Little Cypress-Mauriceville Superintendent Pauline Hargrove has had a few days to get reaction as to the reason the $40 million bond  issue failed on May 10 by 110 votes.  Hargrove said, “The economy seems to be the number one reason.  People have been supportive of the district’s needs but they also have their own situations to take care of.”  A KOGT.com poll agrees with 30% of the voters saying they didn’t want higher taxes and another 15% saying that the Orange annexation of Little Cypress and the taxes that come with it were also a factor.  There was also a group of voters who voted against it because they felt the junior high needed more attention than the high school.  Hargrove said the committee was certainly aware of the junior high needs but that the high school is the hub of the district and the needs were more expensive.  She added that when you look at the outside of the school it looks fine but that many repairs are needed from the inside out.  So when will the bond issue be brought up again?  Hargrove said, “If it were up to me I would start now because the need is still there. The next time we could bring it to the voters is November but the economy is expected to be worse then than it is now.  The committee is going to meet and assess our options.” 

At the State Awards for the Soil and Water Conservation Districts of Texas, the Lower Sabine Neches SWCD won best district out of the 59 in Texas. Several local residents also received awards. Back row L-R Sandy Peveto, Wayne Peveto, Ruben Stringer, Pat Hutson. First Row L-R Marrisia Hughes, Cindy Claybar, Lou Harris, Dan Harris

Three Lamar State College-Orange students graduated summa cum laude, with “highest honors,” at commencement ceremonies May 9.  Summa cum laude designation includes those students with grade point averages of 3.8 to 4.0.  They were Crissa Bonnin, Orange, Associate of Arts degree, Teaching-2; Debbie Cormier, Orange, Associate of Applied Science degree, Accounting, and Leah Felice McClelland, Orange, Certificate of Completion, Pharmacy Technology.  more

Orange County Sheriff Mike White has applied for the position of Police Chief with the City of Vidor.  White says he hasn't had an interview yet for the position which is currently open.  White was defeated by Keith Merritt for Sheriff in March.  If he's hired by Vidor he could possibly leave office early instead of at the end of the year.  Vidor also requires its chief to live inside the city limits.

The Orange County chapter of the University of Texas at Austin Texas Exes is proud to announce their scholarship winners for 2008.  Orange County Texas Exes has given over $52,000 in scholarships to local high school students over the last twenty years.  Winners

County Commissioners Monday appointed members to a committee to decide how to spend the new hotel-motel occupancy tax. Each of the five members of the court recommended someone to the committee. The court had previously agreed to have Orange County Economic Development Corp. Director Bobby Fillyaw on the committee. Fillyaw helped last year get special legislation passed to allow the county to collect the one-cent per dollar occupancy tax. County Judge Carl Thibodeaux said Jack Patel, owner of the Holiday Inn Express in Orange, also will be on the committee. Other committee members will be Port Commissioner Keith Wallace, by Prec. 1 Comm. James Stringer; County Tax Assessor-Collector Lynda Gunstream, by Prec. 2 Comm. Owen Burton; The Record Newspapers publisher Roy Dunn, by Prec. 3 Comm. John Dubose; former Vidor mayor Lameche Wright, by Prec. 4 Comm. Beamon Minton; and retired head of the Greater Orange Area Chamber of Commerce, Betty Harmon, by Thibodeaux. Thibodeaux said Fillyaw is arranging for the committee to meet with a representative of the state comptroller's office for a seminar on rules on how the special tax can be spent under state law. The special tax can be used only to promote tourism, which can include the arts and sports, or for historic preservation. The county began the tax Sept. 1. The committee will review applications for grants and recommend expenditures to Commissioners Court. Thibodeaux has previously said the Orange County Historical Commission, which oversees places in the county receiving state historical markers, has already asked about the tax money to help pay for the markers. Also, commissioners once again spent time talking about junkyards and salvage yards. Commissioners agreed not to assess a $100 a day fine against Stephen Judy and his salvage yard on Hwy. 105 outside of Vidor. The court had given Judy time to clean up the site before assessing the fine. Woody Dugas, who lives by the salvage yard, complained that Judy should pay a fine. However, Assistant County Attorney Doug Manning said the county's regulations for salvage yards are meant to make salvage yards keep clean and not intended to run people out of business.

