Hanging up their hats

◗ METRO
B
OVERNIGHT
A spiritual connection
Voices of Change offered a celestial program Sunday,
from the dreamy ecstasy of “Praise to the Immortality of
Jesus” to the wispy desiccation of Hymn. 7B
The Dallas Morning News
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Patron built
frame for
SMU arts
What Dallas
philanthropist entered the
oil business
as an
accountant?
His name
is
synonymous
with Spanish
art and a
school of the
arts.
Born in Georgia, he
learned the oil business as a
bean counter, became a
lawyer and founded loan
and oil companies.
He gave millions to
improve the health and
education of others.
The Southern Methodist
University museum and
school of the arts and a
family foundation bear the
name of Algur H. Meadows.
Joe Simnacher
Monday, March 14, 2005
Lipscomb may be
the runner to beat
F
rom what I’ve been able
to gather, his wife didn’t
want him to run, nor did
some of his longtime supporters.
And most of the 18 precinct
chairs in his district initially
didn’t want him to run, either.
So what does Al Lipscomb
do? He becomes a candidate in
the increasingly messy Dallas
City Council District 8.
Not just any candidate, but
— hold your breath if you’re a
fan, hold your nose if you’re not
— maybe the one to beat.
That’s right. Despite broad
concerns about Mr. Lipscomb’s
troubled past and what some
call his buffoonish behavior,
Ferris plant to contest
fine in fatal explosion
$21,000 penalty is
among stiffest OSHA
has levied in Texas
JAMES RAGLAND
some community leaders still
think he’s the best man to stand
up for the district down at City
Hall.
Now, I said in this space last
week that I thought Mr. Lipscomb, 79, should get a rod and
See WILL Page 5B
By JIM GETZ
Staff Writer
FERRIS — The federal agency
that oversees worker health and
safety has levied a $21,000 fine
against C&G Aircraft Co., a former
Ferris aircraft-parts shop where
an explosion and fire killed one
man and injured two others last
summer.
The fine is among the top 1 percent of the largest fines that the
Occupational Safety and Health
Administration has levied against
Texas companies since the agency’s inception in 1972. Dean Wingo, the Fort Worth area director
for OSHA, and Joe H. Cleaver, one
of the co-owners of the former
company, said the fine would be
contested. About two-thirds of
companies fined the same amount
have succeeded in having OSHA
reduce penalties for various reasons.
The Aug. 26 explosion —
which authorities believed occurred when an employee
dropped a 50-pound bag of ammonium nitrate, a chemical used
in metal cleaning — has left its
mark on the town of 2,200 resi-
After decades downtown, Milliners Supply calls it quits
COMING
THURSDAY
Remedy debt or
save for future?
Staff Writer
Photos by RANDY ELI GROTHE/Staff Photographer
Mary Polk (right) loaded up on hat-making supplies Sunday at Milliners Supply Co., the downtown store that helped
Dallas women dress their heads for more than 90 years. In recent years, the store has specialized in bridal wares.
Hanging up their hats
Carolyn Thomas, the survivor of a domestic-violence
shooting that left her face in
ruins, still keeps her features covered with bandages, but underneath, doctors
have built the scaffolding
for her new face.
By KIM BREEN
Staff Writer
TEXAS
Trial starts in
deaths of patients
INSIDE
Lawyer, mediator
Stradley dies
Frederick Sill Stradley, a
Dallas lawyer and mediator
for more than 45 years, died
of lung disease March 4 at
his ranch in Hawkins. 4B
Unity urged after
pastor’s arrest
An Agape Christian Fellowship church leader said
Sunday that members
should remain united as
their pastor — a self-described spiritual adviser to
the Dallas Cowboys — faces
sexual assault charges. 6B
INDEX
Briefs.................................................2B
Lottery ...............................................2B
Obituaries ..........................................4B
Overnight ...........................................7B
At A Glance........................................8B
II
. . . . . . . .
Looking
death in
the face
By HOLLY BECKA
PAGE 1A
More than four years after
some elderly people died
suspiciously at a tiny North
Texas hospital, prosecutors will start
presenting
their case in
the trial of
former nurse
Vickie Dawn
Jackson, charged with
killing 10 patients. 4A
See FERRIS Page 6B
Holocaust museum’s
exhibits of war tragedy
draw scores to opening
Two doctors from
Garland ask whether
it’s better to pay down
medical school debt
or save for retirement.
