Houston Intown Magazine

intown September/October 2012

Are We Headed for Blackouts?

Rice Celebrates Centennial.

Dierker on Astros

Arts & Entertainment

Should Your Kid Play Football?

Texans’ secret weapon.

after

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CONTENTS

18

MED CENTER JOURNAL Should Your Kid Play Football?

20 THE GAME

Craig Shemon interview with Larry Dierker

22 FINANCIAL FOCUS

Diversify Your Investment Risk

14 Celebrating The

Rice Centennial.

6

24 THE BUZZ

26

ARTS &

28

THE LAST

LIFE

entertainment

Are we headed for blackouts?

12 THE GAME

Texans’ Secret Weapon.

intown

www.intownmag.com September/October 2012

Publisher M.A. Haines Editor Lisa June

Production Web Design: Melaroo Art Director & Layout Design: Alona Preskovsky Web Design: Jay Ford

Contributors Buddy Bailey Marene Gustin William Hanover John Granato Roseann Rogers Sean Pendergast

PAGE

Lawnmowers, Wookies and Mexican Accordians.

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Intown Magazine is published bi-monthly by SNS Media. Articles are welcome and will be given careful consideration for possible publication. Intown Magazine does not assume any responsibility for unsolicited materials. Materials submitted will be returned if accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Box 980757 Houston, TX 77098 You can also e-mail intownmagazine@gmail.com

Copyright 2012 by Intown Magazine. All rights reserved. Content may not be reprinted or reproduced with permission from Intown Magazine.

EDITORIAL

Four score It wasn’t so long ago that gas was close to a quarter a gallon and very few of us knew about the impending danger facing our nation today and in the very near future. Gas and energy prices continue to increase as does our nation’s inability to supply our energy needs. The US government is in total gridlock on this issue as with most of the important issues of today.

During President Richard Nixon’s tenure in office, gasoline was at thirty six cents.

Eggs were not much lower than today at sixty cents and milk was a buck. With gas steadily on the rise again we continue to spend a greater proportion of our income on energy and gasoline. I have a friend that maintains that the Great Recession was started due to the spike in gas prices and unless we do something it may happen again as recent trends have shown.

It is easy to not be concerned when the economy starts to percolate again as it has, but don’t kid yourself, high priced gas and energy is bad for nearly everyone.

Our country needs to have some sort of energy policy not based on either “drill, baby, drill“ or requiring use of technologies such as using corn for fuel. A comprehensive plan with compromise and environmental considerations should be at the forefront of our leaders agenda. No more gridlock. Our leaders should act as such and bear responsibility for not having an effective energy policy.

As John Hofmeister, the former Shell exec, so boldly states in our story on energy, we will be in blackouts and gas lines before long if our politicians don’t change their ways.

He maintains that in order to avoid this we must change the way our government is run.

Maybe all congressmen, senators, and the president need to reread the famous speech writer that once said the we are a “government of the people, by the people and for the people”. Can we keep it that way? ********** If you are wondering about your kid playing football you must read our story about The Methodist Hospital Concussion Center. It may help restless parents sleep easier at night.

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LIFE

By M.A Haines

Are we headed for

black

outs?

John Hofmeister Founder and Chief Executive Citizens for Affordable Energy Washington, D.C. & Former President, Shell Oil Company Houston, Texas John Hofmeister is a key member of the United States Energy Security Council, a bipartisan group which includes former Secretary of State George P. Shultz and two former secretaries of defense.

Hofmeister also has held executive leadership positions in General Electric, Nortel and AlliedSignal (now Honeywell International).

Hofmeister serves as the Chairman of the National Urban League and is a member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technical Advisory Committe.

He is an Advisor to Liberty Power of Fort Lauderdale, Fl, the nation’s largest minority owned power company.

Hofmeister also serves on the boards of the National Energy Security Council, Washington, D.C.; the Foreign Policy Association, New York; Strategic Partners, LLC; the Gas Technology Institute and the Center for Houston’s Future.

He also is a past Chairman and serves as a Director of the Greater Houston Partnership. Hofmeister is active in education serving on the Energy Advisory Board at the University of Houston. He is also a Director of the Texas Education Reform Committee.For this Intown interview we sat down in his River Oaks hi rise and here are some highlights from that interview.

For the full interview go to www.houstonintown.com.

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Most people, after a long and successful business career, are planning trips and making tee times, but not River Oaks resident John Hofmeister. The former President of Shell Oil is travelling extensively alright, but not for the same reasons you may think. One of the early predictors of five dollar a gallon gasoline, upon his retirement from Shell, Hofmeister founded and heads the not-for profit , nation-wide membership association, Citizens for Affordable Energy. He forewarns that, “our energy system is on the verge of collapse and if we don’t do something there will be blackouts”.

During his tenure at Shell, Hofmeister embarked on an extensive outreach program, unprecedented in the energy industry, to discuss critical global energy challenges. The program included an 18 month, 50 city engagement program across the country where he and other Shell leaders met with more than 15,000 business, community, and civic leaders, policymakers, and academics to find out what must be done to ensure affordable energy for the future.

A frequent guest on MSNBC and radio talk shows, Hofmeister has a unique position in his industry, proclaiming that he is “a registered democrat and there aren’t many of us in the oil patch.” However, Hofmeister sounds nothing like a progressive environmentalist when he favors drilling practically anywhere there is oil or gas. “There are ten sources of energy available that include oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear or uranium, biomass, wind, solar geothermal, hydropower, and hydrogen and we should be pursuing all ten of them”, states Hofmeister. In his book, Why We Hate The Oil Companies; Straight Talk from an Energy Insider (Palgrave MacMillan 2010), Hofmeister warns of a nation that no longer has enough oil and gas for the nation’s security. “When I glanced out my window of my office as president of Shell I had to deal with a president, 13 cabinet level agencies, 26 congressional committees, potentially 800 federal judges, fifty governors,50 state legislatures, 50 state court systems, and tens of thousands of regional and county governments”, he states emphatically.

We have the Fed that oversees money in this country, why not an independent agency regulating energy, asks Hofmeister.

Hofmeister proclaims that if “we allow the future of supply technology, the future of our infrastructure, the future of our environmental protections to be in the hands of Congress and the White House we are lost. The answer is a change in our governing system to pull us out of this mess”.

