North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 91, No. 35, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 1, 2007 Page: 4 of 12
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Page 4 Thursday. Novembef 1.200";
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News
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QEmBimie
Lawsuit filed over North
Texas gas leases
FT. WORTH (AP) - A lawyer
who claims landowners
haven't been paid promised
lease bonuses has sued a
developer in one of the first
big lawsuits involving the
gas-drilling boom in north
Texas.
Fort Worth lawyer John
Hart said he would seek class-
action status for his lawsuit
against developer Leonard
Briscoe Sr. and his company,
Glencrest Resources. In the
lawsuit, Hart said hundreds of
landowners are affected.
Hart claimed that Briscoe
told homeowners last
December that they would
be paid $3,000 bonuses within
45 days of signing leases to
allow drilling on their land,
and that drilling would be
done by April.
The lawyer said his client,
Pamela Ellis of Fort Worth,
still hasn't been paid the
bonus, and that she hasn't
received royalties because the
well hasn't been drilled.
Briscoe did not return a
call for comment from The
Associated Press, and no
one answered at Glencrest's
number.
School's air-quality issues
costly for Houston district
HOUSTON (AP) - About 80
percent of the staff members
at a Houston middle school
have filed workers' compen-
sation claims stemming from
ailments they blame on the
building's air quality.
Eighty-eight employees at
Key Middle School in north-
east Houston filed claims with
the school district.
Most of the staff members
said they were healthy before
getting sick at the school,
mainly with skin rashes, diffi-
culty breathing and head-
aches, the Houston Chronicle
reported after obtaining the
claims under the Texas Public
Information Act.
Teachers filed about half
of the claims, while the rest
came from teachers' assis-
tants, cafeteria workers, clerks
and custodians.
The district has spent
more than $127,000 dealing
with air-quality concerns at
the 50-year-old school since
August. That includes more
than $100,000 in payments to
private companies for cleaning
services and air-quality tests
at the school.
The district moved students
out of the school in late
September after numerous
staffers and students
complained of ailments since
school began Aug. 27.
-Courtney Roberts
NASA calls off spacewaIk
HOUSTON, Texas (AP) - NASA
canceled a spacewalk Wednesday
as it scrambled to deal with two
power problems at the interna-
tional space station.
The spacewalk set for Thursday
was supposed to deal with a
malfunctioning rotary joint for
the solar wings on the right side
of the space station. Instead, the
astronauts were informed that
their next spacewalk would be
Friday - at the earliest - and
involve work with the station's
ripped solar wing.
Both issues are competing for
the precious little spacewalking
time that's left in Discovery's
mission, which already was
extended a day after the joint
problem cropped up last weekend.
The problems could delay future
missions and make it even harder
to finish building the orbiting
outpost before the space shuttles
must be retired.
Five spacewalks had been
scheduled for Discovery's space
station construction mission, the
most ever attempted for a mission
like this. In the 26-year history of
space shuttle flight, five space-
walks have been performed only
on Hubble Space Telescope repair
missions.
At a news conference earlier
Wednesday, shuttle commander
Pamela Melroy said that her crew
is ready to tackle whatever repairs
are ordered - even if that means
extending the mission again and
adding another spacewalk.
"I think we're kind of in the
groove right now, so if the ground
decides that's the right thing to do
and they ask us to do it, we'll be
ready to support it," Melroy said.
Until they were informed of the
switch in plans, astronauts Scott
Parazynski and Douglas Wheelock
were getting ready to spend the
mission's fourth spacewalk
Thursday thoroughly inspecting
a malfunctioning rotary joint that
keeps the station's solar panels
turned toward the sun. A fifth
spacewalk had been scheduled
for Saturday for additional space
station construction work, and
will likely have to be put off as
well.
NASA generally needs at least
one day in between spacewalks
to allow the astronauts to rest and
get the space station prepared for
the outings.
The solar wing damage
occurred as it was being unfurled
Tuesday. The tear forced NASA to
halt the process before the wing
was fully extended.
Until at least one of the prob-
lems is resolved, the station won't
be able to generate enough power
to support new equipment, such
as a European lab that is supposed
to be delivered by Atlantis in
December. Delaying that mission
would set back other deliveries,
including the planned February
installation of a new Japanese
lab.