Scott Burns discusses
reducing debt
vs. investing.
Business
‘Coming along fine’
after face surgery
dents.
“It’s woke up a lot of people in
the area,” Ferris Fire Chief Eddie
Duran said. “Everyone wants
growth to come in, but you have to
be careful what moves in next door
to you.”
The explosion left Tammy Powers a widow and her four children
fatherless; John Powers, caught in
the brunt of the explosion, died
three days afterward at Parkland
Memorial Hospital in Dallas.
Mr. Cleaver said he and his son,
Ronnie Cleaver, and C&G have
not found work since. Ronnie
Cleaver, once a co-owner of C&G,
Bride-to-be Rebecca Demster was in the hunt for a
wedding veil at the store’s going-out-of-business sale.
It’s been decades since Olga
Colip regularly shopped at Milliners Supply Co., but surprisingly little has changed since
she and her friends relied on the
store for materials to create
their hats.
The mahogany wall cases
and the oak-and-glass showcases still sit where she remembers, frozen in time even as the
tastes that kept the store thriving faded.
The shop at 911 Elm St.
closed to customers Sunday, just
days shy of its 94th anniversary.
“Change comes; lots of
things go out,” said the 85-year-
old. “I’ve experienced a lot of it.”
But that didn’t take away the
significance of Sunday’s closing.
“This is the last of an era,” Ms.
Colip said.
Storeowner Robert Hirsh
wasn’t sure he agreed with that
assessment. But it is, he said, the
end of an era for his family.
Mr. Hirsh’s great aunt and
uncle — Charlotte and Martin
Weiss — opened the hat-making supply business on St. Patrick’s Day 1911. When they died,
the business went to Mr. Hirsh’s
parents.
The 57-year-old Mr. Hirsh,
who remembers visiting the
See SALE Page 5B
The haunting photograph of a
young Jewish boy stirred 9-yearold Megan Jodray’s heart.
In the photo, the boy — skeleton thin because of scant rations
enforced by Nazi occupiers in Poland — begged for food.
“He’s sitting [against] a wall,
and other people are walking by,”
the girl said. “It made me feel like
him — sad for him.”
The photo was among scores of
exhibits viewed by hundreds of
people at Sunday’s open house at
the Dallas Holocaust Museum
and Center for Education and Tolerance. The event marked the facility’s new temporary home at 211
N. Record St. near The Sixth Floor
Museum at Dealey Plaza. Plans
are under way to build a permanent museum about a block away.
The museum, which focuses on
World War II Holocaust bystanders and urges audiences not to
stand idly by while abuse happens,
had been in the basement of the
Jewish Community Center for
about 20 years.
The new downtown site is more
centrally located and boasts a larger exhibit area and a bigger theater, where Holocaust survivors
can speak about their experiences,
said Kathy Chapman, education
director. She said the museum
soon would add videotaped interviews with Dallas Holocaust survivors and a Spanish version of its
self-guided tour.
A day of remembrance for the
Holocaust, or Yom Hashoah, is
scheduled at 7 p.m. May 15 in
Thanksgiving Square. The May remembrance and Sunday’s open
house coincide with this spring’s
60th anniversary of the liberation
See DALLAS Page 2B
Teacher shouldn’t humiliate child
C
alling all teachers:
We usually devote this
space to letters from people who have questions about public education. We do some research and try to answer their
questions. And everyone learns
something in the process.
Today, I’m asking teachers to
give us some advice on a topic that
is near and dear to all of our wallets — school districts that waste
taxpayer dollars. Often, teachers
are the best witnesses to profligate
spending.
Waste of school district funds is
topical. Texas lawmakers are debating how much money to give
public education for the next two
years. Some people think public
schools would have enough money
if they just watched their spending
a little closer.
EDUCATION ADVICE
SCOTT PARKS
So please send me an e-mail
(sparks@dallasnews.com) with
specific ideas about how your
school district could save money.
Funny anecdotes about wasteful
spending are welcome, too.
And remember, we won’t use
your name or the name of your
school district. The idea is not to
embarrass anyone but to stimulate
everyone’s thinking about how
taxpayer money gets spent.
We’d like to publish your submissions at a later date.
Now, we move on to our regularly scheduled column.
Dear Scott:
My grandson is a first-grader.
