The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 177, Ed. 1 Tuesday, May 27, 1997 Page: 1 of 12
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Baseball standouts
Local players named
to area all-star squad
Summer snacks
Light touch makes a
quick meal a snap
Bible Verse......4-A
Calendar.......2-A
Classified...........4-B
Obituaries.......3-A
Opinion.........4-A
Police Beat..........2-A
Sports..............6-A
Today in History......4-A
Joseph Spear
Computers primed to put
mankind out of business
What's Inside
Opinion, 4-A
Volume 75, No. 177
Telephone Number: 422-8302
Tuesday, May 27,1997
Baytown, Texas 77520
50 Cents Per Copy
Tutoring program gets high marks
Jackie Rod-
riguez, right, a
Lee College
student and
YMCA tutor,
helps Horace
Mann student
Christi Reyes
with her home-
work.
Photo by Maike van Wijk
By MAIKE van WUK
The Baytown Sun
Last October, the YMCA launched a tu-
toring program designed to give Baytown
students another chance to succeed in
school. Now, seven months later, the re-
. sults'are in — and the effort seems to be
paying off.
Sixty-four students from Lamar and
Carver elementary schools and Horace
Mann Junior School participated in the
program—and teachers, students and tu-
tors report an increase
in student self-esteem
and a desire to take
pride in and responsi-
bility for academic
achievements.
“I never cared about
my homework,” said
eighth-grader Christi
Reyes. “Then I started
doing all my work. It
will help me a lot on
my report card.”
Reyes is one of 10 students who partici-
pated in Horace Mann’s tutoring program.
Each week, she and other students were
picked up by YMCA Outreach Director
Margie Garcia and brought to St. John’s
United Methodist Church, where tutors
would help them do their homework from
3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Mondays through Thurs-
days.
In January, Garcia added Carver and
Lamar elementary schools, and those stu-
dents were tutored at Memorial Baptist, St.
Mark’s and Grace United Methodist
churches.
“We had a great success rate,” said Gar-
cia, citing improvements in homework
grades from zeros to 90s, and teacher re-
ports of better conduct in school.
Suzanne Keith, fifth grade site facilitator
at Carver Elementary, agreed. “The girls
who participated became much more self-
confident and have a good feeling of suc-
cess. It boosted their skills,” said Keith.
“The grade averages went up the past two
six weeks. We hope to see an impact on
TAAS results, too.”
The academic success is closely linked
to receiving one-on-one attention. “It helps
the kids academically but the other side is
getting to know the child as a person,” said
Wynona Montgomery, principal of Carver
Elementary School.
Initially, the program had some pitfalls,
most notably the lack of tutors for junior
school students. But the problems were
soon resolved and now Garcia hopes to
add a new staff member.
With 64 children in the program, the 39
volunteers had difficulty meeting every
student’s need.
“Almost immediately I could zero in on
what problems these kids had” said Kay
Eshbach, a volunteer from Grace United
Methodist Church.
“One boy could spell every word perfect-
ly but didn’t know what the words meant.
Another boy knew what the words meant
but had trouble spelling,” she said.
While parents are expected to resolve
these problems, the reality of two-income
families often makes that demand impossi-
ble. “Circumstances sometimes make it
impossible for the parents to be there,” said
Montgomery. “These kids have both par-
ents working, and they come home and
have no one to supervise their homework.”
Reyes was one of the students going
home to watch television. “I’d just be
home. I didn’t care,” said Reyes. “There (at
the church) you’d be doing your work.”
Being a tutor not only rewards the chil-
dren, but the volunteers as well.
“I’ve never taught,” Eshbach said. “It
was frightening to me at first because 1 was
thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, five children.’
But they were so precious and so eager. I
relaxed immediately. I could lose myself in
what these kids had to do.”
In addition to tutors, the YMCA needs
healthy snacks, school and reading books,
school supplies and small knickknacks for
prizes to continue the program in the fall.
“This is a program the community can
wrap their arms around,” said YMCA Di-
rector Roger Moon. “They can support in
time, financial donations, ' snacks, supplies
— anything.”
City honors war dead with ceremony
Jacob
Thompson, of
the Lee High
School
MCJROTC,
carries the
U.S. flag dur-
ing Memorial
Day cere-
monies Mon-
day.
Photo by
Christian Messa
By CHRISTIAN MESSA
The Baytown Sun
Under a pale blue sky Monday
morning, about 200 Baytonians
flocked to Bicentennial Park to
pay their respects to the memory
of Baytown men who fought and
died for the United States
throughout the 20th Century.
During the Memorial Day cere-
mony presented by Baytown vet-
erans, guest speaker and former
Baytown City Councilman Rol-
land Pruett told the audience how,
despite his numerous appearances
at the event, he still gets emotion-
al “each time we have roll call on
the monument of the names of
those who have given so much to
us.”
“Today we remember the fami-
ly and friends unknown to us who
died in battle..., and showed us
first how precious freedom is,”
said Pruett, who was stationed
with the U.S. Army in Panama
from 1954 to 1956.