With regards to coal he is certainly in the minority among his party in that he is adamant about the “mindless effort underway by some in the US government to stop coal from being an energy source in the future without even trying to use the technology available to clean up coal”. In his book Hofmeister claims that by opening up more domestic drilling, and using more biofuel, and driving higher mileage autos we could import half as much oil as we currently do. So what is the problem? Sounding very much like someone running for office, Hofmeister contends that “there is a very sad phenomenon which explains it which I call perversity of partisanship between political parties and that animosity is not about what is good for the American people, but what is good for my power base. Republicans and Democrats are both guilty of determining what is good for my power base at the expense of the good of the American people”. www.intownmag.com 7

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MH: What were your biggest challenges at Shell?

JH: Shell was trying to determine appropriate levels of investment for the U.S. and needed to articulate and define with the work of the upstream business including what were the potential investments in shale oil and shale gas and what role would the Arctic and Gulf of Mexico play. Shell had come off a decade of weak investments in the US relative to its long history. There was uncertainty with the political climate here and natural resource availability was challenge number one.

It was also making sure the company could do its best under whatever conditions it had to operate but having worked in the Hague and in London previously I had been involved in the staffing of Shell senior positions in the U.S. for quite some time and we had assembled a superb team.

MH: What is the one thing you would attribute to your success?

JH: Enabling people to do their best. I am not a command and control leader. Instead creating the enablers whether it’s self confidence, whether it’s transparent communication or conflict resolution and helping people be productive so that they can do their best. Having chosen good people you don’t want to get in their way. You want them to do what they know how to do. I have been pretty good at that over the years. Get out of the way and let people perform ,but don’t completely lose touch either. You don’t want “whales” out there doing their own thing and not in the interest of the company.

MH: Do the recent shale discoveries deserve the hype or should there be environmental concerns that should temper the enthusiasm?

JH: We know how to master the environmental issues technologically in the shale fields. No question about that. The issue is whether regulations will catch and punish those who violate regulations and deny them the rights to have future permits. It is only those who will violate the best practice and regulations that exist who will spoil it for everyone else. Just as a surgeon knows how to invade the body, the oil companies know how to invade the earth in what is called horizontal drilling.

They know what they’re doing, they know how to do it and they know the implications and consequences of what they do and

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they are prepared for the worst. However, when people are lazy or trying to cut costs to save a buck they violate those rules or best standards and that’s when we get methane leaks or lousy cement jobs that lead to future methane leaks.

MH: What other investments in alternative energy did you make at Shell?

JH: It was a robust time for Shell in terms of alternatives. One of the ones I am particularly proud of is the range of investments that took place in bio fuels. We would test and see what was possible with different kinds of biomass. We did not test corn because we did not want to get into food for fuel. Whether it was super enzymes for different grasses or algae or different municipal wastes, there were a number of biomass projects that we

pursued. I hope that those have paid off.

Secondly, the wind and solar business. Solar went through a rough time and we sold that business in order to turn that investment into a better technology in partnership with another solar company.. It was sad to close the business ,but we were able to sell it as a going concern. Wind was very successful.

Many of the west Texas wind farms as well as Kansas, Colorado, and Iowa were major investments. Likewise, Shell had interests in hydrogen for fuel cells and the mobility of cars with fuel cell technology or stationary fuel cells.

BP and the Coast Guard. In my mind the administration politicized the spill to figure out how to maximize their political gains from that horrible spill and minimize the fact that they really didn’t know what they were doing.

When they shut down the Gulf of Mexico as a moratorium against drilling, against the best advice of experts, it was a completely political move to make it look like they were doing something. When they said we needed to revise all the deepwater regulations despite the fact that all deepwater rigs without exception had passed inspection after the Macando well explosion, it was again government overreach.

MH: You were critical of the Obama Administration during the BP spill? How do you feel about their energy policies?

JH: I was critical of the administration,

With respect to the administration’s policy overall keep in mind I am a registered Democrat, and there are very few of us in the oil patch. I don’t think the Obama administration has an energy policy. Up until late 2011 all the president talked about was wind,solar and biofuels. Finally, in October 2011 he mentioned natural gas as part of the future.

He bad mouthed big energy every chance he got and he clearly wants to raise taxes on the hydrocarbon industry. This Administration’s approach costs Americans money at the gas pump. In fact Americans will pay more for gasoline and diesel this year than in any other year in our nation’s history because of the Obama Administration’s out and out deliberate refusal to focus on domestic energy production. We’re forced to be reliant on imports at whatever prices are because they refused to open up more access to new sources on federal lands and offshore. Fortunately, the President has not tried to stop development on private lands under state permits. The feds have done nothing to expand oil and gas access in new regions and the Gulf of Mexico is producing less now than it did at the time of the Macondo incident because of the moratorium.

MH: By not supporting more drilling are we not supporting alternatives?

JH: I think in terms of promoting alternatives what really needs to be done is to bend the technology curve towards commercialization and that takes enormous research and development. What they have done instead is use tax policy and give aways or loan guarantees to expand production of inefficient products that we know don’t meet the technology test in terms of commercialization.

IT makes it look like they are doing something and it’s payback time to people who invested in their campaign. We have an absurd situation involving biofuels, for example. Oil companies are forced to pay fines today to the EPA for not delivering the biofuels required by law when those biofuels actually don’t exist and can’t be produced in those quantities that the law mandates. The laws of nature won’t allow such production of advanced biofuels and we are working against the laws of nature to produce biofuels the law prescribes and the EPA penalizes the industry for not distributing what cannot be produced. This is mindlessness run amuck in Washington DC. Rather than admit the law is wrong, they simply say it’s the law and big oil isn’t meeting the terms of the

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law and since they have plenty of money let them pay the fine for something that doesn’t exist.

MH: Are you satisfied that it is safe to resume deepwater drilling in the Gulf and in other places?

JH: As long as we drill in deep water or shallow water or onshore for that matter there will be risk. But the problem is not the industry. The regulations were working and people were following the regulations as was proven by the inspections shortly after the spill. Even now the new regulations were made based upon advice of the industry because they are really the only ones who know what is happening out there. Government doesn’t have the scientific expertise and things were working fine except for several bad judgments made on one rig. That is not to condemn all of BP. BP has many great people and a history of successful operations, but in this case and a couple of others the company has unfortunately tolerated bad judgements that have resulted unfortunately in deaths and environmental damage.

MH: Do you believe there are long term effects from this spill like we are now seeing?

JH: I think the BP disaster has stigmatized the entire industry and put the entire industry under scrutiny which for the most part is not a problem because the industry is used to scrutiny and also having a robust risk management processes which can withstand the scrutiny. It’s when companies cut corners and get lazy or don’t follow the rules and best practices that we have trouble.

It would be unfortunate if society would let us produce less product and raising the price of fuel further because of this stigma. Hopefully, good judgment will prevail not this stigma.

