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Page 1B • The Leader • September 21, 2013 • www.theleadernews.com

Timbergrove woman helps HMNS center take flight

HISD offers online magnet signup The Houston Independent School District is launching a new online application system for parents and students wanting to attend any of the district’s 115 magnet programs and orientation sessions on magnet programs and how to use the new system. “By making our magnet application, lottery, and parent notification systems available online, we are streamlining the process and making it easier and less time consuming for parents,” Assistant Superintendent of School Choice Dave Wheat said. “We are also ensuring that it is fair and equitable for all of our families regardless of their income, language, or what part of town they live in.” As part of the new online process, students may apply to a maximum of 10 magnet programs, and of those, as many as five vanguard magnet programs for gifted and talented students. Magnet applications for the 2014-’15 school year will be accepted from Nov. 4-Dec. 20 for guaranteed consideration in the first round of applicants.

by Betsy Denson betsy@theleadernews.com

Nancy Greig’s purview extends beyond butterflies into exotic tropical creatures, like this HMNS iguana. (PhotoLeader by Betsy Denson) 1 7/15/13 9:26 AM Page 1 11.625x10.5 Ad_Layout

There is no better tour guide of the Houston Museum of Natural Science’s Cockrell Butterfly Center and Brown Hall of Entomology than its director –– and Timbergrove Manor resident –– Nancy Greig. Whether she’s showing you a newly hatched Blue Morpho butterfly, and its “butterfly diaper” – a paper towel that absorbs the meconium excreted during the process of metamorphosis – or the carnivorous Nepenthes plant whose hollow leaf tips trap and digest prey – her enthusiasm is contagious. Perhaps that is to be expected from someone who as a child proudly brought a snake into her mother’s coffee party to show off to the guests. Greig’s mother, a lover of natural history as well as a geologist and birder, was cool as a cucumber during the incident. When she was 2, Greig moved with her family from Norman, Okla., to Calgary, Alberta, Canada where her father worked in the oil business. “We were always outdoors,” she said. “It was a great place to grow up.” Always an adventurer, she spent a year on a kibbutz learning Hebrew in her late teens and some time in Mexico in her early 20s before enrolling at UT Austin to get a bachelor’s degree in linguistics. She had enjoyed her botany and geology classes too though and as a graduate secretary in the linguistics department began to take additional science classes. It was a trip to Costa Rica in the summer of 1983 for a tropical biology class that really set Greig on a new path. Because she spoke Spanish, she got a job as an assistant to Dr. Larry Gilbert who was taking a group of graduate students there. She served as a translator and helped with student reports while soaking up her surroundings. “I had grown up in Canada where tropical plants cost 20 bucks, but here they were everywhere,” she said. “It was the best summer of my life.”

see Schedule • Page 2B

Cerebral palsy: Family affected helps others by Michael Sudhalter michael@theleadernews.com Oak Forest Elementary second grader Garrett Holcombe likes to run around a playground, root for his hometown Houston Texans and many other things that kids his age enjoy. Garrett proudly sports a blue No. 99 J.J. Watt Texans jersey. “He tackles hard, and he almost had the most number of sacks in the whole NFL,” Garrett said of Watt. Garrett’s parents, Jason and Shelley Holcombe, are proud of Garrett, who was born with a mild form of cerebral palsy, which is a series of conditions that cause physical disability, mostly in terms of body movement

see HMNS • Page 2B

see Holcombe • Page 2B

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