September 4, 2006 Edition

Proposed economic beltway sparks debate

By Cari Herr
Tribune Staff

With the widening of FM 1774 scheduled for April 2009, and the impending relocation of businesses along the east side of the railroad tracks, 4A Economic Development Corporation (EDC) is presenting a plan that is open for public debate and input. President Jonny Williams invited representatives from TxDOT, County Commissioner Craig Doyal, and area businesses along with the Magnolia Area Chamber of Commerce to attend a presentation by KE Group at an Aug. 29 special meeting of the 4A.

The KE Group described a business district with cobbled walkways overhung with wisteria, and shaded by a canopy of trees where residents can walk among quaint shops and visit with friends while lamp posts burn in the early evening hours of sunset in a presentation offered by architect John Edmundson.

As visualized by Edmundson and Steve Klimas of the KE Group, a business district which flourishes with prosperity and offers the quiet ease of a country life-style is in the mind’s eye of the members of the 4A as a reality for the City of Magnolia within the next year through a bond service.

A 20-foot easement, an estimated 1,500 feet in length, between businesses and properties facing Commerce and FM 1774 is being proposed by 4A as an economic beltway. Businesses who will relocate due to the yielding of right-of-way through land acquisitions of TxDOT for the widening of FM 1774 are being encouraged to move to Commerce St.

Water conveyance by 4A from the Commerce Street business district down Betty Hall toward the city’s planned retention park is projected to occur in phases as TxDOT comes on board with fill dirt needs relative to the expansion of FM 1774.

Two business-area city parking lots are being proposed by 4A, one of which is a west-parking area that could be created at Goodson Road and Seventh Street. A second east-parking area with public restrooms could be created with an extension of Betty Hall St. by opening up landlocked properties and creating two new corner lots at Commerce.

This will provide greater access to more property, reduce street parking by creating two corner lots, offer storm water relief to commercial property owners and encourage the commercial growth of Commerce, Williams said. He assured those in attendance at the meeting that 4A has the financial stability to fund and coordinate projects with the involvement of the County, TxDOT and Texas Parks and Wildlife grants.

Businesses are being requested to provide input and logistical solutions to converting available properties along Commerce to parking areas and business locations. These parking areas will provide traffic relief to businesses along the proposed economic beltway and offer additional parking to downtown businesses in the district, Edmundson said.

TxDOT is being asked by 4A to allow a cobbled sidewalk with curbs and gutters along FM 1774 in the TxDOT right-of-way, between utility poles and the street. Discussion resulted in a request by TxDOT for a second meeting to discuss plans and alternatives following public input.

To view the proposal, please log on to http://66.140.153.225/KEG/jobs/4A/4a%20Presentation.html . Please respond with suggestions and opinions to 4A Economic Development Corporation, P.O. Box 1507, Magnolia TX 77354-1507. Regular meetings of 4A are held every second Thursday at 3:30 p.m. in the Community Development Center building on Melton St. in Magnolia.

Zion Lutheran celebrating 100 years of ‘faithful pastors, faithful people’

By Brian Walzel
Tribune News

In this age of the megachurch, of multi-million dollar television productions of religious services and what some believe to be a generic Christian message, one Tomball church is celebrating a century of its own distinct message.

Jerome Teichmiller, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, has led the church since 1982. Zion is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year with a special service on Sept. 10.

Zion Lutheran Church of Tomball has been celebrating its 100th anniversary throughout 2006 and will culminate the year with a special service on Sept. 10. What began with 18 families in 1906 has blossomed, somewhat slowly at times, to more than 700 members.

Led by Jerome Teichmiller, Zion Lutheran has solidified its place in the Tomball community. “The church has really grown over the years,” Teichmiller said. “We’ve had some faithful pastors and some faithful people.”

The church’s story began in September of 1905 when a group of Lutheran families in the Huffsmith area decided to begin their own church close to home. The families had been traveling to Rosehill to attend a Lutheran church there. “They decided it would be better to have their own church rather than travel into Rosehill by horse and buggy through the muddy streets,” Teichmiller said. “It was difficult travel even just to Rosehill back then.”

For one year, the families organized the church and drafted a constitution. In September of 1906 they were granted a charter by the State of Texas, Teichmiller said. Even the city of Tomball, which will be celebrating its own centennial in 2007, isn’t quite as old at Zion Lutheran.

The church’s initial centennial celebration was planned for September of 2005, but Hurricane Rita had other plans, and forced evacuations of many of the church’s members. “With half the population evacuated, we didn’t know how many people were going to be here,” Teichmiller said. So the church decided to put off the celebration for a year.