He came home last Friday with a
homework assignment in math.
He was to create a bar graph on
clocks in the house — a bar for each
type of clock. His mother is very
dutiful about helping him with
homework. But this time, the family was going out of town for the
weekend.
On Monday, mom sent a note to
the teacher explaining why he did
not do the homework. The class
keeps a marble jar. When students
do something good, they get to put
marbles
in.
Something
See TEACHER Page 5B
Emerald city
MARK M. HANCOCK/Special Contributor
Dressed in their holiday best, dogs and bipeds alike got
in on the action along Ross Avenue during the St.
Patrick’s Day parade Sunday in downtown Dallas.
Page 6B
Monday, March 14, 2005
METRO
II
Stay strong, jailed pastor’s flock told
Window Washing
&
Arlington minister is
charged with sexually
assaulting 3 women
By ERIC AASEN
Staff Writer
ARLINGTON — Members of
Agape
Christian
Fellowship
should remain strong and united
during “an hour of distress” as
their pastor faces sexual assault
charges, a church leader said Sunday.
Agape officials planned to meet
Sunday and today to discuss the
accusations, Bishop Harold Ray
told hundreds of churchgoers at a
Sunday morning service.
“We’ve got
some
critical
days
ahead,”
said Bishop Ray,
who
traveled
from Florida for
the service. He
encouraged
churchgoers not
Terry
to be “occupied
Hornbuckle
accuses the
with rumor and
women of
innuendo.”
extortion.
Senior pastor
Terry L. Hornbuckle, meanwhile,
remained in Tarrant County Jail in
lieu of $400,000 bail. He was indicted Friday on charges that he
sexually assaulted three young
women, two of whom accused him
of drugging them.
The three women say Mr.
Hornbuckle used his influence as
senior pastor to lure them into sexual activities. The pastor has said in
a statement that he’s innocent. He
accuses the women of extortion.
One of Mr. Hornbuckle’s associates, Lisa Michaels, was also indicted on two counts of aggravated
perjury in connection with the
case.
Church leaders on Sunday issued a statement, saying that their
“prayers are extended in behalf of
all persons affected by this matter.”
Mr. Hornbuckle’s wife, Renee,
sat on stage during Sunday’s service, clapping and praying. She also serves as a church pastor but did
not speak. The service was domi-
Ferris plant to contest fine in blast
Continued from Page 1B
has had health problems since being injured in the explosion. The
elder Cleaver did not want to comment, except to say, “We’re out of
business, just barely keeping going. Got to get into something
soon.”
The former C&G Aircraft
building, 19,500 square feet on a
half-acre near downtown Ferris, is
for sale for $375,000. During
2004, the building contained
hundreds of pounds of chemicals
such as nitric acid and sodium cyanide, but Steve Mounce, a chemist
who obtained permits for C&G to
operate, said the building is empty
now. An official with the Texas
Commission on Environmental
Quality agreed.
Mayor Pro Tem Scott Born said
Ferris is considering hiring a city
administrator who could better
oversee code enforcement and certificates of occupancy for new
businesses. C&G violated city ordinances because it had a certificate of occupancy only for an office
and sandblasting operation, not
for a metal-cleaning operation
that used hazardous chemicals.
“I think there has been some
code enforcement things we have
done, and that has met some resistance,” City Attorney Robert Hager said. “It’s not unusual that the
city, after having an incident like
the one they had down there,
would step up enforcement. The
problem is, they just don’t have the
bodies [to do it]. Everybody multitasks down there.”
Chief Duran, who was among
the first to respond to the explosion, said he now requires new
businesses to provide a list of
chemicals on site. He said he
would do his best to catch chemicals at existing businesses when he
does annual fire inspections.
“I don’t care if it’s a hardware
store with only a few cans of cleaner or disinfectant,” he said. “I won’t
sign a [certificate of occupancy]
unless they give me a list up front.”
Under federal law, businesses
possessing chemicals above various thresholds must provide material safety data sheets to the fire
chief and Ellis County’s local
emergency planning committee.
C&G needed to report only the nitric acid and sodium cyanide;
Chief Duran received the 2004
sheets for C&G this month.
But it didn’t have to report the
ammonium nitrate — the same
material used in the Oklahoma
City bombing in 1995 — or anything else. When the explosion occurred, it took C&G about 90 minutes to provide Chief Duran with a
list of possible chemicals inside.
