Official site of Tribune News serving Tomball, Magnolia and Waller

A local Boy Scout is looking to earn the rank of Eagle Scout by helping restore some historical symbols of Tomball.

Dawson Duerer, a 13-year-old member of Boy Scout Troop 471 at St. Anne's Catholic Church, was searching for an idea to help him earn the Eagle Scout rank. He sought the assistance of Tomball Mayor Gretchen Fagan, who guided him to Tomball's Public Works Director David Kauffman. After speaking with public works officials, Duerer decided to come up with a plan to restore the concrete street markers found in various locations within the city.

"These are a part of history and I think they need to be preserved," Duerer said.

These markers are a unique feature to Tomball, as the boy’s father said he knew of no other city in the area with them. Many of them are located in the downtown Tomball area.

"There used to be a lot more, like around 50 of them," Duerer said. "Now there are just 14 of them."

Dawson then presented his idea to the city council last month and received high praise for the project. Several people went up to Duerer following the meeting and donated to the project.

"I appreciate you doing this," Councilman Mark Stoll said to Duerer as he donated money towards the project.

Duerer said his first step will be to hold fundraisers to raise the estimated $1,000 he will need to complete the project. Once that is finished, he said he will purchase all the tools and materials needed to strip the old paint from the markers, level the surface of the markers with new mortar and straighten the leaning markers back to a level position. The final step will be repainting the markers white and then stenciling the street name back onto the marker.

With several man hours required to complete the project, Duerer will be seeking help from his family, friends and community members, in order to complete his goal of finishing the project by August.

Once the project is completed, he will begin work on a map and history of the markers.

Duerer said that he wants to keep advancing in scouts, because it has helped to mold him into a young man that cares about his family, friends and community.

"It's helped me grow up," he said. "The things I've learned to do are great."

"It's taught me a lot of responsibility and how to help others."

Much has been made in the mainstream media the past few days, of an exchange between Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Texas' new U.S. Senator Ted Cruz.
The exchange was during a committee hearing regarding Feinstein's proposal to ban certain firearms and high capacity magazines.

To those who haven't seen the exchange, here it is in a nutshell: Cruz asked Feinstein if she would make exceptions to other amendments in the Bill of Rights, like limiting which books we can read under free speech regulations. Feinstein replied that she was "not a sixth grader" and that, while not a lawyer, she understood the Constitution and didn't need a lecture from Cruz. She feigned being offended to the max, all while never addressing Cruz's legitimate question.

Feinstein's hissy fit made for good television and thus, predictably, the media focused solely on that exchange. There was another moment however, while quieter and gentler, screamed much louder and speaks many more volumes.

Towards the end of the exchange, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) pipes up and says "none of these rights are absolute."

Wow.

Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote our nation's Declaration of Indepen-dence, thought otherwise. He declared in that document that there are certain inalienable rights, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that are only endowed by our Creator. In other words, those rights are natural and absolute – not given by man or governments, but rather we are born with them.

He also stated that: "And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated, but with his wrath?"

Other's have said that there are no absolute rights and they even point to a Jefferson quote as proof, when he said: "All natural rights may be abridged or modified in their exercise by law." They use this quote to justify laws that trample individual freedoms, or limit those freedoms. They are wrong.

I believe what Jefferson meant was that when one's exercise of their natural rights tramples basic human morals, or the natural and absolute rights of others (i.e. murder, rape, pillage, etc.) then the people as a whole (government) has a right to step in and take that offenders rights away via prison, death sentence and other means. What it does not mean is that government has a right to limit other citizens rights, merely because someone may or may not do something in the future.

To say something as Durbin did either shows a complete lack of judgment, or a lack of common sense – neither of which is needed in the upper chamber of our legislative body.

The belief that no rights are absolute, is a belief that leads to tyranny.

Many folks will pass that statement off as paranoia, or as hysteria. However, while it is my belief that many who come down on the side of Feinstein's bill, or that discounted Rand Paul's fillibuster are wrong, I do not doubt their sincerity, their passion or their belief that these measures will keep others safe. I do, however, doubt those that will come later and still have these powers and I am not willing to sacrifice this nation's ideals or principles in the name of a little safety and security now.