The American Association of University Women have awarded scholarships to Kat White (left) of LCM and Stevee Kidwell of WOS. They are pictured with Evelyn Sechler the Scholarship Chairperson. Both were honored with a special Greek dinner by Tammy Haddad of Hamshire. The scholarship award ceremony was at the St. Paul's Episcopal Parish Hall in Orange.

Three Lamar University students attained perfect 4.0 grade-point averages to become co-recipients of the Plummer Award, honoring them as the top academic graduates in Lamar's class of May 2008. One of those students is Tiffany Smith, a mechanical engineering major from Mauriceville, who received the award as the top female graduate. Plummer Awards honor the late Otho Plummer, who was chairman emeritus of the Lamar board of regents and a board member from 1949 to 1990. A graduate of Little Cypress-Mauriceville High School, Smith is the daughter of Carolyn and David Smith. She is a Lamar Honors Program graduate and a member of Phi Kappa Phi national honor society, Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society, Pi Tau Sigma mechanical engineering honor society and the Chinese Club. Smith was the recipient of the Katherine E. and William C. Mundt Student Engineering Fund scholarship, the ENGlobal Engineering Inc. and Triple "S" Industrial Corp. Scholarship in Engineering and the Charles and Susan Gordon and Julia Gordon Gray Memorial Scholarship. She plans to begin work in June at the Du Pont Sabine River Works in Orange. She lists her hobbies as paintball, martial arts, racquetball, theology and the Chinese language.

There are three lab mix puppies and one Sheppard bob tail puppy who were all abandoned in a trailer park in Mauriceville. They are all about 7 weeks old and come fully vet checked, first set of shots, first flea prevention, first heartworm prevention and 5lb bag of puppy food. We also have 5 beautiful kittens who needs homes too. If you are interested in adopting one of them please call the North Orange Veterinary Clinic.

Two West Orange – Stark Middle School students have been named state finalists in the “Do the Write Thing” (DtWT) Challenge. Jacoy Finney and Faithe Davis, eighth and seventh grade students respectively, were named state finalists at a DtWT Region V Education Service Center program banquet held in Beaumont in April. The DtWT Challenge is a national youth anti-violence program implemented in schools as a writing competition that engages students in discussion and composition to thoughtfully analyze the causes and effects of violence, and to propose solutions. The Challenge gives middle school students an opportunity to examine the impact of violence on their lives and to communicate in essay, poem, play or song, what they think should be done to make personal commitments to solve about the problem. The students from the Beaumont/ Region V ESC, along with students from nine other major cities in Texas participated as part of the National Campaign to Stop Violence. Finney and Davis, as state finalists, have been invited to attend the Do the Write Thing State Recognition Program in Austin June 21-23. At state, both will be eligible for national finalist consideration. Brandy Downey is Jacoy Finney’s English teacher. Byron Lumpkin teaches Faithe Davis.

On Sunday, May 11 Orange Police were dispatched to 2801 Sunset Drive in reference to a burglary. Reginald Jacobs stated that he arrived home and discovered that someone had been inside his residence. He discovered his Sony 8mm camcorder missing. He also said that three windows were unlocked by the suspect(s). Jacobs said that the suspect(s) also attempted to remove a flat screen television from the wall in his bedroom, as well as damaging the kitchen cabinets. There was damage to the sliding glass door leading to his back patio.

On Sunday at 2:09 PM Orange Police to the area of Arthur Robinson Housing in reference to a stolen vehicle. They met with the victim, Melissa Longron, who said she was traveling in the 1100 block of 5th St. in her blue, 1995 Jeep Cherokee. Several black males began walking in the roadway blocking her path. Longron stopped in the roadway and waited for the males to move. As she was stopped, a black female approximately 50-60 years of age, approached the opened, driver's side window. The black female reached into the vehicle and grabbed Longron's black purse which was sitting beside her on the seat. Longron began shouting at the female to return the purse. As she was trying to get the female to return her purse, an unknown black male, approximately 16-18 years of age, opened her car door and pulled her from the vehicle by her arm. She began struggling with the black male and he shoved her to the ground. The black male drove away in Longron's vehicle traveling north on 5th Street. She suffered several injuries and completed a witness statement indicating she wished to pursue charges if the suspects were located.

