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Tour Guide Saturday, January 01, 2022 • Vol. 67 • No. 01
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Timbergrove Resident Leigh Killgore
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of the
Killgore paves way for neighborhood improvements By Adam Zuvanich azuvanich@theleadernews.com Band aid. Jazz-playing students from Waltrip need help to make a trip to Dallas next week.
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Blow to bullet train? It’s up in the air whether Texas Central can exercise eminent domain.
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Longtime Timbergrove resident Leigh Killgore is a wife, a pet lover, a professional in the healthcare industry, a thoughtful neighbor and a civic leader. She moonlights as a tour guide, which has made her famous among Houstonians who are well-known in their own right. Killgore has provided periodic tours of the Timbergrove area – in which she illustrates ongoing and upcoming development in the community along with the infrastructure needs created by those projects –
since 2018. And the group of people who have taken the tour is a who’s who of elected officials and local engineers, from the Houston mayor and city council members to the Harris County judge to a Houston ISD trustee to the deputy executive director of the Harris County Flood Control District. Next on the schedule, according to Killgore, is State Sen. John Whitmire in January. She’s also trying to schedule a tour with U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, who will serve the Timbergrove and Lazybrook area after the latest round of redistricting by the Texas Legislature. A representative
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As did much of Houston, this slice of the city saw its share of ups and downs over the course of the past year. Our area has seen a winter storm ice it over and continues to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. There also was the
Astroworld Festival tragedy that claimed the life of a local student. But there were good times and uplifting moments as well. And there is reason for optimism as the Heights, Garden Oaks and Oak Forest area continues to grow and evolve, with development steaming ahead and some major infrastructure improvements on the way.
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THE INDEX. Church....................................................... 4A Classifieds.............................................. 5A Coupons. ................................................. 3B Food/Drink............................................. 7A Obituaries.............................................. 8A Opinion. ................................................... 3A Public Information......................... 2A Puzzles...................................................... 3A Sports. ....................................................... 4B
of fellow Congress member Dan Crenshaw, who has served the neighborhood since 2019, already has taken “The Tour,” as Killgore calls it. “It’s coming. It’s happening,” she said of development, which is transforming parts of the Timbergrove area from a collection of warehouses into densely packed houses and apartments. “A lot of people need to go on the tour.” Killgore, 57, has been selected as the Leader of the Year for her continued involvement and activism in the community. The tours she leads have proven to be an effective strategy Leigh Killgore
See Leader of the Year, P. 5A
Top 10 stories: Year marked by mix of turmoil, growth, togetherness Compiled by Landan Kuhlmann
Get your kicks. Soccer season starts soon for local high school teams.
Contributed photo Timbergrove resident Leigh Killgore, background, points out a plat map to Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner while giving him a tour of the area in 2019. At right is Houston Public Works director Carol Haddock.
Photo by Adam Zuvanich The popular pedestrian bridge along the MKT Trail has been closed since the summer of 2020 because of damage caused by a fire.
The top 10 stories of the year, as chosen by our staff, showed as much diversity in headlines as the area itself displays. They are placed in no particular order. Popular neighborhood stray passes away The saga of Bob the dog, the popular and at times contentious black Labrador with white chest markings and a loppedoff tail who began roaming around local neighborhoods in 2015, took two significant turns in 2021. The longtime stray was tranquilized with darts and captured in April by BARC, Houston’s animal shelter and adoption center, at the request of an area resident. Bob was subsequently released to Shepherd Park Terrace resident Paige Whitton Carter, a volunteer with Cypress Lucky Mutts Rescue, where he lived for seven months, bonded with Carter’s husband and had a
Contributed photo Community members said goodbye to Bob in 2021 as the longtime stray was removed from the streets and died seven months later.
semblance of a normal pet’s life. Bob died Nov. 24 at the estimated age of 11. According to Carter, he tried to jump through a window during a family move, started experiencing seizures and was euthanized. Although he was polarizing, Bob was loved by many in the
area, particularly Garden Oaks resident Linda Sparks, and left a lasting impression. Heights Hospital files for bankruptcy following lockout Nearly five months after its
See Top 10, P. 4A
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