Sweetwater Reporter (Sweetwater, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 049, Ed. 1 Monday, January 10, 2011 Page: 3 of 10
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Sweetwater Reporter
Monday, January 10, 2011 ■ Page 3
Nolan County ARES assists
with search for Hailey Dunn
The Nolan County ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency
Services) sent volunteers to help the search for Hailey
Dunn in Colorado City on Saturday. Nolan County
Amateur Radio operators worked with Midland,
Howard and Taylor County ARES to provide com-
munications and worked foot searches in areas north
around the city airport and south on Highway 208.
Pictured are Nolan County ARES members signing
out for the night at the Volunteer's Command Center.
Nolan County ARES members in the picture are Gary
Armstrong, Ken Elliott and Mike Haigood.
Waco crossing guard with
transplanted heart upbeat
JANICE GIBBS
Waco Tribune-Herald
WACO, Texas (AP) — Every passerby seems to recognize
Albert Busby as they drive past the corner of North 15th
Street and Bosque Boulevard, where he works as crossing
guard for West Avenue Elementary School in Waco.
They honk, he waves.
He likes the youngsters and they like him, Busby said.
Their knowledge of each other may be limited, but not the
mutual admiration.
What the students and those driving by probably don't
know, because Busby was back on the job when school
started at the end of August, is that on July 5 he received a
new heart at Scott & White Memorial Hospital.
The Waco resident had been treated for congestive heart
failure since 1999.
Heart failure is when the heart can't keep up with its
workload, according to the American Heart Association. If
the heart muscle can't pump enough blood, it can't meet the
body's needs for blood and oxygen.
There are 400,000 new congestive heart failure cases
each year in the United States.
For 10 years, heart defibrillators kept Busby going, but in
2009, shortly after a third device was implanted, he began
to have problems.
He was in and out of the hospital multiple times in 2010.
He returned to Scott & White in mid-June and was told he
wouldn't leave without a new heart.
Busby, 59, was informed his heart was functioning at
about 14 percent and that if he was deemed to be a viable
candidate he would be put on the waiting list for a heart
transplant. Busby could have gone to a Dallas hospital and
waited for a heart, but he chose to stay put, becoming the
second patient to have a heart transplant in Temple.
Busby's family was with him at the hospital in early July
when he learned there had been some hits on the trans-
plant list and he might have a heart before the weekend
was over.
On Monday, July 5, Busby was told a suitable donor had
been found and he would be getting a new heart that day,
and by 7:30 p.m. he had.
"I had about 40 members of my family there and my
preacher," Busby said. "There was a lot of praying going
on."
Busby was up walking four days after the surgery and by
July 23 he was home.
"It was such a blessing, if I think about it it'll bring me to
tears," he said.
The difference in how he felt before and after the trans-
plant was significant, Busby said.
"Before, I would get so short of breath I could hardly walk
across the room," he said. "I couldn't finish a conversation
on the phone. Within about a month and a half I was in and
out of the hospital and I had a new heart."
Busby will turn 60 on March 11 and he plans to celebrate
his birthday again on July 5.
"I'm so thankful and grateful to the people who let me
have the heart," he said.
The donor's family and friends wrote a letter to all of the
individuals who received the organs. They don't yet know
who received what organ, but wanted to tell the recipients
something about the donor. Busby said he will write back
and hopes someday to have the opportunity to meet the
young man's family.
Busby was not unfamiliar with the medical condition that
almost ended his life. His father died of congestive heart
failure, and he had two brothers who died from congestive
heart failure, one who lived 13 years with a trans lanted
heart. There are also two brothers who have defib llators.
"I'm doing fine and I feel great," he said.
Busby sees his doctors in Temple once a month. He takes
about 30 pills a day, beginning at 6 a.m. and ending at
9 p.m. He now has Type 2 diabetes and checks his sugar
levels before each meal and every night at 9 p.m. he injects
insulin. His blood is drawn every Wednesday at the Scott &
White Clinic in Bellmead and, depending on the lab results,
his medications are tweaked by his doctors in Temple.