An emergency response review
by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently concluded
that the mix-ups led to Mr. Powers
being transported to Parkland
without being decontaminated
first, firefighters rushing into the
building without following a protocol in a hazardous materials situation and other errors. Chief Duran said he and his firefighters —
all of them now trained in hazardous materials awareness — have
learned and are better prepared.
“If we had known what was in
there, we wouldn’t have gone in,”
Chief Duran said. “But we’re firemen, and we saw a fire.”
EPA official Steve Mason said
the emergency response review is
designed more to improve departments, not criticize them; he met
with the department before the report was issued in January for that
reason.
“Overall, the response went
very well,” he said. “They did the
best that they could to protect the
community, and that’s the No. 1
thing we want people to know.
Chief Duran … established a command structure fairly quickly, recognized what the priorities were
up front, was quickly able to determine what resources they needed
and get them to the scene.”
Chief Duran said the incident
has been an education for all.
“We learned we could count on
the schools for help [in evacuating
students]. We learned the citizens
would help — would be there if we
needed them.”
E-mail jgetz@dallasnews.com
The Dallas Morning News
DallasNews.com
nated not by news of her husband,
but by song and prayer.
Churchgoers said hardly a word
as they left the service. But they
nodded in approval when asked
whether they support Mr. Hornbuckle.
“He’s a good man; he’s a very
good man,” one woman said. Another flashed the thumbs up sign.
One former church member
isn’t surprised by the accusations.
Mary Alpough said she was interviewed by Tarrant County investigators late last year in connection
with Friday’s indictments.
“He’s out of control,” she said.
“He needs help.”
E-mail eaasen@dallasnews.com
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DALLAS
FORT WORTH
(972) 503-9600
(817) 561-0771
As featured in the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Real Simple,
U.S. News and World Reports and on NPR’s Marketplace and the CBS Morning Show.
40
Time: 12:30-4 p.m. Saturday
Juliette Fowler Homes provides residential
facilities, care and support for needy youth
and elderly people and addressing their
physical, moral, intellectual and spiritual
needs. It is hosting its 10th annual Easter
Egg hunt featuring photos with the Easter
bunny, a bounce house, a petting zoo and
balloon twisters. Volunteers can help as
attendants for the petting zoo, photo
buttons, bounce house or as resident
escorts. Minimum age to volunteer is 15.
Volunteers can wear bunny ears, bunny
noses or painted faces.
Volunteers needed: 50
Location: 1234 Abrams Road in Dallas
Contact info: Cindy Wabner at
214-827-0813 or
jfh.volcoor@fowlerhomes.net
Web site: www.fowlerhomes.net
Community outreach
Time: 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday
Reconciliation Outreach holds its Community
Outreach Feeding every third Saturday of the
month by preparing food for the community
and offering fellowship, music and games for
children. Volunteers help set up, clean up
and serve food. Minimum age is 12.
Volunteers needed: 10
Location: 4311 Bryan Street in Dallas
Contact info: Jacqueline Lucas at
214-821-9192 or
jlucas@reconciliationoutreach.org
Web site: www.reconciliationoutreach.org
HELP WANTED:
MIRACLES
Thank you Mix 102.9 and North Texas
for helping us raise $392,484
during the Fourth Annual
Children’s Miracle Network Radiothon.
Children’s Miracle Network extends our deepest thanks to North Texas donors who supported
our fourth annual Children’s Miracle Network Radiothon, February 24, 25 and 26, 2005. Your
donation to Children’s Miracle Network will benefit the more than 670,000 children treated each
year at Children’s Medical Center Dallas and Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth.
We extend a very special thank you to our radio partner Mix 102.9 and
especially their on-air talent Jeff Elliott, Anna DeHaro, Cappy, Lisa
Thomas, Tony Zazza and Amy Austin. Additionally, thanks to our national
Radiothon underwriter, Foresters™, a financial services organization
inspired by helping children. We appreciate the many patients and
families who shared their stories, as well as our many volunteers.
Sewell Family of Automobiles
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Dallas Auto Show
Bath Junkie of Frisco and Plano
Balloon City USA
Balloons Gone Wild
Chick-Fil-A
Crossmark
The Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Desperados
The Dallas Mavericks
Haagen-Dazs, Stonebriar Centre
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If so, you may qualify for a clinical research study to test an
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