NASA is up against a hard 2010
deadline for completing the space
station and retiring the three
remaining shuttles.
The solar panelrippedjust after
Parazynski and Wheelockfinished
a seven-hour spacewalk to install
the beam that holds the wings.
Deploying the damaged wing's
twin went off without a hitch.
Astronauts took hundreds
of pictures of the wing tear, but
NASA engineers couldn't tell what
caused the damage, space station
flight director Heather Rarick said
late Tuesday.
"Until we know what we think
the cause is, maybe until we get
some better pictures, I don't think
we really have any solid leads on
how to fix it yet," Rarick said.
Astronaut Daniel Tani said he
noticed a second, smaller tear
near the 21/2-foot rip while he
was taking additional pictures
Wednesday.
Police Blottei
By Holly Horton
Intern
Friday, Oct. 26,2007
ONT police responded after
student Steven Barry Dodson
reported a reckless driver
nearly struck him at approx-
imately 4 p.m. on the 1500
block of Chestnut Street.
According to the NT police
report, the vehicle seen by the
victim was a 1998 black four-
door Oldsmobile.
In the report, the suspect's
information was withheld.
Saturday, Oct. 27,2007
ONT police arrested Amber
Gail Baker of Dallas on
charges of driving while intox-
icated after they were advised
of a major crash occurring
between 1:37 and 2:10 a.m.
at the intersection of Bernard
Street and Eagle Drive.
According to the police
report, the suspect was
driving under the influence
ofalcholhol when her vehicle
collided with the side of a 2002
white four-door Ford owned
by freshman Bryan Killion.
No injuries were reported.
A 2007 black Chevy HHR
was impounded and one
pedestrian crosswalk warning
sign was damaged, according
to the report.
Baker was released the
same day from the Denton
County Jail on a $2,500 bail,
according to the Sheriff
Records Search.
Sunday, Oct. 28, 2007
ONT police responded at
Willis Library at approx-
imately 2:56 a.m. after
receiving reports that a man
was yelling and screaming
outside the library.
After police made contact
with suspect Evan Ellzey,
they arrested him in connec-
tion with possession of more
than two ounces of mari-
juana, according to the police
report.
Ellzey was transported to
the Denton County Jail where
he was released the next day
on a $2,500 bail.
Paranormal investigative team visits East exas town
LUFKIN, Texas (AP) - They
say night-time travelers driving
across the Shawnee Creek
bridge near Zavalla might find
themselves sharing their car
with a spectral passenger.
A little girl, they say, waits
at the creek, hoping to catch a
ride, from one side of the bridge
to the other. Never making it
to where she wants to go, they
say she waits, night after night,
hoping the next ride will be the
one that gets her to her final
destination.
Who are they?
They are members of the
Paranormal Investigation
Tracking Team who, in their
spare time, investigate tales of
the supernatural.
The team is made up of eight
members who live mainly in
the Nacogdoches area. While
their membership varies in
number from time to time,
their belief that members of
the spirit world are among us
never wavers.
Carey Libby, a founding
team member who has had
an interest in the supernat-
ural since he was a teenager,
says paranormal events that
happened at his family home
helped fuel his interest in ghost
hunting.
"We knew there was some-
thing going on in the house,"
Libby said. "We would hear
things, like the door open and
close and nobody would be
there. I felt there were spirits
in the house. There were two
males and a female from all
different time periods."
After he moved out of the
home, leaving his brother as the
sole occupant of the room, the
activity continued, Libby said.
"My brother had the covers
just ripped off him one night,"
he said.
Today his family still lives
in the home, where Libby says
they have grown accustomed to
the doors opening and closing
by themselves.
He had another paranormal
experience after his then-wife's
grandmother died. "When we
walked into the room where
her grandmother died, it was
like the entire room got ice
cold," Libby said. "I said, 'She's
still here.'"
It was after meeting up with
co-founder Bob Woods that
PITT began taking shape. "We
were going out and investi-
gating graveyards," Libby said.
"Then after that we started
going to people's houses."
The team approaches each
haunting with an open, but
skeptical mind, and has actu-
ally debunked more haunt-
ings than they have proven.