Pruett described his unease over
politicians in Washington, D.C.,
who may laud servicemen at this
time of the year but still seek to
cut federal disability compensa-
tion and benefits for veterans.
Balancing the budget is impor-
tant, Pruett said, “but not at the
expense of disabled veterans.”
“Those who we memorialize to-
day sacrificed their lives for us,”
he said. “May God bless their
memory.”
After Pruett’s speech, members
of the Disabled American Veter-
ans, Veterans of Foreign Wars, the
VFW Auxiliary, American Le-
gion, American Ex-Prisoners of
War and the Baytown Pilot Club
placed wreaths at the park monu-
ment that honors area men who
died in combat.
Doug Walker (Ex-POW), Thur-
man Ickes (VFW) and Buster
McAlister (VFW) later read the
names of men«who died in World-
Wars I and II, the Korean War and
the Vietnam War.
After the benediction by the
Rev. D.C. Mangum, members of
the Robert E. Lee Brigadiers
played taps, while the high
school’s MCJROTC presented the
flag.
Spectator Harry Dinwiddie,
who attended the ceremony with
his wife Rosemary, said the cere-
mony appropriately paid homage
to America’s armed forces.
“I thought it was very befitting
as far as a memorial to all those
men and women who have served
our country, and I was proud to
attend the service,” he said.
The Dinwiddies’ youngest son,
Wesley, currently serves in the
Marines.
Luther Victory, who has orga-
nized the Memorial Day ceremo-
ny for more than 10 years, said he
was pleased with the overall pre-
sentation.
“I thought everybody did a
great job — the minister, the
mayor (Pete Alfaro who led the
Pledge of AHegtaneeJ/guesf-
speaker Rolland Pruett, the peo-
ple who placed the wreaths,” he
said.
Victory is chairman of veterans .
affairs for the city and is a former
WWII prisoner of war.
Weather
Tuesday: Mostly cloudy
with a 60 percent chance
of showers.
Wednesday: Mostly
cloudy.
Art by Beth Burnham.
Police arrest two drag suspects minus their clothing
By JEFF HADDON
The Baytown Sun
A nude man standing outside a
truck on North Main Street early
this morning caught the eye of Bay-
town police officers, who arrested
the man and his companion on mar-
ijuana possession charges.
Officers spotted the nude man, a
25-year-old La Porte resident,
alongside his 1988 Ford pickup
truck in the 6800 block of North
Main near Interstate 10 at approxi-
mately 1 a m. Officers also found a
30-year-old Pasadena woman inside
the truck, attempting to put on a
shirt., ,,
The officers noticed the smell of
marijuana coming from the truck
and they found remnants of a mari-
juana cigarette in the floorboard.
After a more intensive search of
the truck, officers found a small
metal box which contained 55
grams in the truck. Both were taken
into custody and chaiged.
Facilities
work tops
trustees’
agenda
By JASON MOORE
The Baytown Sun
Cutting afternoon barbecues short,
the Goose Creek school district board
of trustees met for a regular meeting
Monday to discuss the state of Bay-
town schools, several of which have
been closed in recent years due to en-
vironmental concerns.
With dwindling funds and small
timeframes with which to complete
work, board members are entering
what appears to be the final phases of
the enormous bond package passed in
1994.
Because' several projects have in-
curred cost overruns, trustees must
now decide which projects to go for-
ward with and which projects get cut.
Board members are currently wait-
ing on a comprehensive facilities as-
sessment at five schools in order to
prioritize construction projects.
That assessment was supposed, to be
presented to the board Monday, but it
wasn’t ready. The report is expected
to be completed by the next board
meeting, said Goose Creek Consoli-
dated Independent School District
spokeswoman Kathy Clausen.
Now only a couple of weeks from
the summer break, Clausen said
trustees are turning their attention to
work that has to be completed during
the summer while students are not ih
class.
That’s one reason board members
recently hired what they call a con-
struction manager at-risk.
“Part of that is so we can meet our
timeline and keep our costs down,”
Clausen said.
The construction manager’s job is
to ensure that work gets done on time
and properly for a previously ap-
proved fixed price. The Baytown firm
Satterfield and Pontikes has been
hired as Goose Creek’s construction
manager at-risk.
‘Cool’ front
on the way
to the area
If the 90-degree weather had
you convinced summer was fi-
nally here, hold on.
A ‘cool’ front is due to settle
in north of the Baytown-area lat-
er today,, dropping temperatures
slightly. Temperatures should
reach into the 90s today before
the front moves in, bringing
thunderstorms to the area by
Wednesday. Temperatures are
expected to hover in the mid-80s
until Sunday.
“The fiwmt should stay north
of us, but the thunderstorm over-
flow will cool things .off,” said '
Kent Prochazka of the National,
Weather Service in Houston.
fl News tip? Call 422-830M
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Dobbs, Gary. The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 177, Ed. 1 Tuesday, May 27, 1997, newspaper, May 27, 1997; Baytown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1176318/m1/1/?rotate=270: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Sterling Municipal Library.