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Inside Today: Home sales tumble in the Heights • Page 9A
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Covering the Heights, Garden Oaks, Oak Forest & the neighborhoods of North Houston Saturday, August 27, 2016 • Vol. 62 • No. 35
About Us
Opera gets an encore
Inside Today
3500 East T.C. Jester Blvd Suite A (713) 686-8494 news@theleadernews.com www.theleadernews.com Facebook/THE LEADER.
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eileen
Gamel Hartman
713.305.5036
eileenhartman@kw.com 5050 Westheimer Suite 200
INSIDE.
Front Yard Find
rr’’ss e de eeaad L eL he T h T
Heights High makes its name change official
Read about it • 4A
New stage created The owners of the Heights Theater have fended off the rains. Now they’re getting close to reinvigorating 19th Street.
Read about it • 4A
New GO/OF spot looks to fill a need for the day and night crowds.
Read about it • 11A
FOR SALE. GRANDMOTHER OF 3 will care for your child in my home. Oak Forest 77092. Excellent references. 713-688-6123. GENERAL CARPENTRY AND PAINTING: Small jobs welcome. Excellent references. 832-5230360. HOUSE CLEANING: Very dependable, honest, excellent references, quality job. 713213-2039.
Find it on 7B
The INDEX. Church....................................................... 7A Classifieds.............................................. 7B Coupons. ................................................. 8A Food/Drink/Art............................... 11A Obituaries.............................................. 7A Opinion. ................................................... 5A Public Information......................... 2A Puzzles...................................................... 5A Sports. ....................................................... 1B
From interviews with coaches, to rosters, every team’s schedule, Spalocal nish school Flowercovered in this year’s edition we’ve got every S p a n is of Varsity High hSchool FloweKick r Off. • Section B
Jewelry thieves target homes in Heights, GO By Landan Kuhlmann landan@theleadernews.com Authorities are asking The Leader’s readership area to be increasingly vigilant in the coming days in the wake of several similar robberies earlier this week. Earlier this week, Precinct 1 deputies were dispatched to three separate robberies or attempted robberies in the Garden Oaks area. Around noon, deputies went to the 1000 block of Wakefield Street where evidence showed Within a span of one one or more burglars enhour, burglars broke tered a home through a into homes in both back door and stole jewthe Heights and elry from the master bedGarden Oaks and made off with room. A resident received jewelry. a home alarm alert while at work but the home security system apparently failed to automatically alert police. Roughly 30 minutes later, deputies were dispatched to the 900 block of Althea Street, where an unidentified person broke a rear glass door of a house but did not enter after the alarm system was activated. Finally, around 1 p.m., a resident flagged down See Thieves P. 8A
Opera in the Heights (Oh!) announced last week that the company met its urgent fundraising goal of $85,000, allowing the 2016-2017 season to proceed. Oh!’s many supporters are thrilled. There was a good possibility that the curtain had fallen for the last time without it. “This year, Opera in the Heights experienced one of the greatest challenges of its 21-year existence,” explained Mariam Khalili, Oh!’s Executive Director. “In one month, our community pulled together to make this upcoming season a reality. I must express my deep appreciation to our ‘Oh! Angels.’ There were many tears the day the help came through.” While the news is wonderful, the work is not yet See Opera P. 8A
Young man in the Heights spends his Saturdays setting up a WWII museum in his front yard.
Coffee into wine
By Kim Hogstrom For The Leader
The Houston Independent School District approved a $1.2 million budget Aug. 11, part of a 20162017 recommended overall budget of $2.3 billion, to change the names of seven schools in Houston that the district says were named after Confederate figures. While the budget may recently have gotten official approval, the work at Heights High, formerly Reagan High School, seems to have been largely completed to reflect the name change. Exterior walls are painted with RELATED: Retired educator the new name and Reagan alumn says the and the school’s fight is not over. • Page 5A front yard brick sign has a new placard. The engraved stone arch still bears the name of the former postmaster for the Confederacy though, as do the class pictures in the halls. It’s still a work in progress however. HISD put out the football schedule for 2016-2017 and Heights High was erroneously listed as “Reagan.” – Betsy Denson
Mural captures spirit of Durham By Landan Kuhlmann landan@theleadernews.com As students and staff stroll through the Durham Elementary School courtyard, before them now will be a masterpiece which faculty and staff say captures the very essence of the school and its mission. Last Thursday, Aug. 18, throngs of Durham Elementary students, parents and teachers gathered within the courtyard to experience the unveiling of a new mural painstakingly created over the course of two weeks by Houstonarea artist Tra’ Slaughter. As a world and dual-language school, every year Durham’s curriculum dictates each grade level focuses on one specific continent, and from that continent they choose a different country to dig deeper into and focus on throughout the year. Durham staff approached Slaughter back in July with the hope of creating a project which would breathe some life into the concept and truly bring it to life for the students. “Diversity came to mind when this project was approached to
Photo by Morris Malakoff From l to r: Steven Skiff, Heidi Skiff, Principal Amy Poerschke, Tra’ Slaughter (center front), Meilin Hyde, Nicole Planck, Tina Rojo and Kortnie Landry.
me,” Slaughter said. “It’s a mural that is supposed to be a little bit of fun and also very educational. I feel a lot of cultural diversity out here, so I think this piece is pretty spot on.” The group strove to cover different sections of every continent, such as important icons, landmarks and animals recognizable to all. Within the “connected dis-
connection” of the piece lie icons such as Buddha and Lady Liberty-co-existing along with wild animals such as a bear and a wolf, all surrounded by structures such as the Eiffel Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge. “It’ll really just to help them think about the how big the world See Durham P. 8A
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