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THE GAME

By John Granato & Sean Pendergast

Texans’ secret weapon.

The Texans rookie star quarterback from last year’s historic playoff run will be ready if needed.

The fifth round pick from North Carolina holds school records for total passing yards, single season and single season total offense weighs in.

John Granato: Compare last offseason to this offseason for you.

T.J. Yates: As everybody knows, there wasn’t an offseason last year, so coming into training camp a lot of the rookies’ heads were spinning. We had about a week of meetings before we had our first practice. Compared to this time, last year is night and day. I came into this training camp having game experience under my belt, some OTA (organized team activity) and minicamp experience. Being able to have an offseason and work with my quarterback coach, make corrections to my game – they’re things I wasn’t able to do last year because we hit the ground running in the middle of the season.

JG: You know, one of the reasons your teammates have respect for you is because of your work ethic. Even when you were the number three guy, the stories were about how much time and extra effort you put into getting to know that playbook and being ready. Is there anything that you just don’t know, or have you just absorbed yourself in this thing?

TJ: You know, not really. I’ve pretty much got this offense completely

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football just having the preseason.

JG: Before we let you go, the young receivers – who’s opened your eyes a little bit?

TJ: The two guys we drafted – they’re making plays left and right. DeVier Posey and “K-Mart” Keshawn Martin have really been stepping up.

They know that they were drafted here for a reason.

We have a lack of depth at wide receiver. Some of those positions are wide open and a lot of them are stepping up. Lestar Jean is really starting to practice like a pro, coming into his own. Especially with Andre Johnson being out for a while, he’s going

to have to step into that starting role again like he did in OTAs. JG: Hey T.J., we appreciate it, thanks for stopping by for a minute. Best of luck, congratulations on your success last year and we’re looking forward to more.

TJ: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

Catch John Granato & Sean Pendergast every weekday morning from 7:00am to 11:00am on Yahoo! Sports Radio 1560AM.

T.J. Yates down. The best teacher is being able to go out there in games and do it under fire. A lot of the young guys don’t get that chance and I’m fortunate that I was able to go in there and get those chances, but I think that’s the best way to learn. It’s hard to learn some stuff on a piece of paper, you just have to go out there and do it. Last year was invaluable to my experience level and my progression.

Sean Pendergast: Talk about that, T.J., the preseason and the practices you guys go through. There’s not a lot of time obviously in pads, there’s only “x” amount of time in preseason games. Do you feel like, especially for a young quarterback, that the preseason is enough time to get ready?

TJ: It’s tough, especially when you don’t have an offseason. The lockout was really tough. Last year during the lockout the guys had things going on outside the facility over at Rice. We were able, the young guys who were in town who wanted to get a head start, to get a chance to do more because the veteran leaders on this team provided that for us. Last year that helped a lot but it’s tough to get ready for NFL

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By Randal Hall

Celebrating The Rice Centennial.

The Life and Times of William Marsh Rice The city, Houston of course, had been founded more than seven decades earlier in 1836 by The Allen Brothers of New York, and the city itself was chartered in 1937(sic—should be 1837). It was described in 1838 as “a vast tavern reared hastily in the prairie to accommodate the crowds of emigrants that are constantly arriving.” But who, in 1838, could possibly imagine what the city would become by the end of the century? It will come as no surprise to you that I will not mark William Marsh Rice as a man who did, in fact, foresee that Houston was going to have a dynamic and profitable future.

He arrived in Houston in 1838, and he died in 1900, and for more than six decades, I think he really embodied what Houston was about. William Marsh Rice came to Texas already with a well embodied sense of economic potential of the US. He had left school as a teenager to start working in a grocery store, and after a few years of doing that, he started his own grocery business but apparently had some trouble around 1837 with the so-called Panic of 1837 when the national banking system went

William Marsh Rice from NY Evening Journal Sept. 27 1900

Lovett Hall with cars 1912

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wmricewoodsonlibraryriceuniv

into a crisis. We might be familiar with the effects that a banking crisis can have on a national economy.

Houston was being created and advertised, and it enticed the young William Marsh Rice to Galveston from Massachusetts. There are stories that he sent a stock of merchant goods by ship ahead of him and then came on down by steamboat and trains and so on, and the story is that the stock of goods was lost at sea. Some people say it was lost at the site of Galveston in a shipwreck. I cannot find any confirmation of that, but I am suspicious because that same story was also told about 2 other men who arrived in Houston about 1838, a man named Paul Bremond and a man named S. M. Swenson.

The man who became most important to William Marsh Rice in his early years in Houston though was Ebenezer Nichols, and by 1844, he was a longtime business partner with William Marsh Rice. Like Rice and the Allens and most other prominent early Houston business leaders, Nichols was a northerner. He emigrated here from New York, and they formed a really dynamic and profitable business on Main Street.

Merchants would bring goods via Galveston from Boston and New York or wherever there were wholesale needs to be filled and bring those up to the plantations on credit, and in return the various plantations would market their cotton crops or other crops through the merchant in town. So the merchants like William Marsh Rice were handling both ends of the business.

Rice worked with a number of partners, in addition to Nichols, and one of them was a man named Charles W. Adams of Galveston. In 1849, Adams and Rice helped enter what was a new pioneering industry in Texas, which was growing sugarcane and processing it in sugar mills. Rice and his partners were pretty farsighted. In 1849, Adams and Rice entered into an agreement with a man named James Love who, along with a partner, operated a plantation on Oyster Creek in Brazoria County. The contract says, and I’ll quote it here, that “Rice and Adams will accept such drafts as said Love may draw on them for the necessary amount to purchase the machinery and apparatus to be propelled by horsepower necessary for making sugar along with

the materials necessary to be purchased for the construction of a sugar house.”

If the crop failed and the plantation owners could not pay Rice back his money, he also had a mortgage on the land itself and along Oyster Creek. Brazoria County at this point in time has some of the last slaves imported directly from Africa. As many of you may know, the slave trade importing business had been outlawed in 1808, and it was also illegal under the Republic of Texas, but there were smugglers in the 1830s, bringing in hundreds of African-born slaves that they purchased in Havana, and many of them ended up on this particular plantation that Monroe Edwards had owned previously. So, you can see the sort of tentacles of how this business worked extending even into Cuba and across the Atlantic to Africa at this time. On this plantation-based ,agricultural natural land producing a lot of profit, William Marsh Rice himself ended up owning some slaves.

