say.
22 — As Clute continues preparations for its silver anniversary-edition Mosquito Festival, more than a dozen Hispanic youths protest the absence of Tejano music from the event. City officials say not all ethnicities can be represented each year and vendors have complained of poor sales on past Tejano music nights.
27 — Brazoria County Commissioners vote to pursue the purchase of electronic voting machines, despite critics’ concerns the machines, which do not produce paper receipts, are susceptible to tampering and will produce results that can’t be verified.
29 — A fire, which company officials say might have been caused by lightning, guts the office of Gulf States Inc. in Freeport.
August
1 — The state releases its annual school ratings and only one Brazoria County district, Danbury ISD, receives a “recognized” designation — the second-highest rating. The other seven county districts receive “acceptable,” the third-highest designation.
8 — Angleton’s proposed city budget calls for a third straight year of tax rate cuts. Council will consider a proposed rate of 73.4 cents per $100 of property valuation. The rate was 75.4 cents in 2002, 74.4 cents in 2003 and 73.9 cents in 2004.
11 — Firefighters continue to battle flames ignited by an explosion that occurred the night before at the Innovene chemical plant, a subsidiary of BP, on FM 2004 at Chocolate Bayou. No serious injuries are reported.
11 — Angleton’s Dottie Duby receives the top award at the ninth annual Brazoria County Citizen of the Year luncheon sponsored by The Facts.
15 — A surprise internal audit leads to the arrests of the manager and service manager at the Wells Fargo Bank in Angleton. Felony theft charges are filed when cash drawers belonging to each are found to be missing money.
18 — Lake Jackson’s proposed budget calls for a 1-cent hike to 38 cents per $100 of property value to maintain the level of city services that a former councilman calls “second to none.”
22 — The Brazoria County Sheriff’s Department seizes documents from Danbury City Hall after being called in by city officials to investigate allegations of theft from municipal court. Sheriff Charles Wagner says his investigators seized a computer and the court’s financial records.
29 — Area hotels continue to welcome evacuees from Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast near New Orleans the previous day. Surfside suffers beach damage from the storm’s surge, as well as broken sewer lines and washed-out roads, but surfers enjoy the large swells.
September
1 — Rumors of gas shortages send area motorists to the pumps in a panic as Labor Day weekend looms. The Texas Attorney General Office investigates more than two dozen complaints against Lake Jackson-based Buc-ee’s after clerks bag pumps despite not being out of gas, but it results in no action against the chain.
6 — A 79-year-old Washington state woman continues her stay in Quintana, part of her quest to visit the smallest town in each state — by bicycle. She has spent seven summers and one winter so far traveling more than 11,600 miles.
7 — A four-year quest to save the old Freeport High School as a historical landmark fails when the state historical commission misses the deadline to submit a preservation plan to Brazosport ISD.
9 — Surfside Beach, hit hard by erosion, receives a $2.3 million grant from the Texas General Land Office for a large-scale beach nourishment project that will add about 30 to 40 cubic yards of sand along about 4,800 feet of the Gulf Coast.
13 — Brazoria County commissioners approve a tax rate of 40.8 cents per $100 of property value, a decrease of 1.4 cents over the previous year. The average homeowner will pay about the same in taxes, thanks to an increase in property values.
16 — A Lake Jackson native, 23-year-old Chris Alan Brashear, is charged with capital murder in the Dec. 10, 2003, slayings of a Sugar Land mother and her son.
19 — A surge in buying precedes a potential strike from Tropical Storm Rita. County residents fill up their vehicles with gasoline, and stock up on plywood and supplies.
20 — Texas’ first mandatory evacuations go into effect as officials urge county residents to get out of the way of Hurricane Rita.
28 — A power outage during the Hurricane Rita evacuation turns Lake Jackson’s Sea Center Texas hatchery tanks into a rancid stew of dead fish. The aquarium — which houses Gordon the Grouper — appears unharmed.\
October
7 — Three Freeport men are reported missing after a fire aboard their shrimp boat in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast. No trace of Kenneth Simpson, 47, his 25-year-old son, Travis, and 51-year-old Benjamin Gilbert is ever found.
8 — After almost two years of acrimony between its two namesake cities, Columbia-Brazoria ISD officially breaks ground on its new junior high school. The infighting centered on where to locate the school, with a 53-acre site in Wild Peach donated by the city of Brazoria finally winning.