Things got underway in the spring when, at an Easter celebration, the church honored the 18 founding families, many of whom still worship at Zion Lutheran, including such well-known Tomball names as the Holderreith and Metzler families. Those early families helped build the church at its original location at the corner of Zion Church Road and Huffsmith Road in Huffsmith in 1906.

The church then moved to Tomball to its current location on Hicks Road in 1959. In 1989, the church was struck by lightning and almost completely destroyed by fire. “It had to be practically rebuilt from the inside out,” Teichmiller said. “But we kept the original structure.”

Lightning and fire not withstanding, what has kept the church intact for a century? “It’s not because the people are so strong or the people are so good, because sometimes we’re not,” Teichmiller said. “But because God has given us his blessings and word and sacrament. And that’s very strong in the Lutheran tradition.” Teichmiller was named full-time pastor at Zion Lutheran in 1982 and since then, he has seen countless changes, not in the church, but in the Tomball community, he said. Teichmiller sees the decline of the small town family in Tomball as its population continues to increase. “That’s good in some ways and not so good in other ways,” he said.

Those changes have challenged, and will continue to challenge, the church’s identity. “More and more with the megachurches, you see more of a generic religion, where all religions are just alike,” he said “To maintain an identity and what we feel is a correct doctrine, it becomes harder when you try to become a distinct congregation.” Teichmiller said the church’s centennial theme pretty well sums up the past century: “100 years of God’s grace and blessings.”

Magnolia police bag sewer plant burglar

By Cari Herr
Tribune Staff

Magnolia Police Officer Travis Bushman was quick to assess the situation on Aug. 26 when he arrested Magnolia resident Robert Walter Wosotowsky, 46, on three counts of burglary to a building, one count of attempted auto theft with the intent to commit a felony, and a public intoxication charge.

The police department received a complaint at 11:31 p.m. of a pedestrian on FM 1488 weaving into the road. Bushman responded to the welfare check call. Upon arriving Bushman found the subject to be intoxicated and a danger to himself and others. Wosotowsky was arrested for public intoxication.

Wosotowsky was carrying a bag containing his personal property. During a post-arrest inventory of the bag, Bushman found numerous pawn tickets in the subject’s possession. Familiarity with an ongoing investigation by Sgt. Bo Crabtree of the MPD of several burglaries at the city’s sewer plant led Bushman to question Wosotowsky further.

As previously reported by the Tribune, Sgt. Bo Crabtree of the Magnolia Police Department recovered evidence during his investigations of three burglaries occurring on July 17, 24 and Aug. 19.

On July 17 the sewer plant business office was burglarized and appliances were removed from the building. On July 24 the sewer plant tool shed was burglarized of hand and power tools. On Aug. 19 the business office was again burglarized of office equipment. An attempt was made to burglarize the tool shed as well. Additionally, the suspect broke a window in a vehicle belonging to ECO Resources Inc. during the last incident.

Sgt. Crabtree reported that large amounts of blood were found on and near the site. He tracked the suspect to a local hospital and verified that medical treatment including stitches for a large, arm-wound was given to a patient on the same evening of the burglary.

Acting with knowledge and forethought of the case, Bushman recognized the pawn tickets found in Wosotowsky’s possession for items stolen from the sewer plant, as well as an identifying wound the suspect might bear. Bushman reported that Wosotowsky had a large wound with stitches along his arm. The suspect was transferred to the Magnolia Police Department where he made a written confession to three counts of burglary of a building and one count of attempted auto theft at the City of Magnolia’s water treatment plant.

Wosotowsky was transported to the Montgomery County Jail where bail was set at $10,000. Charges have been forwarded to the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office.

New girls softball club rises out of MGSA rubble

By Cari Herr
Tribune Staff

There is a new girl’s softball club in Magnolia. The West Montgomery Girls Softball Association, Inc. (WMGSA) was registered with the Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams on Aug. 21 to “ensure that the girls in the Magnolia area can still play ball in the town in which they live and with the peers that they go to school with,” according to a press release by the new club.

The new club came into being as a result of political and financial issues revolving around the Magnolia Girls Softball Association (MGSA).

Though a new MGSA board was elected at a June 26 meeting in the Magnolia Sports Complex that board has now resigned “due to the indebtedness and liability thereof that was accumulated against MGSA prior to our positions on the board,” read an official statement by WMGSA, Inc. As of Aug. 21, “we will no longer be affiliated with Magnolia Girls Softball Association,” it stated.

As a result, no fall ball for girl’s softball is scheduled at the Magnolia Sports Complex this season, by either club, as of press time.

