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News Stories

Students Plant for the Future

By Crockett seventh grade journalism class Michael, May, Madison Shaffer, Ann Holcomb and Xochitl Marcelo

Crockett Elementary School third grade students learned the difference in food webs and life cycles as Dr. Alan Sowards from Stephen F Austin State University taught the lesson using owl pellets.

The third grade students paired up and dressed in safety gear including aprons and goggles dissected owl pellets. Owl pellets are actually owl vomit.

Each day an owl will vomit up the materials that do not digest. The third graders quickly saw that owl pellets were made of fur and bones. They could estimate the size of the owl by the number and size of the skulls found in the pellet.

Most pellets contain two-three skulls. The students then matched the bones to pictures to see if their owl had feasted on rabbits, rodents, moles or voles.

These are their most common food sources. Students soon came to realize that owls are at the top of the food web and definitely a farmer’s friend. ......Read the Entire story in the May 11 edition.

CES Garden Project Updated

By Crockett eighth grade journalism class Rachel Shroyer and Chelsea Gest

The third grade students at Crockett Elementary School are making a vegetable garden. They were in four groups. Group one did the outside planting, group two made a living necklace out of the bean seed, group three building a scarecrow to keep birds away from the vegetables and group four learned by tasting roots, stems, leaves and fruits.

Third graders rotated among the four stations on their planting day.

The fifth grade students also participated in planting flowers that are butterfly favorites. Among those are milk weed, pipe vine, verbena and passion flowers and many more.

Students took turns digging, planting, watering and mulch-ing the gardens. ......Read the Entire story in the May 11 edition.

Crockett Man Sentenced For Park Mugging

A 20-year-old Crockett man was sentenced to five years in prison on Tuesday, May 6 after pleading guilty to a charge of aggravated robbery.

Derrick Dewayne Watson, of Crockett, was charged with the attempted mugging of a 46-year-old Crockett woman at Davy Crockett Memorial Park on Aug. 7, 2006.

According to police reports, Watson approached the woman, who was out for a walk, and threatened her with a sharpened stick, demanding money.

The woman used a cell phone to call 911 and Watson ran off, according to police. Based on the woman’s description, Watson was ar-rested nearby soon after by Crockett Police Officer Andy Biscamp.

After a search, the sharpened stick was recovered by Crockett Police Officer Ben Gardner. Houston County District Attorney David E. Cervantes said that, because Watson pleaded guilty to an aggravated of-fense, he will be required to serve one-half his sentence before being eligible for parole.

Watson was set for a jury trial at the Houston County Courthouse before his last-minute plea Tuesday before District Judge Mark Calhoon. He was represented in court by Palestine attorney Mark Cargill. ......Read the Entire story in the May 8 edition.

Two Drivers Transported After Crashes

Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Brent Taylor responded to two separate crashes on Monday, May 5.

At 7:40 a.m. the trooper was called to a crash scene about one mile west of Loop 304 on Hwy. 7. According to reports, a 2003 Peterbilt tractor/trailer, driven by Herbert Pritchett, 57, of Grapeland was westbound on Hwy. 7 when a 1996 Dodge 1500, driven by Teodoro Mancilla, 45, of Crockett, attempted a U-turn on the highway. Reports indicate that the right front of the tractor/trailer struck the left front of the Dodge pickup.

The tractor/trailer reportedly ran off the left side of the road and struck a tree and the pickup was disabled in the roadway.

Mancilla and his male passenger were transported to ETMC Crockett by ETMC EMS. Authorities said Mancilla was cited for turning while unsafe.

Crockett Fire Department, Houston County Sheriff's Office, and Constable Precinct 2 Red Smith and TxDOT also responded to the scene. At about 1:30 p.m. Trooper Taylor was dispatched to a one-vehicle crash scene south of Crockett on Hwy. 19 at Four-Mile Park.

According to reports, a 2002 Plymouth Grand Voyager, driven by Thanh Kim Vu, 52, of Sugar Land, was northbound on Hwy. 19 at a speed unsafe for existing weather conditions that in-cluded rain.

Authorities said Ms. Vu reportedly negotiated a round a corner, then hydroplaned, overcorrected, side skid off the right side of the road and struck a utility pole.

Witnesses on the scene said the utility pole broke in half. Ms. Vu was cited for unsafe speed and she was transported to ETMC Crockett by ETMC EMS. Crockett Fire Department, Houston County Sheriff's Of-fice, and Constable Precinct 2 Red Smith also responded to the scene. ......Read the Entire story in the May 8 edition.

Arrest Report

AG Takes Action to Protect Consumers

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott on Thursday, May 8 reached an agreement with CNG Financial Corp. and its subsidiaries, Check ‘n Go of Texas, Inc. and Southwestern and Pacific Specialty Finance, Inc., to protect Texas customers from identity theft.

The settlement resolves the state’s May 2007 enforcement action, which charged the defendants with violating laws that govern the disposal of customer records containing sensitive personal information.

Under an agreed final judgment obtained by the At-torney General, Check ‘n Go will overhaul its information security program. The program must be fully documented in writing and contain admin-istrative, technical and physical safeguards designed to protect the personal information of Check ‘n Go customers.

