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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY SPORTS

PRESENTED BY THE LUBBOCK AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

Ray Westbrook

General Features Reporter
News
ray.westbrook@lubbockonline.com

I write stories that most often deal with history, military veterans, and general interest topics.

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13 - 12:12am

Four Lubbock-area women have been chosen for this year’s Women of Distinction honor by the Girl Scouts of Texas Oklahoma Plains. They are Vernita Woods-Holmes of Lubbock, Jere Newton of Littlefield, Lou Diekemper of Lubbock and Lee Ruth Krieg of Lubbock. They will be spotlighted at a dinner planned for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 2, at McInturff Conference Center, 602 Indiana Ave. Tickets to the event are $50. For information, call Veronica Estrada at (806) 589-5948, or email vestrada@gs-top.org.

It's Showtime in Plainview for the duration of the drought 03/29/13 - 12:21am

Cameras and microphones from Showtime are following Plainview residents in a variety of directions

Cameras and microphones from Showtime are following Plainview residents in a variety of directions, and apparently for as long as the regional drought continues. Plainview Mayor Wendell Dunlap said the Showtime project is a documentary on the drought, and may not air until early next year. Broadway Brew Coffee House owner David Splawn, whose facility was the center for recent interviews, thinks the show could be broadcast this fall.

Children for sale on human trafficking market 03/27/13 - 3:50pm

Texas at forefront of fight against sexual exploitation of children, says director

There’s a certain commodities market for the bodies and souls of children in the United States, and it sometimes extends to men and women. The beneath-the-surface crime operation was pictured vividly during a program Tuesday at the Texas Tech School of Law by the Texas Young Lawyers Association, the Lubbock Area Bar Association and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

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West Texas sailor fended off unthinkable aerial attacks 03/25/13 - 6:05am

Leonard R. Jones was well acquainted with fanatical attacks long before 21st century

Leonard R. Jones was well acquainted with fanatical attacks long before the 21st century. The only ennobling aspect of the Japanese kamikazes that he faced in World War II was the fact that they were directed at military targets, not civilians. He didn’t call them kamikazes. To his crew — as well as to some of the Japanese military officers who directed them — they were “crash-divers.” Sometimes they were crash-divers with an expletive deleted before the term. “We were in the Gulf of Leyte,” he remembers of an area of the Philippines in the South Pacific.

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Formal ceremonies for adulthood come in a variety of ways 03/24/13 - 12:54am

Besides the local organizations, there are coming-of-age events in various faiths.

CayteLynn Johnson of Lubbock, now a freshman at the University of Alabama, is an eyewitness of what it’s like to be formally introduced three times as an adult. She is twice a debutante and once a Ticktocker — all in the same year. The latter title is a name for daughters who used to watch the clock while their mothers did volunteer work, but in recent years in the National Charity League, the daughters begin working part time in seventh grade and continue through their senior year.

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Services planned Friday for Jim Davis, Slatonite editor 03/20/13 - 12:34am

He was a Slaton community leader, friends say

Slaton is feeling the impact of the death of Jim Davis, 68, longtime editor of The Slatonite newspaper. Services, under the direction of Englunds Funeral Services, have been scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday, March 22, at First United Methodist Church in Slaton. Visitation is from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 21. Survivors include his wife, Ko Davis, daughters Melissa and Amanda, four granddaughters and one great-grandson. Davis died early Tuesday morning, March 19. “Jim was an integral part of Slaton for many, many years,” said Tony Privett.

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Lubbock veterans remember tours in Iraq War 03/19/13 - 6:34am

Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Vanessa Darden learned to search Iraqi women for IED components in clothes

Staff Sgt. Shaun Behlke of Lubbock was already serving in the Marine Corps when President George W. Bush announced late on March 19, 2003, that American and coalition forces were in the early stages of military operations in Iraq. He was sent to Iraq for a tour that lasted from 2003 until 2004, came back for a short stand-down, then went back from 2005 to 2007. A convoy driver, he became intimately acquainted with improvised explosive devices.

One cow, three calves, raise hopes for Baker Ranch 03/19/13 - 12:11am

The Baker Ranch in Stonewall County has 18 cows and 21 calves. One of the mothers is feeding three this year, according to Charles Baker of Jayton and Mary Jones of Nazareth. They are the children of Christine Baker, 85, of Jayton, who has been in the ranching business for some seven decades and on whose ranch the triplet calves were born. “I’ve never had a cow that even had twins,” said Charles Baker, who is active in managing the ranch. “We had 18 cows and 21 calves, so anybody can do the math and figure out there is something unusual here.”

Evelyn Davies remembers Diamond M Ranch 03/18/13 - 6:26am

Although petroleum exploration was new business, C.T. McLaughlin always wanted to be a driller

Although petroleum exploration was mostly a new business at the time, C.T. McLaughlin had always wanted to be a driller. And when he came to the end of his service as a soldier in World War I, he took his separation pay of $37.50 and bought a train ticket from Pennsylvania to Texas. In the boom towns of Wichita Falls and the Seymour area, he was able to rent a cot for eight hours — and eight hours only — because others had rented the same cot for the second and third eight-hour shifts.

National Charity League honors volunteers with presentation 03/17/13 - 12:22am

Students typically help with between 6,500 and 7,000 hours

A presentation with a banquet was arranged Saturday at Lubbock Country Club by the National Charity League for its 30 Ticktockers. All are high school seniors who have helped with their mothers’ volunteer work since seventh grade. They were given the name of Ticktockers because their predecessors were brought to the work site with nothing to do but watch the clock. Then, someone thought it would be better if they also worked, and the students began volunteering alongside their mothers.