"We want to collect evidence
to prove skeptics wrong and
to debunk a lot of these haunt-
ings," he said. "We set up all our
equipment and try to capture
what they see. We present them
the evidence but at the same
time we try to debunk what
we've seen or heard."
The team decides as a group
which cases to take, after
talking to the home- or busi-
ness owners and having them
fill out detailed questionnaires.
They then determine how to
approach the investigation.
So, what's in a ghost hunter's
arsenal?
Batteries
"We go through a lot of
batteries," Libby said.
Circuit testers
"We go into a residential
place or a place of business
the first thing we do is plug in
our circuit tester to make sure
the wiring is correct. If there
are any open wires, we take
that into consideration."
Temperature meter
"Nine times out of 10 it's
going to be cold spots that we're
looking for. We take an outside
temperature, an inside temper-
ature, then we start scanning
the room."
Compass
"The spirits have energy, and
a compass works off magnetic
fields. We've seen our EMF
meters go off and we'll take
this out and we've seen it spin
around real fast."
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EMF meters
"We use these to look for
high electromagnetic field
readings."
Motion detectors. "They
work on infrared. Anything
that breaks the barrier, sets
it off."
Blessed Holy Water
Tape recorder
Used for electronic voice
phenomenon where team
members ask questions, pause,
ask another, then go back to
listen to see if anything was
captured. "The team uses a
traditional one, but digital
is preferred because it can
be transferred easier to a
computer."
Camera
"Film is preferred because
digital you can manipulate very
easily. If we capture something
on digital we try to back it up
on film,"
Camcorder
"We can set this up and see
what we capture."
His scariest moments came
in Jefferson, where Libby said
he was physically touched while
researching in the basement of
a museum.
"I'm facing this guy's
portrait, it's broad daylight,
and I say, 'If someone is present
with me, please make your-
self known,"' he said. "So I'm
standing there with my tape
recorder and someone bumps
me.'" He noted the incident
on his recorder and continued
working. Later, he went back to
listen to the tape. "You could
hear this guy whisper, 'Turn
back!' and that's when I got
bumped," he said. "That was
my first contact."
Jefferson has some of the
most famous hauntings in
Texas, according to Libby.
"The entire place, every place
you could walk into, someone
has a story about a haunting,"
he said. "It's probably one of
the most haunted places in
Texas."
Libby said he also had contact
in a Nacogdoches cemetery
where he went to investigate a
friend's claim of a mysterious
man who walks back and forth
across the cemetery. "He gets
to this one tree and stops,"
Libby said. "He will not cross
the tree."
"I'm just doing EVP (elec-
tronic voice phenomenon)
work. I take two steps it was
about 89 to 90 degrees that
night suddenly the temperature
dropped to about 50 degrees,"
he said. "The only way I can
describe what happened to me
is... you know that static when
you turn the channel and you
get snow? Every single sense I
had went to static. I couldn't
move. I felt like I was being
electrocuted. At the same time,
I felt like I was walking through
the biggest pile of Jeli-O."
Although Libby estimates the
experience lasted no more than
three seconds, he said it left him
completely drained of energy
and caused him to fall on the
ground, unable to get back up
for a couple of minutes.
The team does not accept
money for its services. "We've
talked about it but in the tradi-
tion of being a ghost hunter
we're in it for scientific reasons,"
Libby said.
What about the little girl who
waits at Shawnee Creek? One
night, armed with a camera,
Libby went to the bridge to
see if there was any truth to
the legend. He parked next to
the sign, introduced himself
out loud then said, "I'm here
to take your picture. I'm not
here to harm you. I'm going to
count down from three, when
I get to zero, I'm going to take
your picture."
When the pictures were
later developed, Libby said he
noticed a face-like image on
his vehicle's roof, even though
the car had been washed that
day.
He paid a second visit to the
bridge, repeating the experi-
ment. In that photograph, blue
squiggly lines could be seen
off to one side of his car. "Blue
electrical discharge is one of
the hardest phenomenon to
catch on film," he said. "To me,
there's something out there."
Readers
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North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 91, No. 35, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 1, 2007, newspaper, November 1, 2007; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth145511/m1/4/?q=%22ads%22: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.