In addition to working as a crossing guard, Busby delivers
pizzas for Pizza Hut on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
"I was told 'Don't stop doing what you were doing, and if
you feel like doing something, do it,"' Busby said.
Busby describes himself as energetic, probably a trait he
learned while working in Central Texas cotton fields along-
side his parents and nine brothers and sisters.
"After working in the Central Texas area, we used to go to
South Texas anc work until the end of September," he said.
"We wouldn't start school until October, because Mama and
Daddy couldn't afford everybody's clothes until then, so we
had to work."
Busby and his wife, Ruthie, have been together since 1993
and married when he left the hospital after getting his first
defibrillator.
"She's a sweet little lady who stood by me through every-
thing," he said. "She's my back and bone."
He considers Ruthie's children and grandchildren as his
own, and the feeling is reciprocated.
"I used to pray a lot about having more time to spend with
my grandkids, my daughters and my wife," Busby said. "I
told God, 'They all need me, but if you don't think I need to
be here, it's your choice, I'm not going to worry about it.'"
Members of the Scott & White heart transplant team,
Busby said, put him at ease when he was nervous and
scared.
"They're wiz kids," he said. "They are smart and they are
good and I felt like I was in the best hands. I wouldn't have
been satisfied anywhere else."
A personal goal after the transplant surgery was to attend
a family reunion, held Labor Day weekend in the Galveston
area, and Busby was there. But a cruise planned for late July
wasn't possible.
"It all worked out; I got a new heart and there will be
other cruises," Busby said.
Sheriff says Ariz, rampage
suspect not cooperating
JACQUES BILLEAUD
Associated Press
PHOENIX (AP) — A 22-year-old man described as a
social outcast with wild beliefs steeped in mistrust faces
a federal court hearing on charges he tried to assassinate
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in a Tucson shooting rampage
that left six people dead.
Public defenders are asking that the attorney who
defended Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Timothy
McVeigh and "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski defend Jared
Loughner, who makes his first court appearance Monday
at 2 p.m. MST (4 p.m. EST).
Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said Loughner was not coop-
erating and told ABC's "Good Morning America" the
suspect had said "not a word" to investigators. Dupnik
said authorities were all but certain Loughner acted
alone, saying "he's a typical troubled individual who's
a loner."
The hearing in Phoenix comes just a few hours after
President Barack Obama leads a si eked and saddened
nation in a moment of silence for the victims and their
families. Obama will observe the moment of silence at 11
a.m. EST with White House staff on the South Lawn.
As authorities filed the charges against Loughner
Sunday, they alleged he scrawled on in envelope the
words "my assassination" and "Giffords" sometime
before he took a cab to a shopping center where the con-
gresswoman was meeting with constituents Saturday
morning.
A federal judge, a congressional aide and a young girl
were among the six people killed, while Giffords fnd 13
others were injured in the bursts of gunfire outside a
Tucson supermarket.
Giffords, 40, lay in intensive care at a Tucson hospital ,
after being shot in the head at close range . Doctors said
she had responded repeatedly to commands to stick out
her two fingers, giving them hope she may survive.
Neurosurgeon De. Michae LeMole of Tucson's
University Medical Center, appearing Monday on CBS's
The Early Show," said, "the best way to describe her
this morning is that she's holding her own."
LeMole said he removed a portion of her skull in order
to perform the surgery but likely will replace it at some
point.
"We don't close the book on recovery for years," he
said, "so it'll take as long as i takes, think the real
question will be how long it will take before she's out of
the woods."
vbout 200 people gathered outside Giffords' Tucson
office Sunday evening for a candlelight vigil. Earlier in
the day, people crammed the synagogue where Giffords
has been a member, as well as the Mountain Avenue
Church of Christ, which lost one member in the attack
and saw another one wounded.
"I don't know how to grieve. This morning I don't
have the magic pill, I don have the Scripture... I can't
wrap my head around this," said the church's Rev. Mike
Nowak, his strong preacher's voice wavering.
Authorities weren't saying late Sunday where Loughner
was being held, and officials were working to appoint an
attorney for him. Heather Williams, the first assistant
federal public defender in Arizona, said they're asking
that San Diego attorney Judy Clarke be appointed.