This was all very profitable for William Marsh Rice. As a very eager young businessman, he was preoccupied with business to the 1840s, but in 1850 he married the daughter of Paul Bremond, the merchant who had also arrived around 1838 in Galveston. Domestic bliss did not slow down William Marsh Rice’s business work though. In 1850, he joins a man named Harvey Baldwin. The Baldwin family was one of the early roots in the greater area of Houston from New York and were married with the Allan family in Houston in the upper echelon of Houston society. He joined in with a business plan that created the Houston and Brazos Plank Road Company to improve transportation up into the plantation areas. ”By July 1859 though there was no longer any question at all that Rice was a success. It says, “He is one of the best men in the state, has ample means to pay all his debts, very rich, and good for all purchases.” And the 1860 Census kind of sums that up; the combination of his real and personal property was $750,000. In 1860 that made him one of the richest people in Texas.

William Marsh Rice recalls what happened during the Civil War in his life. He says, “The war broke up my business. In August 1863, my first wife died, and in the December following, I went to Mexico, Monterrey, and then down to Matamoros. And after a little delay on to Havana, I remained there in a month or two then returned to Matamoros where I was on business until August 1865.”

At the outbreak of the Civil War, the Union Navy blockaded the southern coastline stopping nearly all traffic commerce in and out of the southern ports. It was not entirely effective so you had blockade runners trying to enter ports like Galveston and get cotton out through these ports, but it was very difficult and the blockade became more and more effective over time.

So what people did, people like Rice, was headed toward Matamoros, Mexico, which is just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville.

Mexico was a neutral nation. Britain’s navy enforced neutrality of the seas. If you could get your cotton into Mexico and put it on a British ship out of Matamoros, then you could legally export and import goods.

Coming out of the war, William Marsh Rice actually does pretty well. He loses some of his money but by July 1866 the credit reports are saying that he is still worth about $200,000 and that he is still a rich man. His wife died in 1863, but in 1867, he remarries to a widow named Libby Baldwin Brown. She is a part of the Baldwin family with whom he already had business connections . Seeing that his merchant business with plantations was no longer going to be profitable because some of the agriculture was devastated by the war, William Marsh Rice moved to New York. By the end of the century, he is in this beautiful apartment in this beautiful building on Madison Avenue at 52nd Street, and he does very well. He keeps up his business life though in Houston and comes down here for a part of the year, most years. He does not have children from either of his marriages, and he begins to see what other rich men have done.

People in Houston, of course, knew about Rice’s deep connections to www.intownmag.com 15

the city, and they began in the 1880s to ask that he do something for the city. Cesar Lombardi was a successful merchant and publishing executive and head of the school board, and he approached Rice about endowing a high school. Emmanuel Rafael, who was a banker and power company executive, approached him about maybe creating a city library. But what they got instead in 1891 was an institution that drew from these two models, and it was The William M. Rice Institute for the Advancement of Literature, Science, and Art. It was chartered in 1891. Rice was still living. He created the board of trustees, registered the charter with the state, and stipulated that nothing was to be done until his death, at which point he made an initial donation, and his plan was to give his entire fortune then to the institute, and it would be created after his death.

However, in 1896 was the real curveball, when Libby Rice dies.

Just before her death she creates a will with the help of a Houston attorney named Orren Holt, and this will claims that under the laws of the state of Texas she is entitled to half of the Rice estate, and that they were residents of Texas. She is claiming this right and she is going to give a lot of the money to her family and to an institution for aged women in New York that she wants to create.

The problem is though that under the laws of New York, she is entitled to nothing because it is not the way the inheritance laws work there. It would all go to the surviving husband when she dies.

So the question then becomes: Were she and William Marsh Rice residents of Houston or were they residents of New York? And the evidence is overwhelmingly that they thought of New York as their home. They were there the vast majority of the time and that’s really where most of the property was. When they were here, they stayed in the hotel. Because of the long, drawn-out court case, one aspect of the case is that Orren Holt needs to collect testimony from people who knew the Rices in New York and New Jersey. To do so, he hires an attorney, a former Texan but now a New York attorney named Albert Patrick. Albert Patrick is there on the right. In the course of working for Holt, Patrick comes to know to valet whom William Marsh Rice hired after Elizabeth Baldwin’s death. Charles Jones was living with Rice in the apartment. He was sort of being his manservant and general helper. Patrick initiates a relationship with Jones. They become friends and co-conspirators and planned to steal William Marsh Rice’s fortune. In June 1900, Patrick creates a will that gives small sums of money to the Rice Institute to various family members, to James Baker, to other people but then leaves the vast majority of the estate to himself, to Albert Patrick.

It says, “I give, devise and bequeath to Albert T. Patrick, formerly of Texas, now of New York, all the rest of my estate.” It is witnessed by two cronies of Patrick’s. Patrick has worked closely with Jones to learn how to forge William Marsh Rice’s signature, so that signature is a forged version. So they created this in the summer of 1900, and they are just kind of sitting on it and waiting for this 84-year-old man to die. They are getting a little impatient.

In September 1900, one of the crucial things for our part of the world here happened. There was the great Galveston Hurricane which almost destroyed the city of Galveston, and one of the things it did was do extensive damage to the Merchant’s & Planters cottonseed mill that Rice owned. His business contacts here are telegraphing 16

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and working with him in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, and he authorizes them to spend, I think it is about $250,000 of the fortune to rebuild this cottonseed oil mill. Most of William Marsh Rice’s estate is tied up in investments, like most people.

Most people have a lot of money but do not have a lot of cash sitting around, but he had about $250,000 in cash and a bank account in New York. Patrick and Jones know this.

They see suddenly that all this cash is about to disappear. This was going to be the easiest part of the fortune to get their hands on with his forged will, so they panicked and they create a plan to kill William Marsh Rice which they do in September 23, 1900.

The killing was carried out by Jones after being planned by Patrick. At the time of the murder, Patrick is at his boarding house singing hymns in the parlor while Jones is doing the dirty work, so he has an airtight alibi initially, but what trips them up is that the day after the murder one of the men who had fraudulently witnessed the will shows up at SM Swenson and Son’s Bank. Actually, when Rice moves up there he is going to deal with somebody he knows, so his banking was done through SM Swenson & Sons.

SM Swenson had died but Rice was also close with the son, Eric Swenson. So, on the day after the death no one knows about it at the bank yet,and this man shows up with a $25,000 check written out to “Albert” Patrick, and it was misspelled. Swenson, being a careful banker, calls the apartment and asks. He wants to confirm with William Marshall Rice that this is, in fact, a real check.

What he learns instead is that Rice died the night before. They refused to cash the check.