Check ‘n Go also will pay $220,000 to the State of Texas, which will be appropriated for the investigation and prosecution of future identity theft cases, pursuant to the Identity Theft Enforcement and Protection Act. “Today’s agreement ensures that Check ‘n Go stores will implement new procedures to prevent identity theft,” Attorney General Abbott said. “In 2005, the Texas Legislature enacted an important law to help curb one of the nation’s fastest growing crimes.

"The Office of the Attorney General will continue working to prevent identity theft by aggressively enforcing laws that protect customers’ confidential information.”

Under its agreement with the state, Check ‘n Go must implement a new training pro-gram to inform its Texas employees about the company’s enhanced in-formation security procedures. The employee training program must provide em-ployees with a review of Check ‘n Go’s privacy pro-cedures as well as state laws governing the disposal of customer records.

The training program also must explain how identity theft harms individual consumers and businesses and the importance of abiding by the company’s disposal program.

The Office of the Attorney General took legal action against the defendants in May 2007 after discovering that several Check ‘n Go stores exposed customers to identity theft by discarding business records in easily accessible trash cans.

According to the Attorney General’s enforcement action, the records included financial records and bank statements that contained names, addresses, Social Security and driver’s license numbers, and checking account information. Under the new procedures, the defendants must designate an employee from its corporate office to oversee compliance with privacy protection laws.

Store employees must be al-lowed to anonymously report any failures to comply with the program to the designated corporate-based employee. For two years, the compliance representative must forward a sworn statement to the Office of the Attorney General certifying that Check ‘n Go has instituted and satisfied the required employee training.

To further assure that employees comply with the program, each Check ‘n Go store must post signs explaining proper records storage and disposal procedures.

The judgment also requires Check ‘n Go to conduct unannounced compliance checks at each of its stores every six months. Although the investigation revealed no confirmed incidents of personal information being misused, Check ‘n Go customers should carefully monitor bank, credit card and any similar financial statements for evidence of suspicious activity. All consumers should also annually obtain free copies of their credit reports to guard against this growing crime.

Today’s legal action is the latest in a series of efforts by Attorney General Abbott to combat identity theft in Texas, which the FTC ranks second in the nation for reported incidents of the crime.

In 2007 and 2008, the Attorney General filed several enforcement actions against vendors that carelessly and unlawfully disposed of their customers’ confidential records. ......Read the Entire story in the May 11 edition.

High Court Affirms Fuller Death Sentence

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has affirmed the death penalty of the man convicted in the capital murder of Nathan and Annette Copeland in Lovelady in May 2003.

Barney Ronald Fuller Jr., also of the Lovelady/Weldon area, was tried, convicted and sentenced to death for the Copeland’s murder in July 2004.

He was charged in connection with a shooting rampage at the Copeland’s rural home that also resulted in the non-fatal shooting of the Copelands’ 15-year-old son, Cody. The Copelands’ 11-year-old daughter, Courtney, also was present during the shooting.

At his 2004 trial, Fuller pleaded guilty to Copeland murders. Then District Attor-ney Cindy Maria Garner sought the death penalty, and the case was tried to a Houston County jury, which returned a sentence of death.

Appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, was, by law, automatic. On appeal, Fuller’s court-appointed attorneys raised 44 “points of error,” or ways in which it was claimed Fuller did not receive a fair trial. The nine-members of the high court rejected all 44 claims.

The court’s 25-page opinion, published last week, recounts the facts of the Copeland murder this way:

“The appellant, Barney Ronald Fuller, Jr., was fond of firing weapons on his property in rural Houston County, despite repeated complaints from his neighbors. Perhaps the most vocal of his neighbors, Nathan and Annette Copeland, had a dispute with the appellant regarding his alleged shooting of the Copeland's electric transformer. The dispute escalated with the appellant ultimately being charged with making terroristic threats against Annette after he told her over the telephone, `Happy New Year, I'm going to kill you.’

“On May 13, 2003, the appellant received a letter from the court regarding the terror-istic threat charges against him. The appellant was furious and began drinking heavily. At around 1:30 a.m. on May 14, 2003, the appellant left his home and traveled the short distance on foot to the Cope-land home.

The appellant fired approximately 60 rounds from an AR-15 rifle into the Copeland home from outside, changing the magazine on his rifle three times. He then broke down the back door and made his way to the master bedroom where he fired several more shots with a pistol, reloading twice. .......Pick up a copy of the May 8 Courier for the full story.

Courier to publish 2008 Welcome Guide

For the third consecutive year, the Houston County Courier will publish the official Welcome Guide on Sun-day, June 8.

The colorful and informative tabloid sized publication highlights all five cities in the county as well as attractions, schools, businesses, industry and recreation.

From Grapeland in the north end of the county to Lovelady in the south, Kennard in the east as well as Latexo and Crockett in the center, anything you want to know about the Gateway to the Texas Forest Country can be found in the Courier's Welcome Guide.

The 2008 Welcome Guide provides useful data to long-time residents and visitors in a professional and organized manner.

For additional information about the 2008 Welcome Guide contact the Courier at 544-2238.

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