11 — EchoStar Communications Corp., the parent company of Dish Network, has a job fair at Alvin Community College as it looks for the right location to open a new call center. More than 450 people pre-register for the expo.
12 — James Kevin Yost, 43, of Pearland is convicted of murder in the death of his 12-year-old stepdaughter, whom prosecutors said Yost starved and abused. Anna, who was 5-foot-5 and weighed just 68 pounds at the time of her death, died of a lacerated liver and a torn duodenum, according to an autopsy report. Yost received a life sentence.
14 — The Brazoria County Fair begins its 10-day run with opening ceremonies and crowd-pleasing events such as a parade and mutton bustin’.
18 — Thom Smyser, who served as Brazoria’s city manager for three years, announces his retirement, effective Dec. 13.
20 — Houston Astros fans, flush with World Series fever, rush Academy and other stores for team memorabilia. Hundreds line up at the Lake Jackson store after the Astros knock off the St. Louis Cardinals for Houston’s first National League pennant and a trip to face the Chicago White Sox in the World Series.
29 — Austin Town, the annual weekend festival celebrating the first Anglo colony in Texas, opens to the public at its new site on FM 521 in Angleton.
November
4 — Passmore Elementary and Alvin High schools are placed on lockdown for about an hour as a precaution after a man was shot in the back while working in his back yard in the 800 block of Kost. The man would recover but the shooting continues to baffle police, who have no suspects or motive.
8 — A federal jury in Galveston awards former Brazoria County sheriff’s deputy Steven O’Farrell $180,000 plus court costs and attorneys fees in his wrongful termination lawsuit against the county. O’Farrell contends he was fired by former Sheriff Joe King as political retribution for running against then Chief Deputy Charles Wagner, whom King endorsed, in the 2004 GOP primary.
14 — The Salvation Army, citing operating losses and stiff competition from similar businesses nearby, closes its resale shop in Angleton.
17 — Two years after announcing it was moving to Lake Jackson, ground is broken for the new Brazosport Area Chamber of Commerce office at Abner Jackson Parkway and Highway 332 across from the Lake Jackson Civic Center. The 1.5-acre site was donated by Dow Chemical Co., which also contributed $60,000 toward the building’s cost.
21 — Lake Jackson adopts a smoking ban in restaurants, hotels and other publicly accessible buildings. The ordinance takes effect May 1.
22 — The Texas Supreme Court rules the state’s system for funding public education unconstitutional and gives lawmakers until June 1 to come up with one that passes muster. If the Legislature fails to come up with a plan by then, the court said it would cut off funding for schools.
29 — Jim Clawson, who has represented Precinct 2 on Brazoria County Commissioners Court since 1991, announces he will not seek re-election next year. Clawson has suffered a pair of strokes in recent years, which he said played a part in his decision.
December
1 — Former Sweeny volunteer firefighter David Wayne Robertson Jr., 20, agreed to plead guilty to two arson charges while jurors in his trial weighed his fate. He was sentenced to seven years probation and ordered to pay $66,500 restitution to the owners of two homes he burned down May 27 and May 31, 2003. He also will serve 150 days in jail.
6 — Oyster Creek residents gathered to celebrate the opening of the city’s new community house at 134 Linda Lane. The 3,500-square-foot building, which can accommodate up to 150 people, replaced the decades-old community house on Allen Drive that was showing its age. The new facility features improved amenities, including more room and a modern kitchen.
9 — Brazoria’s environmental enforcement officer, who also works part-time as a police officer in the city, was arrested and charged with drunken driving after he was stopped in a city truck. Randy Lee Davis, 36, of Freeport also was accused of pointing a gun at his estranged wife hours earlier. Davis would resign from the city Dec. 13.
12 — Eric Grimmett, who has spent seven years in Danbury ISD as a principal and district administrator, is hired as the school district’s new superintendent. He replaces Doug Reed, who is retiring from the position he has held since 1998. Grimmett officially moves into the top spot Jan. 1.
16 — Students and staff at Clute Intermediate School spend their last day in the old school packing. They will move into new classrooms next door when they return from winter break Jan. 5.
19 — Patrol Sgt. Robert Botello, Patrol Officer Jose Calderon and Patrol Officer Jason Curry resign from the Freeport Police Department amid an investigation into allegations they used excessive force in arresting a city councilwoman’s brother Dec. 9.
Share |
Save |
Mail |
Print
|
|
|
 |
|
FREE BAY BOAT WITH WATERFRONT PURCHASE Get
...
Click for all
Top Ads listing
|