Issues surrounding the MGSA this year centered on allegations by club members that the president, Lori Tanton, had not paid bills in a timely fashion, nor had she provided any financial statements, or visibility to club financial records. According to WMGSA Board of Directors President Allen Horn, Tanton had not provided the newly elected board members of MGSA with the financial records of the club to date.

“I just want to know where the money went, ” Horn said, who led the charge for establishing a new club after financial restraints prevented further legal action and negotiations broke down with Tanton’s attorney for the return of the financial records of the club.

“We’ve already paid $3,800 toward the park light bill dating back to February, and I have an invoice for $2,704 for a January candy sale that has not been paid. The check to ASA for $1,374 for the club insurance bounced, and I have an invoice for $400 from OPCO Printing from January for 7,000 flyers that has not been paid yet,” Horn said.

Montgomery County Parks Commissioner Corliss O’Shaughnessy said, “As far as the County goes we no longer recognize non-profits (ball clubs) under the control of Lori Tanton, due to issues we have had with her in the past. We’re going to continue to recognize the new board and the new non-profit based upon the fact that they took appropriate steps to regain control of the club.”

The new WMGSA will hold free batting, pitching and fielding clinics at the ballpark until the spring season, said Sponsorship Coordinator Kim Carroll. According to the press release, anyone who paid a registration fee to MGSA will receive a full refund. For more information on the new WMGSA, please visit eteamz.active.com/westmontgomerygirls/ or call 281-259-6125.

District growth prompts new hires for MISD

By Cari Herr
Tribune Staff

Part of the Magnolia Independent School District’s commitment to keep student-teacher ratios low is to keep up with growth in hiring new teachers as needed, said School Board President Glenn Addison at an Aug. 30 meeting of the Magnolia School Board.

To that end, board members approved the hiring of two bilingual teachers at Smith Elementary for first grade and pre-k classes. In addition, a teacher for the biology and chemistry department at Magnolia High School was hired to accommodate growth in district enrollments. The board included the hiring of a replacement art teacher at Lions Elementary and replaced an assistant principal at Magnolia High School.

Blank, blank, who has been moved to the Principal’s position at the Alpha Academy, was replaced by blank, blank when blank, blank retired from the district this year after blank years as the Alpha Academy Principal.

Other considerations approved by the board were annual budget amendments for matching federal funds in the Teacher Retirement System as well as budget line adjustments to accommodate for utilities, commodities, and Interest and Sinking fees, which are payable to the managing agent of the district’s bonds.

The board did not address the closed bid results from the sale of the MISD administration building, which is located on FM 1774. The closing bid date for the sale of that property was Aug. 24 at 2 p.m. Free and Associates listed the bid opportunity through the Houston Association of Realtors Listing (HARL). As a governed entity, the district cannot auction or sell the property outright, but must use a sealed bid system when moving assets.

Glenn Addison confirmed that only one bid from a doctor’s partnership was received in that bid process. Results from the closed bid sale will be addressed at the Sept. 14 regular meeting of the MISD school board, said Addison.

Rising prices of copper, building materials contribute to construction site thefts

By Brian Walzel
Tribune Staff

The beauty of a soon-to-be completed home on Edgewater Drive in the Lake Windcrest subdivision will nicely cover up the ugliness that has occurred within its walls. The red brick façade will be a more formidable deterrent than a steel chain looped between two trees across the muddy drive way to those who consider once again secretly making off with its contents. The large holes in the ceiling repaired, the wiring on its way to being replaced, this home, like countless others across the area, will eventually be finished. And it will be completed despite a bevy of pesky thieves best efforts to keep it from being so.

Dennis Gau points to a portion of a bathroom of a home in Lake Windcrest where thieves ripped copper wiring out of the wall. With costs of copper and construction material rising, construction site thefts are sharply increasing.

What began essentially as petty theft, a shovel here, a bundle of 2-by-4s there, construction site robbery has turned into a multi-million dollar epidemic. “It’s always been a problem,” said Luke Feild of On-Site Solutions, a new company that specializes in remote video surveillance of construction sites. “But recently it’s just been getting crazy.”

According to a report published by Builder News, a leading building trade magazine, annual losses related to construction theft total roughly $1 billion annually. “There are 50 countries in the world with lower gross national products,” the report stated. Lt. Wayne Rawley of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said the thefts appear to come in spurts, but recent months have seen a significant increase.

Locally, it’s difficult to put a number on how much has been, and continues to be, lost. Seemingly each week local police receive reports from builders about another theft, most estimating losses in excess of $3,000 for each incident. The house on Edgewater has been hit three times since workers began construction early last month, said Dennis Gau of Poulson Homes, builder of the home. He finally decided to install a single steel chain across the front of the driveway. So far, Gau said, it’s worked. But he knows it’s only a temporary solution to what may be a permanent problem.