Swenson alerts folks back in Houston that the circumstances of the death were maybe mysterious. They alerted the district attorney very quickly. People figured out that this was a murder and that is how we end up with Jones and Patrick in jail and Jones confessing to the murder and implicating Patrick. He is convicted in large part on the testimony of Jones. Jones was then released—which seems astonishing even at this late date that a conspirator in a murder trial would be able to be completely released in return for his testimony, but he was. Jones returned to Texas, and he shoots himself in Baytown in 1954. So he lives long but not that happily.

Life’s a beach 713.957.0449 | www.ajslandscaping.com

Patrick’s death sentence is commuted in 1906, and in 1912 he is pardoned by the governor of New York despite being obviously guilty, it seems to me. By 1912 though, other good things were happening. On September 23, 1912, exactly 12 years from the day after the death of William Marsh Rice, the first students enrolled at the new Rice Institute This story was taken from a transcript of a speech by Randal Hall at The Heritage Society at Sam Houston Park. Randal Hall is an adjunct associate professor at Rice and the managing editor of the Journal of Southern History. He also recently edited the book William Marsh Rice and His Institute. www.intownmag.com 17

MED CENTER JOURNAL

Should Your Kid Play Football?

If you have been wondering whether it is ok for you or your kid to play football read on. With what may be the most advanced and comprehensive center of it’s kind: The Methodist Hospital Concussion Center provides expert treatment and prevention of long term illness due to head trauma. It doesn’t hurt to have this facility in your backyard.

Seventy five per cent of the people treated at the Methodist Concussion Center are athletes and 25 percent are from other injuries such as accidents. They treat people right after their concussion and then there is the period right after which is the post concussion syndrome where symptoms may last two weeks to two months, although some patients have problems for many months. The greater concern is in patients and athletes who have had concussions and there are long term problems that develop which can be chronic. Patients may develop Alzheimer’s like dementia that “develops down the line and we use to define down the line as 10-20 years after a concussion, but in some instances there have been clear cut cases that developed in only 2- 3 years,”, according to Dr. Derman. In instances such as with Dave Duerson and other former pro football players who have committed suicide, studies have found long term problems that had developed. This change in 18

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the brain we more frequently find in boxers. Both the Dave Duerson study and Ray Easterling’s of the Atlanta Falcons findings were both consistent with having these changes in the brain. Most, but not all have shown these changes and The Methodist Concussion Center is looking to find if something predisposes an athlete to develop these problems down the road. Is there something in your genes that would make you more likely to have some problems. In Alzheimer families there are certain genetic markers that predispose that family into having a higher incidence of dementia. “It is not too far a stretch that if you have these markers you would be prone to suffer the symptoms,”, according to Derman.

The Methodist Concussion Center is part of The Methodist Neurological Institute and is located in the world renowned Texas Medical Center. The backbone of the Center is Dr. Howard Derman, a neurologist. There is also a neuropsychologist, Dr. Kenneth Podell who has a special interest in concussion head injury. Their team also includes a neurosurgeon, and a community liaison who works with athletic staff at area schools. We sat down with Dr. Derman who also serves as the Texans doctor and NFL concussion representative.

vision, slowness in response, sleepiness, and an inability to concentrate and if an athlete has any of these issues during the game it should be recognized by the trainer or frankly the other teammates.

Do you recommend testing throughout the season?

Dr. Howard Derman I read a study that in a normal season a football player receives over 400 hits to the head? Is that true?

That is correct, but we must differentiate getting hit in the head and something significant enough that causes a concussion. There was a study done at the University of North Carolina where they put pressure monitors in the helmets of lineman to see how often there was a change in pressure with a blow to the head. During a two hour practice there were 70 instances where there was an increase of pressure registered in the sensors of the helmet.

Fortunately, the majority are not associated with a concussion, but it is of concern, so we try to educate the coaches , players, trainers and parents about signs of concussions.

What we do know and are most concerned about is if athletes don’t completely recover from their concussion and start playing again, those athletes are at a higher risk of developing problems down the line. So the first goal is to identify who has had a concussion, so that athletes can recover completely before they go back and play another game.

Are there athletes who continue playing if they have a concussion or do they know the concussion symptoms?

Sometimes coaches are not sure and players won’t say anything and may say let’s just finish the game and see what happens.

There are a constellation of symptoms including headaches, vomiting, blurry

There is a computerized test called the IMPACT test .

This is a test administered to professional and student athletes before the season starts so we have a baseline of where the athletes are. If they sustain a concussion during the season we have a baseline to compare it to. We repeat the IMPACT test and see what it looks like and if there are changes then we follow the patient with additional testing to track their improvement. Our goal is to now go to the high schools and junior high schools to administer the IMPACT tests before the season starts. To date, the Methodist Concussion Center has provided approximately 5,000 baseline tests at Houston-area middle and high schools.

Is there a connection between recent suicides and hits taken to the head?

That’s a very important question and I will try and answer that in a few different way. They often have a cognitive and memory issues beyond normal depression..The other interesting thing is that virtually all of the professional athletes who have taken their lives have killed themselves with a gunshot to the chest and not to the head. We believe the athletes are conscious of what they are doing.

Can you get concussions with soccer and lacrosse injuries?

By far the second highest amount of injuries of head trauma are young women from playing soccer. From the heading and head to head collisions. There is a lot of discussion if helmets should be used in soccer. We don’t think

that helmets will help cut down concussions in soccer based on scientific evidence.

Now it is taught for football players to not lead with their heads. Has that helped cut down injuries?

First of all leading with your head is not a good idea obviously. It is interesting to look at football injuries relative to positions.

Most frequently of course are quarterbacks then linebackers followed by receivers and backs

and then lineman.. The way football is played now is that lineman are suppose to hold the blockers so linebackers are expected to make the tackles.

Is the NFL doing enough to combat this problem?

Over the last three to four years, the NFL has become more vigilant about concussive head injuries. There has always been concern on the league’s part about any injuries, but clearly concussion has become a much bigger issue recently. I am the team physician for the Texans managing concussion issues and each NFL team has a physician involved with concussion management. The NFL in conjunction with each team’s physician is ramping up research and has made money available to do that. The problem is as more and more athletes are retiring the problem gets bigger and bigger.

You have to start somewhere and overall I think the response has been good, but a lot still needs to be done.

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the Game

by Craig Shemon

Catch John Granato & Sean Pendergast every weekday morning from 7:00am to 11:00am on Yahoo! Sports Radio 1560AM.

Larry Dierker - LIVING LEGEND AND AUTHOR Analyzing Astros’ Woes

Craig Shemon: Do you think baseball should be back in the Olympics?