Clarke, a former federal public defender in San Diego
and Spokane, Wash., served on teams that defended
McVeigh, Kaczynski and Susan Smith, a South Carolina
woman who drowned her two sons in 1994.
Loughner is charged with one count of attempted
assassination of a member of Congress, two counts of
killing an employee of the federal government and two
counts of attempting to kill a federal employee. More
charges are expected.
Discoveries at Loughner's home in southern Arizona,
where he lived with his parents in a middle-class neigh-
borhood lined with desert landscaping and palm trees,
have provided few answers to what motivated him
Court papers filed with the charges said he had pre-
vious contact with Giffords. The documents said he
had received a letter from the Democratic lawmaker in
which she thanked him for attending a "Congress on
your Corner" event at a mall in Tucson in 2007.
Investigators carrying out 1 search warrant at his
parents' home in a mi< lie-class neighborhood found
an envelope in a safe with the words I planned ahead,"
"My assassination" and the name "Giffords" next to
what appears to be his signature.
Neighbors said Loughner kept to himself and was
often seen walking his dog, almost always wearing a
hooded sweat shirt and listening to his iPod.
Comments from friends and former classmates bol-
stered by Loughner's own Internet postings have painted
a picture of a social outcast with almost indecipherable
b fs steeped in mistrust and paranoia.
"If you call me a terrorist then the argument to call me
a terrorist is Ad hominem," he wrote Dec. 15 in a wide-
ranging posting.
Two ;h school friends said they had fallen out of
touch with Loughner and last spoke to him around
March, when one of them was going to set up some bot-
tles in the desert for target practice and Loughner sug-
gested he might come along. It was unusual — Loughner
hadn't expressed an interest in guns before — and his
increasingly confrontational behavior was pushing them
apart. He would send bizarre text messages, but also
break off contact for weeks on end.
"We just started getting sketched out about him," the
friend said.
Around the same time, Loughner's behavior ilso
began to Worry officials at Pima Community College,
where Loughner began attending classes in 2005, le
school said in a release.
Between February and September, Loughner "had
five contacts with PCC police for classroom and library
disruptions," the statement . :aid. He was suspended in
September after college police discovered a YouTube
video in which Loughner claimed the college was illegal
according to the U.S. Constitution.
He withdrew voluntarily the following month, and
was told he could return only if, among other things, a
mental health professional agreed he id not present a
danger, the school said.
Police said he purchased the Glock pistol used in
the attack at Sportsman's Warehouse in Tucson in
November.
An official familiar with the shooting investigation
said Sunday that local authorities were looking at a pos-
sible connection between Loughner and an online group
known for white supremacist, anti-immigrant rhetoric.
The official, who spoke on conditio! of anonymity to
discuss the ongoing investigation, said local authorities
were examining the American Renaissance website for
possible motives.
The group's leaders said in a posting on their website
that Loughner never subscribed to their magazine, reg-
istered for any of the group's conferences or visited their
Internet site.
Giffords, a conservative Democrat re-elected in
November, faced threats and heckling over her support
for immigration reform and the he Ith care overhaul.
Her office was vandalized the day the House approved
the landmark health care measure.
It was not clear whether those issues motivated the
shooter to fire on the crowd gathered to meet Giffords.
The six killed included U District Judge John Roll,
63, and 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, who was
born on Sept. it, 2001, and was featured in a book
called "Faces of Hope" that chronicled one baby from
each state born on the day terrorists killed nearly 3,000
people.
The author, Christine Naman, said: "Tragedy seems to
have happened again."
Green was recently elected as a student council mem-
ber and went to the morning's event because of her
interest in government.
Others killed were Giffords aide Gabe Zimmerman,
30; Dorothy Morris, 76; Dorwin Stoddard, 76; and
Phyllis Schneck, 79.
Associated Pi-ess writers Pauline Arrillaga, Raquel
Maria Dillon, Justin Pritchard, Terry Tang in Tucson,
Sophia Tureen in Chicago and Eileen Sullivan in
Washington contributed to this report.