Gau, like many builders, are at a loss for solutions. Some builders use surveillance cameras, private security, fences and even cages to lock up materials, but more often than not, the thieves find a way in and out with what they want.

Feild developed a remote video surveillance unit and established his new company in direct response to construction site theft, he said. After years of hearing similar stories from homebuilders, Feild took action. “We’re being proactive,” he said. “It’s a great deterrent.” The units are small, enclosed trailers with four infrared cameras capable of surveying an entire construction site and are the latest in a long line of advancements to deter thieves. Feild said one of his first clients is even concerned about crooks making off with landscaping for one particular home. “That’s the kind of stuff I’m up against,” he said.

Of all the material being stolen from construction sites, copper wire is by far the most expensive and problematic, builders and police have reported. As the cost of copper skyrockets, thieves are making off with reels of the valuable metal to sell off at scrap metal lots, according to Feild. In reaction to the thefts of the reels, builders then decided to immediately install the wiring in buildings rather than leave them in the open or in a garage until it came time to put it in. But as Gau soon realized, where there is a will, there is a way.

The robbers who broke into the home on Edgewater entered the second floor attic, which housed the building’s electrical circuitry. As one intruder ripped apart the attic’s insulation and dry wall, desperate to pry out the copper wire, the unstable floor gave way and he crashed through the first floor ceiling, plummeting into the master bathroom. However, the fall did not deter the thief. He then destroyed a large section of dry wall and ripped out the wiring in a room near the bathroom.

Feild relayed an incident in which a night time heist involved the thief attaching one end of copper wiring to a wench on the front of his truck and slowly cranking it out of the walls of a home, causing more than $30,000 worth of damage. “They’ve just been killing us on these copper thefts lately,” Rawley sad.

While Gau said Poulson Homes does not include possible losses in its budget for a particular home, many across the nation are doing so. Like Poulson Homes, most builders carry theft insurance. In Poulson Homes’ case, many deductibles don’t go much lower than $1,000. So while builders are certainly taking a hit in the pocket book, Gau believes insurance companies are somewhat of a latent victim.

One of the reasons construction site theft has seen such a sharp rise, both Feild and Rawley believe, is due to the rising costs of building supplies and materials since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Feild said that with restoration efforts along the Gulf Coast currently underway, the demand for materials is far outweighing the supply.

So who exactly are the construction site crooks? Answers range from competing construction companies, to families of construction workers, to drug addicts desperate for money. But one thing most agree on is that whoever is doing it is very familiar with the construction industry and site protocol. “A home under construction is hard to safeguard,” Rawley said.

Magnolia’s oldest resident, revered by community, passes at 94

By Cari Herr
Tribune Staff

No one seems to be able to pinpoint the rare quality Lillian Dean, Magnolia’s oldest known resident, had for assessing the character or need of a person. All agree, however, that she was instrumental in providing many Magnolia residents with a helping hand and loving advice, along with a quick wit and a broad smile. Friends and family who knew her well remember Dean fondly.

Lillian Dean

She was born Lillian Jean Damuth of Tillis Prairie, a small area of the community off FM 1488, on Jan. 30, 1912 about a half-mile from where Magnolia High School is today. She passed away at the age of 94 on June 6, 2006 and is buried in the Mostyn Damuth Cemetery in Magnolia.

Her remaining children recall that folks from around these parts knew Dean had a home remedy or a solution for every ailment and was lovingly called L.D.M.D. (Lillian Dean medical doctor), said her son, Henry Dean.

Her daughter Brenda Malinowski of Chappell Hill remembers that Dean worked all her life. From the age of 13 Dean worked at the Heflin Hotel baking pies, which was next door to the original Dean Brothers Grocery. She also worked at T.H. Yon’s store, the site of Chicken Express today. She married young, to Frank Ruben Dean, Jr. and worked at Frank Sr. and Elizabeth's cafe, which evolved into Dean's Grocery Store, and eventually became Magnolia Foods and Shell Station.

She is most remembered for her strength, said grandson Frank Dean, IV, owner of Magnolia Foods. “She took care of a lot of people. You have to be strong to do that,” said Dean IV. “She was always there when somebody needed anything, or just to talk.”

Her humor and optimism carried her through the depression, World War II, the raising of four children and the burying of a husband and family. She had a heart for other people and touched the lives of people in a special way, her brother, John Damuth, said. “She would cook for people, or give them credit at the store, or give them groceries to feed their children,” he said.