Larry Dierker: I think I do. When you think about some of the things that are in there, there are a lot of sports we don’t play very much.

Baseball’s being played around the world and in more places now that it was 12 years ago when (Roy) Oswalt was on the team and (Adam) Everett and Ben Sheets won (the gold medal) game against Cuba.

CS: You’re an easy-going guy, Larry. Did a reporter ever get under your skin with the line of questioning they came at you with?

LD: Oh yeah, a number of times after a tough loss.

CS: Was it because they were trying to get under your skin?

LD: My skin was easy to get under. I was kind of wrapped up in emotions, especially after our

last playoff loss against Atlanta. I said some things I wish I hadn’t . The reporter asked a legitimate question and I just went off. But that was an emotional thing and when you’re in the sports radio business and you’re doing interviews you have to ask tough questions.

CS: You’ve got to be laughing at the recent trend of limiting young pitchers’ innings.

Larry, you had 20 complete games one year, you went 300 innings one year. What was your highest pitch count?

LD: I don’t know but I would guess around 150.

CS: And how’s your arm today. Are you okay, Larry?

LD: I just had rotator cuff surgery about six weeks ago so I can’t even lift my arm right now. It was okay for throwing but not for getting anybody out – until I fell off my bike, and then it wasn’t okay for anything.

CS: Mark Gubicza, who used to pitch for the Royals, once showed me his arm. His arm is actually curved from throwing. Have you heard of that? Is that normal for a pitcher?

LD: My right shoulder sits about three or four inches below my left shoulder. I can’t completely straighten my elbow out on my right arm, and I can’t completely open my thumb up to put my hand facing up with my arm straight like I can with my left arm. So yeah, there’s some permanent damage.

CS: Realistically, how long does rebuilding a franchise take? I had former Astros manager , Phil Garner, tell me five to seven years. I pointed out the Detroit Tigers went from worst to World Series in three years, from 2003 to 2006. What is realistic?

LD: Three years to five to seven to 20 to 25.

Shemon laughs. When I started out in the 60’s we were an expansion team and … we made

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some bad trades. We let go of Rusty Staub, Joe Morgan and Mike Cuellar and didn’t get anything back, so it took about 20 years that time. The key is really once you get this mass of young talent – which we have now – is to evaluate your own players, which isn’t always easy. There’s a lot of work ahead just in evaluating your own organization. If you do all those things right you have a chance to be successful.

CS: What’s the September call-up like?

LD: When you don’t have a good team you tend to bring up more players and look at everybody in real competition. I think it’s better to look at a prospect in September rather than looking at him in March in spring training.

Literally we’ve been starting minor league pitchers against contenders all season long.

How can they get mad at you for doing it in September? We’ve basically been letting young kids have a chance before they’re really ready all throughout the season. When you have a team that’s been eliminated by mid September and you’ve got a decent team and a decent rotation and then you call up a AAA guy to start against a contender, you can become very unpopular with the other managers.

CS: What’s it like trying to get that first free agent here? Back in 2004 when the Tigers were really bad, Pudge Rodriguez was the first guy that went to Detroit and that was like a signal to other free agents, “It’s okay to go there. He’s there so I’m going to go there.”

LD: You see what happened with the Miami Heat and what happened again in baseball this winter. The free agents, the high-dollar free agents especially, are guys who’ve had a very successful career and are making a lot of money already … Guys care about the money, but a lot of it is guys get on a team that they think can reach the postseason – especially for a guy like me, Jose Cruz or Ernie Banks, guys who never even got close to getting into the postseason. That becomes pretty important if you’re 30 years old and you’ve already got a lot of money.

FINANCIAL FOCUS

Diversify Your Investment Risk All investments carry risk.

But, as an investor, one of the biggest risks you face is that of not achieving your long-term goals, such as enjoying a comfortable retirement and remaining financially independent throughout your life. To help reach your objectives, you need to own a variety of investment vehicles - and each carries its own type of risk.

If you spread your investment dollars among vehicles that carry different types of risk, you may increase your chances of owning some investments that do well, even if, at the same time, you own others that aren’t. As a result, you may be able to reduce the overall level of volatility in your portfolio. (Keep in mind, though, that diversification can’t guarantee a profit or protect against all losses.)

• To diversify your risk factors, you first need to recognize them. Here are some of the most common types of investment risk: • Market risk - This is the type of risk that everyone thinks about - the risk that you could lose principal if the value of your investment drops and does not recover before you sell it. All investments are subject to market risk. You can help lessen this risk by owning a wide variety of investments from different industries and even different countries.

• Inflation (purchasing power) risk - If you own a fixed-rate investment, such as a Certificate of Deposit (CD), that pays an interest rate below the current rate of inflation, you are incurring purchasing power risk. Fixed-income investments can help 22

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provide reliable income streams, but you also need to consider investments with growth potential to help work toward your long-term goals.

• Interest-rate risk - Bonds and other fixed-income investments are subject to interest-rate risk. If you own a bond that pays 4% interest, and newly issued bonds pay 5%, it would be difficult to sell your bond for full price. So if you wanted to sell it prior to maturity, you might have to offer it at a discount to the original price. However, if you hold your bonds to maturity, you can expect to receive return of your principal provided the bond does not default.

• Default risk - Bonds, along with some more complex investments, such as options, are subject to default risk.

If a company issues a bond that you’ve bought and that company runs into severe financial difficulties, or even goes bankrupt, it may default on its bonds, leaving you holding the bag. You can help protect against this risk by sticking with “investment-grade” bonds - those that receive high ratings from independent rating agencies such as Standard & Poor’s or Moody’s.

• Liquidity risk - Some investments, like real estate, are harder to sell than others. Thus, real estate is considered more “illiquid” than many common investments.

Make sure you understand what type of risk is associated with every investment you own. And try to avoid “overloading” your portfolio with too many investments with the same type of risks. Doing so will not result in a totally smooth journey through the investment world - but it may help eliminate some of the “bumps” along the way.

This article was written by Buddy Bailey - River Oaks your local Edward Jones Financial Advisor. www.intownmag.com 23

2012 Friends of the Stehlin Foundation held its upcoming gala kick-off at The Wynden.

Photo Credit: John Lewis

The

BUZZ

by Roseann Rogers

Connor Walsh and Oliver Halkowich

Lindsey Brown and Jared Lang

Members of the fashionable Ballet Barre young professionals group flocked to The Capitol at St. Germain, to kick off the upcoming season.

