VOL 3 No. 40
Phone: 281-980-6745
www.fbindependent.com .fbindependent.com ww
FORT BEND FAIR. BALANCED. INFORMATIVE. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2010
news
P. O.BOX 623, SUGAR LAND, TX 77487-0623
Official newspaper of Fort Bend County & Sugar Land
The Apple Tree
The Kempner Fine Arts Department will present their fall musical, The Apple Tree, at 7 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday Oct. 27 to 30 in the Kempner High School Auditorium. Advance tickets are $6 for students (with an ID) and $8 for adults, and they can be purchased in the KHS cafeteria 11:15 a.m. -- 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 20 through Friday, Oct. 30th. Tickets are also available at the door: $8 for students and $10 for adults. Created by the songwriting team of “Fiddler on the Roof” and “She Loves Me,” The Apple Tree examines the dynamics of love through the ages with three one-act musicals about men, women and a little thing called temptation. The first, “The Diary of Adam and Eve,” is a quirky, touching spin on the tale of the world’s first couple adapted from Mark Twain’s “Extracts From Adam’s Diary.” The second, “The Lady or the Tiger?” explores the fickleness of love in a rock-and-roll fable set in a mythical queendom. Finally, “Passionella” is based on Jules Feiffer’s offbeat Cinderella-story about a chimney sweep whose dreams of being a “glamorous movie star” nearly sabotage her one chance for true love.
New Democratic candidate challenges veteran county clerk By BARBARA FULENWIDER A Republican veteran office holder is being challenged this year for her job of 27 years by a new Democrat hopeful who believes she can change lives for the better by serving the public. The Democrat hopeful is Korinthia Miller who is running against veteran County Clerk Dianne Wilson. It is Miller’s first time to run for public office and she said she decided to “because I noticed how many people don’t vote and I looked up who was supposed to be responsible for voting and decided to get involved.” The 33-year-old lawyer, who is in private practice, said, “Voting is my No. 1 issue. I really want to get high school kids to start voting and I want the county clerk to be responsible for voting.” She said, “In every other county the county clerk is responsible for voting. Fort Bend has a board who elects a central person to be over voting – the elections administrator. Very few counties have such. It’s
Miller
Wilson usually the county clerk who handles the elections.” Along with getting voters to the polls, Miller also wants to pair college juniors, seniors and college graduates with small business owners so young people can get business experience and the small business owner can get help inexpensively. “It would serve everyone’s purpose,” said Miller, who noted that the county clerk has access to all DBA’s in a county. She said she would send out
Election 2010 letters to small business owners to see if they would like to participate. On her resume, Miller says her job objective is a “position that presents new challenges daily and requires multi-tasking. A position that requires me to use my business savvy, legal mind and creativity would be an ideal fit.” Miller grew up moving about because her father was See COUNTY, Page 5
Incumbent district clerk faces former county clerk official
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Su Precinct 2 Commissioner Grady Prestage, left, Gene Reed, Dick Phillips, Betty McCrohan, Sugar Land Mayor James Thompson, UH Regent Jarvis Hollingsworth, UH Chancellor Dr. Renu Khator, County Judge Bob Hebert, Precinct 3 Commissioner Andy Meyers, Ray Bailey, Library Director Clara Russell, and Precinct 4 Commissioner James Patterson. at the ground breaking ceremony for the University branch library. See story on Page 3.
Artist’s rendering of the proposed county branch library at the University of Houston System Sugar Land and Wharton County Junior College campus.
Elliott ple. Some people love helping people and truly want to help those in their town and county,” Torres said. “County government has always been my No. 1 choice. I like working in the legal field. My original goal was to work in the legal field.” Torres said she married young and then worked and raised her four daughters alone. While being everything to her daughters she also put herself through college -- attending Wharton County Junior College and graduating with an associates
Torres degree in clerical studies. While her family history prompted Torres to run, she said that after she had her daughters “I thought a lot about what I wanted for my life and to do things differently than I had. I found myself raising them alone and realized I needed an education beyond public school in order to give my girls a better life and be a good example to them,” the candidate said. When Torres ran for the See DISTRICT, Page 5
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Robin Hood (Giulio Riccio) and his merry-folk (L-R: Rachel Spooner, Neil Daniels and Katie Hyde) surround the evil Sheriff of Nottingham (Michael Hill) while his courtiers (L-R: Waylon O’Day, Beth Zimmerman, Katherine Harger, and Spencer Hankins) watch from a distance in award-winning Fort Bend Theatre’s production of Robin Hood to be performed Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. on October 1-10 at 281 N. Main in Stafford. For more information or to purchase tickets please visit the FBT website at www.fortbendtheatre.com or call 281-208-3333.
By BARBARA FULENWIDER Democrat Veronica Torres is hoping to oust one-term Republican Fort Bend County District Court Clerk Annie Rebecca Elliott. The two will be on the Nov. 2 ballot vying for the threeyear long position. This is Torres’ second time to run for the job. Her first time out was in 2006. Before that Torres had been in public service for 11 years working in the Fort Bend County Clerk’s office. When Torres left in 2008 to join an oil and gas firm she was the county clerk’s top legal process specialist. Torres said her running for public office is a way she wants “to enhance my career and because my family -- dad, uncle and a cousin – are also in politics.” When the position of district clerk opened up in 2006, running for it seemed like the appropriate thing to do, she said, “in regard to the values my family taught me. “They all enjoy assisting the public and I did too. I enjoyed working with the public because I like working with peo-