News

Alison Cook looks back at 1996: Year of the Rat

Continued from page 4

Peevish in Pearland
Confronted with a 16-page ballot too long to fit on a computer punch card--- the longest one in Texas history -- Pearland voters rejected all 77 proposed city charter amendments, including the one to change charter numerals from Arabic to Roman.

And the Alexander Haig Award goes to ...
A drill instructor for Conroe's school-district boot camp was fired after he seized control of the school cafeteria, ordering 250 fifth-graders to hit the floor and do pushups because they were being noisy.

Fifth grade is hell, but sixth grade is worse
A substitute teacher in Galveston roughed up five sixth-graders during a math class, choking one 11-year-old and knocking another down when she failed to solve a problem on the blackboard.

... And wait'll you get to high school
A former New Waverly High School student sued two of his ex-football coaches for threatening to hang him with an extension cord and holding a starter pistol to his head; the two, who were fired after the incident, claimed it was mutually agreeable horseplay designed to get him to improve his grades.

The exotic folkways of Kingwood
Kingwood physician George Stokes, under court orders to pay $300,000 to three ex-employees who had accused him of sexual harassment, printed legal notices declaring himself a "freeman," renouncing his citizenship and declaring the judgment a fraud because he was not tried under his proper Christian name, which he argued omitted the title "Dr." and included a comma between his middle and last names.

Then again, it could have been big and beige
A woman who reported seeing a tiger east of Tomball later told constables she only knew the animal was big and yellow, whereupon they called off the search.

Is that a gavel in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?
After his first City Council meeting, newly elected Galveston mayor Henry Freudenburg decided he needed a gavel bigger than the small mallet wielded by his predecessor of 12 years, a woman.

Kingwood's been wooing him ever since
Arcola City Council members ousted the mayor for refusing to hook his home up to the city sewer system.

That took care of OUR Christmas list!
"The Game of La Porte," a Monopoly-style board game produced by that city's Noon Optimist Club, allows players to use play money to purchase such local businesses as the Kroger Food Store, La Porte Vision Center and La Car Porte.

Those Inventive Houstonians

The glorious legacy of the Allen Brothers lives on
After a NASA funded team turned up possible fossil evidence of life on Mars, Houston businessman John Styles Jr., a speculator in meteorites, locked his Mars nuggets in a River Oaks bank vault while he decided whether to cut them up for resale.

Could they tackle Pasadena pro bono?
Houston-based Drypers Corp., which had been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, revived its fortunes by introducing a disposable baking-soda diaper.

So THAT'S what happened to Dave Ward!
Rice graduate James Mischka and partner Mark Badgley, designers of high-ticket evening wear, launched a fall line that achieved its vintage effect by soaking beads in Drano.

Oh, Regis!
Houstonian Wayne Story invented the TooT TrappeR, a charcoal-filled seat cushion that traps flatulent emissions. When he appeared on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, the perky hostess said her family uses the contraption.

The kids had to teach them how to use it
The Precinct 4 constable's office developed a software program called Peek-A-Boo, which allows parents to search for pornographic images on home computers used by their children.

Don't ever change
Houston's York Group introduced "Expressions," a coffin model of white ash wood with a special finish that lets friends and family write permanent messages right on the casket; it comes furnished with a box of markers.

Don't ever change, Part II
After LSD guru Timothy Leary died of cancer, it was announced that the Celestis of Houston firm would launch his ashes into space orbit inside a gold-plated capsule the size of a lipstick.

Hi, I'm Kevin, and I'll be your yell leader tonight
Bucky Richardson, a former quarterback for the Oilers and Texas A&M, announced plans to open a Bryan steak house that will replicate the Aggies' stadium, with tables on a green floor painted with yard markers, murals of crowded grandstands and big-screen TVs in the bar "so that when you sit in there it'll be just like watching a game at Kyle Field."

Bucky Richardson is ordering them by the gross
Jason Frankel's company, The Tooth Fairy, began producing elaborate novelty teeth, including such models as the misshapen, best-selling "Bubba," widely gapped and generously endowed with stains, cavities and cracks.

Stop him before he sculpts again
David Adickes, sculptor of downtown's cello man and Huntsville's super-gigantic Sam Houston, revealed his next project: an American Presidents Theme Park populated by 16-foot busts of all 41 presidents, crowning eight-foot bases that will double as presidential mini-museums.

And thence to the human brain that thinks up weird ties
Rice University celebrated its new computer science building with a special edition necktie depicting the hall's mosaic ceiling mural, "The Birth of Consciousness," a black spot of nothingness flowing to a flower representing the primordial Big Bang and thence to the universe that forms around it.

Lynn Wyatt passed
James Russell Paugh, now doing 30 years, bilked 2,000 investors by showing them a dilapidated grocery he said would become a members-only store, "The Shopping Adventure," where valets would greet customers at the door and wholesale prices on everything from a can of corn to a Lexus would prevail.

We were pulling for "The Rice Adventure"
Developer Randall Davis ran a contest to rename the renovated Rice Hotel and received such suggestions as The Ricestonian, Rice Royale, The Rice Experience, Rice Twice Lofts and The 1913 House of Rice.

Till death do us part
Pawnbroker Ted Kipperman, a licensed minister, converted a tiny guard shack into a drive-thru wedding chapel for customers who buy a wedding ring or a gun at his store.

The cutouts booed, too
When crowds at Oilers games shrank drastically after the team announced they'd be leaving town, some lonely fans in the mezzanine filled vacant seats with 17 humanoid cardboard cutouts.

Now he's perfecting the seat belts
Former rodeo cowboy Morris Futch, whose head was once stepped on by a bull at a San Antonio rodeo, designed the "BullTough" safety helmet for bull riders.

That's how ValuJet got its start
Doug O'Connor flew from Galveston to Ontario in his homemade gyroplane (think Road Warrior), which he describes as "a lawn chair attached to a ceiling fan."

The Rich Are Different from You and Me

But did it get mints on its pillow?
When Barney and Ellen Kogen set sail on a 114-day cruise around the world, they rented a big truck to transport their belongings to the ship and booked an extra cabin for their Stairmaster.

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