Volume 63, Number 4
Azle News
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
THE
www.azlenews.net
Next school year holds several rules changes Page 10A
Fourth of July Page 1B
Boy recovering from accidental gunshot
Fireworks Finale
13-year-old in good spirits By Natalie Gentry major artery and he’d be dead. “One of the first things Carl said afA 13-year-old Springtown boy has ter the surgery is he didn’t want us to spent the last few days at Cook Chilfile charges. He is worried about his dren’s Hospital in Fort Worth recovering from a gunshot wound he received friend who has been really upset. He has called up several times to check on July 1. Carl Davis was at his friend’s home us,” said Davis, who has stayed at the near Briar in Wise County at County hospital the entire time. “Carl wants people to know our Road 4764 Tuesday afternoon when family is getting a lot of prayers, but he and his friends spotted a snake. Tammy Davis, Carl’s mother, said the little boy’s family needs prayers, the snake had bitten a friend’s dog, so too,” Davis said. Carl is in good spirits now; he was Carl and one of his friends went inside able to visit with friends on July 7, to retrieve a he ate solid gun to shoot food for the the reptile. first time on AccordJuly 8 and the ing to Wise doctors say he County invesmay be able to tigators, the go home on Tammy Davis .22 rifle disJuly 9. Boy’s mother charged as the “It will be boys removed nice to get it from a gun cabinet. home,” his mother said with a small The bullet hit Carl in the abdomen. laugh. “But Carl told me he didn’t The teen was airlifted to Cook Chil- want to leave yet because they wait on dren’s Hospital where doctors had to him hand-and-foot here.” repair wounds to his colon. As it stands, Carl has six to eight “He had two punctures in his small weeks of recovery to look forward to, intestines and two in his large intes- which may prevent him from playing tines,” Tammy Davis said. “The doc- football this fall. “We’ll just have to wait and see how tor said if the bullet had hit even a millimeter to the right, it would have hit a he is doing then,” Davis said.
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A millimeter to the right...and he’d be dead.
Shooting may be domestic dispute Azle woman held; charges pending by carla noah stutsman A shooting in the 1100 block of Pine Ridge Drive in Azle’s Lake Ridge Addition Tuesday, July 8, left a 52-yearold Azle man in a Fort Worth hospital and a 51-year-old woman in custody pending an investigation. A 9-1-1 call came into the Azle Police Communications Center at 12:33 p.m. Both police and first responders were dispatched to the scene. Azle officers found the victim, whose name had not been released by press time, with one gunshot wound to the right arm and another to the left side of his face.
The man was taken to Texas Health Harris Hospital Fort Worth by ambulance. He was reported to be conscious and conversing with emergency personnel at the scene. A police spokesperson said the victim was listed in stable condition late Tuesday afternoon. The Azle PD Crime Scene Unit was called and assisted in processing evidence at the scene. At press time, Donna Morales, 51, was in custody at the Azle PD; no Thousands poured into and around Central Park to watch the annual Follow The Flag fireworks show charges had been filed, but the inci- July 4, enjoying “mild” 91-degree weather. See pages 2A, 11A and 1B for more photos. dent was in the early stages of invesPhoto by Carla Noah Stutsman tigation.
Follow The Flag draws record crowd by carla noah stutsman Azle’s Fire Marshal Kenny Wilson wasn’t prepared to give an estimate of the number of people who attended Follow The Flag in Central Park on July 4, but called it “quite a crowd.” In fact, one reason the number is so hard to nail down is that, in addition to thousands who were in the park itself, hundreds of people lined both Main Street and Industrial Avenue to watch the fireworks display that concluded the event. “I’d have to say this crowd was almost as big as the huge crowd at Forte Junior High the first year Follow The Flag was held inside the city of Azle,” Wilson said. That year – 2006 – the crowd was estimated to have been between seven and ten thousand people. Always a big draw, the event may have pulled even more people than usual due to Mother Nature’s gift of a “cool” 91-degree high temperature for the Independence Day celebration. Live entertainment from The Abbey Church and Fellowship Crossing worship teams as well as Pastor Tom Kolb of West Parkway Baptist Church kept the crowd singing, dancing, and just relaxing. The highlight of the evening came when retired Azle Independent School District administrator and community supporter Ray Ivey was named the third recipient of the Lew Shaffer Award. The award was presented by Shaffer, his wife Sandy, and Pastor Glyn Murphy. Shaffer and Murphy were the first two recipients of the award. Just before the event’s Fireworks Spectacular, the colors were presented by the Azle High School Civil Air Patrol,
Ray Ivey (front left) received the annual Lew Shaffer Award from the man himself. Also at the presentation were Ray’s wife Ruth (back left) and Lew’s wife Sandy Shaffer. Photo by Carla Noah Stutsman then Lindsay and Cat Schlueter sang the national anthem. When the brilliant display was over, two separate children were reported missing in the park just minutes apart. Ironically, both were young boys named Ethan – and both were found in short order and returned to their families after Azle Police Officer Jordan MacQuarrie asked for the crowd’s help from the stage.
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This Week in Azle History
30 Years Ago
Heflin releases poetry book by carla noah stutsman After logging enough years on this earth to have several great-grandchildren, a beloved Azle woman has released her first book. Love & Laughter – Poems, Analogies & Other Things Volume 1 by Ola Fay Denman Heflin – known by most simply as “Olie” – was released a few weeks ago and is now available for purchase. Heflin says the entire production of the book was the work of God Himself, and that she is the instrument He chose to use. “It’s been a memorable experience,” Heflin said. Heflin says that for many years, she has enjoyed writing in rhyme – something her older sister, Helen Denman Beauchamp did that Heflin admired. “Any time there was a special occasion – a birthday, a graduation, or a special award – I would write my message in poetry,” Heflin said. Her late husband, Harry Heflin, bought Olie her first computer in 1984, and she began collecting poems she’d written in a file on that
computer she called “POEMS, analogies and other things.” To prevent the poems from getting lost in a cyber-sea of computer documents, she titled each one with the word “Poem” at the beginning of the file name. Heflin shared that her son, Leck, once asked her if she could write anything that was NOT poetry. But a few years later, when a craniotomy left his mother very ill in the hospital, Leck wondered if she would ever write poetry again. She did, and continues to do so today. Helen wasn’t the only sister who inspired Olie. Her sister Dorothy encouraged her to include her maiden name of Denman at the end of her poems; sister Janie, Heflin says, was the quietest of the four Denman sisters, and her kindness and quiet demeanor inspired her to be more ladylike, she says. “Many times I would wake in the night thinking in poetic sentences and I would think, ‘I better get up and write this down because if I don’t I could fail to remember this in PLEASE SEE BOOK, PAGE 4A.
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In July 1984, Jodie Seigler, 11, and Jennifer Jones, 8 won a drawing at the Stardust Skating Rink. Their prize? Michael Jackson concert tickets.
20 pages plus supplements
$1 Azle, Texas 76020