It's too big of a slippery slope. After all, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin

I was sitting at the kitchen table having my supper one night several years ago and happened to have the TV on channel 8. I enjoyed a documentary about a musical group named The Band. That show went off and a tribute to Muddy Waters was playing. Now in case you may not be from these parts, Muddy Waters was not muddy water, but a man simply named Muddy Waters and he played good old fashioned blues soul music.
My mind was brought back many years to the late sixties. During these days Tomball Independent School District was the largest district in the area. The only one that might have been bigger was Cy-Fair. Now I know a lot of you have a hard time believing me, but Magnolia, Spring, and Klein were dots on a page in comparison to Tomball. I don't mean to be offensive to anyone, but I can remember the days when some of those schools would show up at football games with holes in their band uniforms.
During the late sixties, I belonged to a band named Decembers Children. We were a group of hippie wannabe’s. We wanted long hair, but it couldn't be too long because it wasn't allowed in school, nor in my home. I wanted to play the guitar like Jimmy Hendrix, but my Dad wouldn't let me play loud enough to cause the needed feed-back on my Fender Jaguar. I wanted to dance like Date Thomas, but my feet wouldn't go in the right direction. All in all, as I said before, we were hippie wannabe’s. (Date Thomas was a man out there living in his own world and will make good stories in the future.)
The leader of our band was a guy named Danny Maddox. He was our lead singer. Jimmy Conn was our drummer and Donald Foley was our lead guitarist. If I'm not mistaken Art Cummings was our bass player and yours truly played rhythm guitar.
Danny doubled as our manager and it was his duty to book our group with different gigs. During these days somebody would reserve the old Humble Camp building and we would have high school dances out there. Humble Camp was a large gas plant on the west side of Tomball and they had a community building for use by the public. If I'm not mistaken we played one gig out there but the highlight of my musical career was the year we were booked for the Magnolia High School homecoming dance. I'm a little fuzzy on the year but I think it was 1969. We were on cloud nine when we got this booking, as we knew the "out of town" exposure would surely launch our musical career. Groups like The Beatles, Hendrix, ZZ Top and many others were real hot then and we were about to give them a run for their money.
The night of the dance I took my woman with me (now my wife, but unknown to me at the time) and we were ready to blow the walls out at Magnolia High! A whole twenty people showed up….. but we had fun anyway. One young lady in particular who sticks in my mind danced the night away to the music of Decembers Children.
That's the last gig I can remember. The band broke up and we all remained friends. I tried my solo career for a few months. I recorded some reel to reel tapes on Mrs. Bog's tape player and I even went to a guy in Houston and auditioned. I never told my parents I had went into town, but looking back I have a hunch this guy wasn't above board anyhow. I played and sang my songs in his living quarters, he thanked me and I left. He told me he was looking for a different style of music. God watches over little boys and foolish teenagers.
My band years are over. The songs I wrote are in my piano bench. The tape has been long gone and my Fender Jaguar was sold many years ago as it was simply gathering dust under my bed. Bo Diddly started performing on TV. I went and got my guitar out and started dreaming once again about my youth…
- Clifford

Harris County Sheriff's Office investigators are seeking the public's help in identifying and locating a person of interest. The man is wanted for questioning in the Nov. 12, 2012 shooting death of

Coty Beavers, 28, at his northwest Harris County apartment.

Working from information provided by an eyewitness, an artist has sketched a likeness of the subject – a man with dark hair and thick dark eyebrows, wearing eyeglasses.

The man was seen asking about Beavers at the Legacy Park Apartments, 10801 Legacy Park Drive, a few days before Beavers was shot multiple times at the complex.

Beavers was the twin brother of Cory Beavers, who had been the boyfriend of Gelareh Bagherzadeh, 30. She was shot to death while driving to her townhouse in the Galleria area of Houston, reportedly after visiting Cory Beavers. Bagherzadeh was an outspoken critic of the government of Iran, where she was born.

Her killing is being investigated by the Houston Police Department. Investi-gators with HPD and HCSO have disclosed no evidence linking the killings of Coty Beavers and Bagherzadeh.

Anyone with information about the subject should call the Sheriff's Office Homicide Division at 713-967-5810 or Crime Stoppers of Houston at 713-222-TIPS.

Where there's smoke, there's fire and the trail of smoke in Magnolia March 22 and 23, will lead to more than 50 barbecue teams at Unity Park. The Greater Magnolia Chamber of Commerce will host its 19th annual barbecue cook-off, called the Magnolia Showdown.

Along with watching cookers at their best, tasting a few samples and seeing outstanding showmanship exhibits; there will be free live music by the Philip Griffin Band beginning at 8 p.m., March 22. 

For the third consecutive year, the cook-off will be at the 30-acre Unity Park off Nichols-Sawmill Road. Ven-dors offering specialty items return to the cook-off this year.

"This is a really big event," GMCC Magnolia Showdown Chair Gari Lynn Hessong said. "We never have a shortage of good food or fun."

Special accomodations for competitors and visitors are being offered at both the Executive Inn & Suites of Magnolia, or at Magnolia Inn & Suites. For more information visit www.executiveinnmagnolia.com, or magnoliainnandsuites.com.

The Greater Magnolia Chamber of Commerce Showdown, co-hosted by the City of Magnolia, is an International Barbecue Cook-ers Association sanctioned event. For details, email  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 281-356-1488.