Jo Simmons, Rebecca Hove, Courtney Fretz and Sarah Cotting

2011 Ima Hogg Winners and Judges

The Houston Symphony League announced the semi-finalists for the 37th annual Houston Symphony Ima Hogg Competition at Stude Concert Hall at Rice University.

Becky Sartain, Marit de lpolyl, Wendy Giovanella Leigh and Bob Alvarez, Xiemena Pacheco

Photo Credit: Jeff Fitlow

2011 Ima Hogg Gold Medalist Brook Speltz

CHEFS DUKED IT OUT IN TAILGATE THROWDOWN AT HOUSTON TEXANS GRILLE

Monica Thompson, Jason Vo

Kate Link, Kristen Sandvig Rachel Turner

Jenna Kearney, Brett Shuman

Heather Boland, Ashli Morris 24

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Earl Mitchell

The

BUZZ

by Roseann Rogers

Kim Hartz, Ted Hartz

Lauren Morris, Ashley Miranda, JB McGhan

Bertha and David Cabello

Kim Hartz unveiled her “Bombshell� collection to a art and dog loving crowd.

The red wall at Block 7 made the one of a kind film black and white images, developed by Hartz, stand out like models on a runway.

Photographer: Roswitha Vogler

Stephen Jones, Liz Gorman

Casa de Nova Bridal Couture, kicked-off a its highly anticpated Monique Lhuillier trunk show with a preview party.

Photo Credit: H. Simon Hochman

Caroline Barrow, Kathryn Brill

Sarah Schmidt, Elizabeth Trice, Kate McCarroll

Luvi Wheelock, Yubi Esalona, Mia Monroe

Julie Halecki, Tomme Eng Alex Moreno, Gaby Elizondo, Gaston Ochoa

Intown car aficionados race to north to celebrate the launch of the all-new 2013 Porsche Boxster at Porsche of North Houston.

Photo credit: Daniel Ortiz

Mike and Stefanie Brown

Arts & Entertainment

Jane Alexander, Frontier with ghost, 2007. Pigment print on cotton paper. 69 x 95 cm. Courtesy the artist Contemporary Arts Museum Houston

Museums Museum Of Fine Arts Ongoing - September 3 Jennifer Steinkamp- The Mike Kelly Video installation using 3D digital animations charting the cycles of the seasons and the passage of time.

Victor Brauner New Year’s greeting from artist Victor Brauner, 1957 © 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris Menil Archives, Manuscript Collection

Ongoing-September 3 Rembrandt,van Dyck,Gainsborough:The Treasures of Kenwood House, London June 20-October 8 Public Dress: A collection of 20th century photographs exploring the relationship between photography and personal style, everyday dress.

Ongoing-September 23 Unrivalled Splendor: The Kimiko and John Powers Collection of Japanese Art Ongoing-September 9 - Duncan Phyfe: Master Cabinetmaker in New York.

Ongoing -September 23 - The Art of Exaggeration: Graphic works on paper from the 15th through 20th century including such artists as Pablo Picasso and William Hogarth.

Ongoing - September 16 - American Made - 250 Years of American Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston - Over 220 objects from the 19th to the mid 20th century including American paintings, sculptures, Native American art, photography and works on paper.

XVIII Strange Eggs XVIII, 1957-58 Collage, mounted on cardboard 14-1/4 x 11" Collection of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen

26

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Ongoing - January 27 Scandinavian Design Glass, ceramics, metalwork, and lighting from the 1920’s to the 1970’s.

September 7 - November 25 There is no archive in which nothing gets lost Three videos explore relationships

formed based on past events.

September 16- January 6, 2013 Constructed Dialogue - Concrete, Geometric, and Kinetic Art from the Latin American Art Collection October 14 - January 20, 2013 Visions of Fancy: George Romney, 18th Century Paintings and drawings October 14 - January 1, 2013 W. Eugene Smith and James Nachtwey - Documentations of medical practices October 21 - January 13, 2013Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit- Twelve paintings and his only two known sculptures

The Menil Collection

Contemporary Arts Museum

Houston Museum Of Natural Science

Perspectives 179: Alvin Baltrop Ongoing through October 21 The African American photographer’s works from his beginnings in the 60’s through his enlistment into the United States Navy and later the decaying urban New York landscape.

Jane Alexander; Surveys (From the Cape of Good Hope) Ongoing - through November 4 The artist explores the borders between humans and other forms of animal life through sculptures,and photo montages.

Holocaust Museum

Ongoing - December 31- We will Never Forget: Selected works from Max Brenner, Miriam Brysk and Paul E. Yarden September 14 - March 3, 2013 Inheritance: Stories of Memory and Discovery September 14 - March 3, 2013 Blood Memory: A View from the Second Generation

Silence -Ongoing - October 21 From the Menil Collection and Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive features paintings, sculptures, film, and video exploring the spiritual, existential and political aspects of the absence of noise and speech.

Dear John & Dominique:Dear Letters and Drawings from The Menil Archives- Ongoing-January 6 Commemorating the 25th Anniversary Claes Oldenburg: Strange Eggs September 20- February 3, 2013

Paleontology- 2012 Year of the Dinosaur New football size hall Ongoing -September 12 Warriors, Tombs and Temples: China’s Enduring Legacy Ongoing - Spring Gemstone Carvings: The Masterworks Of Harold Van Pelt October 26- March 31,2013 Prophecy Becomes History October 26- March 31, 2013 Gems of the Medici

Arts & Events A. D. Players Theater September 5- October 7 - Sherlock Holmes The Last Adventure September 12 and 13 Cinderella

Main Street Theatre Life is a Dream September 20 October 21

Broadway Across America

Beauty and the Beast September 25 - 30

Theatre Under The Stars September 14 - 16 Legally Blonde October 9 - 21 Jekyll and Hyde

Toyota Center

Enrique Iglesias, Jennifer Lopez & Wibin Y Yandei August 26 Gigantes September 1 Mary J Blige September 2 Eric Church & Justin Moore September 21 Red Hot Chili Peppers October 20 Madonna October 24-25 Vincente Fernandez October 26 Justin Bieber October 30

Bayou Music Center

September 8 MTV Jams presents Closer to my dreams tour Starring Tyga September 15 Houston Roller Derby September 20 Rise against with the Gaslight Anthem and Hot water Music September 21 Fiona Apple September 22 ll Volo September 25 Ben Folds Five September 30 Imagination Movers October 6 The Australian Pink Floyd October 10 M83 October 12 The Weekend October 13 Mac Miller with Travis Porter & Y.G.