Hailey
Continued from page 1
case. Even state and national agencies, including the
Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the National
Center for Missing & Exploited Children are assisting in
the efforts.
Hailey, a Colorado City Middle School student, was
last seen at 1804 Chestnut Street in Colorado City
between 1 and 3 p.m., wearing navy blue sweatpants, a
short sleeved light colored T-shirt and pink and white
tennis shoes. She has hazel eyes, pierced ears and brown
hair with blondish streaks. Hailey stands at s'l" and
weighs 120 pounds.
Please call 325-728-5294 or 325-728-3161 with any
information on Hailey's disappearance.
City Commission
to moot Tuosday
The City Commission of the City of Sweetwater, Texas,
will meet in regular session at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan.
11, 2011, in the City Commission Room of the City Hall,
200 E. i-th Street.
1. Call to order.
2. Invocation
3. Pledge of allegiance.
4 City Commission to consider approval of minutes
for the meeting held on Dec. 14, 2010.
5. Action Items:
A. City Commission to consider approval of the
Quarterly Investment. Report for the quarter ended
Dec. 31, "2010.
B. City Commission to consider reappointment of
Cemetery Board Members, Gayle Biggerstaff, Jackie
Trent, Dorothy Rannefeld and Robert Pieper with new
terms expiring Jan. 31, 2013.
C. City Commission to consider ratifying the appoint-
ment by the City Manager of Lloyd Harris to serve on
the Civil Service commission with term expiring Jan.
3U 2013.
D. City Commission to consider entering into Executive
Session pursuant to the provisions of 551.071 and
551.072 of the Texas Government Code to consult with
the City Attorney regarding pending and threatened liti-
gation and to deliberate on the purchase, sale or lease of
real property.
E. City Commission to consider entering into Regular
Session.
F. City Commission to consider any action necessary
from the Executive Session.
G. City Commission to consider approval of a
Resolution of the City of Sweetwater suspending the
February 14, 2011, effective date of Oncor Electric
Delivery Company's requested rate change to permit
the City time to study the request and to establish rea-
sonable rates: approving cooperation with the Steering
Committee of Cities served by Oncor to hire legal ar
consulting services and to negotiate with the company
and direct any necessary litigation and appeals; finding
that the meeting at which this resolution is passed is
open to the public as required by law: requiring notice
o this resolution to the company and legal counsel for
the Steering Committee.
6. City Manager's Report.
A. Sales tax collections for the first quarter of FY
2011 are up 8 percent over the same period last year or
$41,404.
B. The audit report fo the year ended Sept. 30, 2010
is being finalized and will be elivered at the Feb. 8,2011
meeting.
C. City staff will soon begin the process of working on
next year's FY Sept. 30, 2012 budget.
7. Public Input.
8. Adjournment.
MIDDAY ON WALL STREET
Today's Trading
Change
DOW
11,593.25
-81.51
NASDAQ
2,689.07
-14.10
S&P
1,264.30
-7.20
General Motors
38.84
-0.14
Ford Motor Co.
18.25
+0.04
AT&T
28.38
-0.47
Pepsico, Inc.
66.07
-0.32
I S<i Corp.
15.93
-0.16
Archer-Daniels
31.73
-0.22
GE
18.61
+0.18
Deere & Co.
84.03
-0.31
McDonalds Corp.
73.67
-0.70
Chevron Texaco
90.44
-0.75
Exxon Mobil
74.78
-0.81
Fst. Fin. Bnkshs.
50.02
-0.64
Coca-Cola
62.66
-0.26
Dell
14.07
+0.09
SW Airlines
13.17
-0.12
Microsoft
28.20
-0.40
Sears Holdings Co.
69.11
-1.07
Cisco
20.79
-0.18
Wal-Mart
53.65
-0.43
Johnson & Johnson
62.20
-0.40
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Sweetwater Reporter (Sweetwater, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 049, Ed. 1 Monday, January 10, 2011, newspaper, January 10, 2011; Sweetwater, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth229365/m1/3/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Sweetwater/Nolan County City-County Library.