Dean not only provided the basics in life like flour, sugar, salt, milk, firewood, and canned goods from behind the counter of the store, she provided a storehouse of comfort and shelter, encouragement and sanctuary, to a small community with little else to call its own, but a railroad and a pulpwood yard.

You won't have to look far or ask wide to find someone like Effie Butler, or Birdie Ross, who have a place in their hearts for Dean. Certainly, Arlene Ellison and her son Mike would call Dean a friend as well as Mary Green from Butler’s Crossing. They all are that much the better for having known her.

“Dean was always helping folks,” said Celeste Graves.

People around town remember well the time Dean saved the life of a neighbor’s newborn daughter, sent home from the hospital to die. Taking matters into her own hands, Dean took the family to see her personal pediatrician in Houston, who offered a treatment that saved the child's life.

Perhaps it was the many women in the community who sought out the advise of Dean when “women's groups” were virtually unheard of, that earned her the name “Maw.”

Those she freely gave to warranted her the reputation she had for helping people. Anyone who needed work could find it at the store, like the Cuban refugees, rescued from a Mexican prison, which came to work for Dean during the Cold War, or the job she gave to Minnie Baker when Baker's husband passed away.

“She would box up food and other groceries and take them to folks and their kids who couldn’t afford to pay,” remembers her daughter, Brenda Malinowski.

And somewhere a young woman named Teeny, found wandering the railroad tracks across from Dean's Grocery Store, may be thankful like so many nameless others, that Dean took her in and helped her out when there was no where else to turn.

Dean regaled her children with stories of simpler times filled with gingerbread and sweet potatoes, homemade clothes and apple pies, along with wagon rides to church, and stories of growing up with sisters Ollie and Doris and brothers Bannon, Dan, Howard and John.

At the time of her death Lillian Dean had made it a life work to shepherd others. She was the oldest living member of the First Baptist Church of Magnolia as well as the oldest resident of the City of Magnolia, living or deceased.

“She often said if you heard that I died, don’t believe it. I’ve gone to heaven,” said Malinowski.

It was often said of her that many folks in Magnolia would pay Dean not to write a book about the town's going's-on. For the most part, Dean created a sense of family, not only for her children, but also for an entire community.

Local pro angler to compete in Outdoorsman Challenge

By Brian Walzel
Tribune Staff

Local pro angler Sean Hoernke will vie against 15 other competitors in a competition to determine the ultimate outdoorsman. Field & Stream recently announced the 16 outdoorsmen selected to compete in the 2006 Field & Stream Total Outdoorsman Challenge, with Magnolia’s Hoernke on the list. The competition, which carries a $17,400 total purse, puts the nation’s top outdoorsmen in head-to-head competition in Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 8-9.

Sean Hoernke of Magnolia will join 15 other contestants in the 2006 Field and Stream Great Outdoors Challenge Sept. 8 and 9 in Tennessee. Hoernke is a professional angler who competes on the Bassmaster and FLW Tours.

For the first time ever, Field & Stream selected four of the event’s 16 competitors from the general public, filling the remaining spots with the nation’s leading professional hunting and fishing guides.

“This competition is for the person who can truly do it all,” Anthony Licata, deputy editor of Field & Stream, said. “You might know a great fly-fisherman, or a guy who can’t miss with a bow, or someone who’s the best rifle shot in town—but its becoming increasingly rare to be able to do all those things and do them all well.”

As part of the competition, the professionals will compete against amateurs. “We’re really excited to see how the professional outdoorsmen stack-up against the four Field & Stream readers,” Licata added. “These guys are all the best in their field and the four readers are no exception, they’re all strong competitors.”

Hoernke, who lives in the Magnolia area, spends his days fishing some of the best bass waters in the nation with the Bassmaster Series and FLW Tour. He enjoyed one of his most successful professional seasons in 2005 and is having another great year in 2006 on tour.

The challenge will take place at Long Hunter State Park in Nashville. The event is free and open to the public with a variety of interactive activities and displays for spectators. Previous Field & Stream Total Outdoorsmen winners include Chris Nischan of Nashville, Tenn. (2004) and Scot Marcin of Gallatin, Tenn. (2005).

The Field & Stream Total Outdoorsman Challenge is a one-of-a-kind competition to determine the nations best all-around outdoorsmen. Entrants must prove their mettle at seven different outdoor skills: fly casting, bait casting, air rifle, shotgun, endurance, archery and ATV handling. The contestant with the best combined score at the end of the event wins the big money and the bragging rights. The Outdoor Life Network (OLN) will air portions of the competition in October 2006. Check www.fieldandstream.com or www.jackdaniels.com for air dates and times.