Mike Magnuson WO'72

KOGT is now accepting your Senior photos for consideration in our Class of 2008 photo gallery.  Orange County graduates will need to email the photos as JPEG attachments.

Every kid once knew the smoothest driveway in the neighborhood. The adults would look at them funny as they headed out to a certain driveway. To the eye, the driveways basically looked alike. But under the metal wheels of skates strapped around a pair of Keds, the intricacies of a cement driveway could be felt.  Looking Back

St. Paul United Methodist Church in Bridge City held a groundbreaking ceremony at their new church site at 1155 West Roundbunch Road on Sunday afternoon. St. Paul has experienced many ups and downs since Hurricane Rita 2-1/2 years ago when severe damage was done to its sanctuary. Originally, the church was planning on extensive repairs. However, after being approached to sell the property, the church members decided to purchase 10 acres and sell the current property to Walgreens.

	The Bridge City Challenge League for handicapped baseball players got a special treat last weekend from the BC Cheerleaders.

The Little Cypress-Mauriceville Honey Bears honored their seniors Tara Hughes, Captain Jasmine Lopez and Co-Captain Chloe Champine at The Brown Center with a banquet. The junior moms planned and decorated with "A Black Tie Affair" theme. Drew Vandagriff, Monica Hambrick and Chris Champine provided the entertainment for the night. Pictured are seniors Hughes, Lopez, Director DeAnn Lumpkin and Champine.

Heroes of the Orange County

Orange Mayor Brown Claybar returns for a fourth term after defeating Charles Atkinson by 148 votes.  Jeff Holland (right) will become the newest member of city council with a convincing win over incumbent Cynthia Jackson.

The Inspire XII™ Foundation announces that upon graduation, 175 students from West Orange-Stark High School and Little Cypress-Mauriceville High School will receive a two or four-year scholarship to attend any accredited Texas public university, community college, public health related institution, or technical college as recognized by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. 92% of the applications submitted were accepted into the program. Inspire XII™ Foundation began strategic planning and program development in January 2007. Inspire XII is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization modeled after the Kalamazoo Promise of Kalamazoo, Michigan. For more information about Inspire XII™ or to donate, please visit www.inspire12.org.

DuPont to Invest $150 Million, More Than Half of That in Texas. More than half of this $150 million investment is expected to be spent between the Sabine plant in Orange and Victoria sites. The investment is expected to take place over a three-year time horizon. Sabine River Works expects to hire about 200 people into full time DuPont jobs in the next three years. The Victoria site will hire about 10 people during the same period of time. Most of these jobs will be to backfill positions left open by retirement and attrition. At SRW this investment will be used to install distributed control systems (DCS), enhance our capabilities to produce Surlyn® and Vamac®, and improve energy efficiency by as much as 15 percent. "This announcement is great news for the Sabine River Works.. This is a vote of confidence in our future by our global business leadership," said Mike Sanchez, site manager.

Orange native Shon Sims will make his debut as a tenor on May 16, 2008, at Rice University. The recital is open to the public at no charge and details can be found on his website, www.shonsimsrecital.com.

CHECK OUT the KOGT Photo Gallery where you can now purchase photos on-line. Click on Photo Gallery Button on the left. New galleries will be added regularly, so check it often.

If you have a news story or see news happening, email us or call the station and let us know about it.
 

Do you have an outstanding warrant in Orange County?  Might want to check the list.  

KOGT.com only carries summations of news stories.  For the full story including interviews, tune in to KOGT Vocal News at 6:30, 7:30, 8:30, and 11:50am, as well as 4:30 and 5:30pm weekdays.

You can find out if you, your friends, or your relatives have outstanding warrants in the City of Orange by clicking on the orangetexas.net website. The City of Orange Municipal Court is open Monday - Friday from 8:00 am until 5:00 pm. Court is held at 8:30 am on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. If you have any questions about an outstanding ticket you may talk to the Municipal Court staff at 883-1063.