The Hobby Center

September 6 Dias Contados September 15 Googoosh September 21 It takes TWo September 22 Lewis Black September 22 Deep Sky Objects September 24 Laura Claycomb and Keith Weber October 6 An Evening with David Byrne and St. Vincent

Houston Symphony

September 1-2 Sixties Hits September 8 Opening Night with Bolero September 6 Chevron Fiesta Sinfonica September 14-29 Best of Braham WK1

Sports Ice at The Galleria

Now enrolling for Super Mites and fall learn to skate take out summer reference M-T 10am -5pm 6:30pm -10pm F 10am-10pm Sat. 12:30am-10pm Sun. 1pm -8pm Junior Hockey Camp Beginner Learn How to Skate

and Intermediate Classes www.iceatthegalleria.com For more info call 713-621-1500

Texans

9/9 Miami Dolphins 9/16 @Jacksonville Jaguars 9/23 @Denver Broncos 9/30 Tennessee Titans 10/8 @ New York Jets 10/14 Green Bay Packers 10/21 Baltimore Ravens 11/04 Buffalo Bills 11/11 @ Chicago Bears 11/18 Jacksonville Jaguars 11/25 @Detroit Lions 12/02 @Tennesse Titans 12/10 @New England Patriots 12/16 Indianapolis Colts 12/23 Minnesota Vikings 12/30 @Indianapolis Colts

Rice University 8/30 UCLA 9/9 @Kansas 9/15 @Louisiana Tech 9/22 Marshall 9/29 UH 10/6 @Memphis 10/13 UTSA 10/20 @Tulsa 10/27 Southern Miss 11/3 Tulane

11/17 SMU 11/24 @El Paso

UH

9/1 Texas State 9/8 Louisiana Tech 9/15 @UCLA 9/29 Rice 10/6 North Texas 10/13 UAB 10/18 @SMU 10/27 UTEP 11/3 @East Carolina 11/10 Tulsa 11/17 @Marshall 11/24 @Tulane

TSU

9/1 Prairie View A&M 9/8 @North Texas 9/15 Jackson State 9/27 Alabama A&M 10/6 Sam Houston State 10/13 @Southern 10/27 Grambling State 11/3 Arkansas-Pine Bluff 11/10 @Alcorn State 11/17 Mississippi Valley State 12/8 @SWAC Championship

Dynamo 9/2 @ Chicago Fire

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THE LAST PAGE

By John Granato

Lawnmowers, Wookies and Mexican Accordians.

first year of business we’d have serious signal issues, an economic collapse which we hadn’t seen in this country since the great depression, and a hurricane would tear our satellite off the roof and drown our building, I might have rethought the move. Not for more than a second or two.

A lot of people said what a gutsy thing it was to leave 610 for a startup radio station. Actually, it wasn’t a tough decision at all. It’s a lot scarier and a lot less rewarding working for a big corporation. At CBS I saw too many good people let go just to better the bottom line. I have no idea if I’d still be at 610 right now had I stayed.

I can honestly say that at 1560 if you bring anything to the table and work hard there will always be a place for you.

And I can tell you that I’ve never worked for better people than I have here. You’ve heard of David Gow. We have made him a focal point of the station for good reason. I want to thank him for these past five years. It’s been an honor working with and for him.

He’s the best boss I’ve ever had because he doesn’t yell at me as much as my other bosses did.

Our first five years at 1560AM Radio.

“Heinz, what the @#!*% !!!”

And so it began. 15 minutes before we were to flip the switch and begin our first ever programming day at 1560AM Radio, my computer was acting up. Heinz was our IT guy and I said to him, “Heinz, what the @#!*% !!!”. I had no problem swearing because the mics weren't hot, so no fear of any repercussions by the FCC. However, as luck would have it, the mics were on. I know

this because our president David Gow, who spent countless months putting the deal and the station together, and spending millions of dollars in the process, was driving with his wife and young children listening to the historic launch of his new all-sports radio station.

The first on-air words were expletives. Great start boys!

At the time, that was the least of our worries. If you told me in our

You haven’t heard of Steven and Barrett Webster and Patrick Dugan.

They and the other investors have been unwavering in their support and belief in what we are doing.

This hasn’t exactly been a windfall for any of them. Business-wise it’s been an extremely rocky road. But they’ve never shown anything but faith in us and for all of us in the trenches I’d like to thank them for that. You just don’t find that kind of loyalty in today’s business world.

Which brings us to what we’ve been and where we are going. 1560 started with an “us against the world” mentality and marketing campaign. We were fighting the corporate pile of dung. We were anti-establishment, and at first we were piercing their armor. Chance McClain and Frank Bullington (forevermore referred to as “Chank”) were as imaginative and entertaining as anyone has ever been in this business. We got under the other stations’ collective skin. We had them complaining to our local sports teams to make us cease and desist from giving away tickets on the air or using our talent on tv broadcasts. Our competitors also complained incessantly to Arbitron about our ratings which showed that we had a small but ardent fan base that listened to

us more hours per week than any station in the market.

The optimum word in that last sentence though is “small”. We were different than anything anyone had heard in Houston but maybe we were a little too different.

While there was a group that loved what we were doing it’s tough to make a business successful when you’re limiting the number of people you’re appealing to. We were so anti-establishment that it hurt us economically, and while we loved doing what we were doing we owed it to the investors who poured millions of dollars into the project to become more main stream. And so we did.

Our first move was to wrest Sporting News Radio away from 610. It was a move that we thought would hurt them and help us. To do the deal we had to put Tim Brando’s show on the air.

That changed things for almost everyone who was listening to us. Good, bad or indifferent Tim’s show just wasn’t accepted here.

Hey, years ago, someone tried Howard Stern in this market and it didn’t work. I’ve heard he’s been pretty successful elsewhere.

We ended up buying Sporting News Radio and moving them here. It’s now Yahoo! Sports Radio and it’s an unbelievable success story. When David Gow took it over it was bleeding buckets full of money and in just one short year it’s a profitable enterprise.

With 1560 as the flagship, one of our greatest challenges has been to find the right combination of national and local programming.

To that end, Adam Clanton and John Wessling are now our local afternoon team. We are very excited about that.

While a lot has changed over these five years, we aren’t so different than when we started. Like me or not, I’m not going anywhere. We still have Sean Pendergast, Johnny Harris, David Nuño and Travis Rodgers--the same guys you’ve heard here since we started.

We’ve also just purchased ESPN 97.5. It means we’ve grown from that little station that could into an AM, an FM, and a national network. What will it mean in this bloated sports market? I think it’ll mean big things for us in the very near future. I’ll write another one of these in five years and let you know how it’s going.

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