The Hopkins County Echo (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 205, No. 3, Ed. 1 Friday, January 21, 2000 Page: 1 of 4
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SOUTH MICROPUBL1SHIN
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Absorbed The Gazette Circulation By Purchase On May 12,1928
VOL 205 — NO. 3
SULPHUR SPRINGS, TEXAS — FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 2000
4 PAGES — 25 CENTS — PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY
Blaze damages apartments
Tuesday fire in College Street house due to electrical short
By FAITH HUFFMAN
A converted apartment house on College
Street caught fire Tuesday afternoon, destroy-
ing the interior of an apartment and leaving
the rest of the building “not suitable for habi-
tation,” according to Sulphur Springs Fire
Chief Gerry ~
lident Angie Williams, who
.sessions, the fire started out
________r. Preliminary reports
cause of the fire was indeed
Cleaver said.
According to
lost all of her
as an electrical
indicate that
an electrical si
“Me, my sister and some friends were in
the house [Tuesday morning] when the light
flickered,” according to Williams. “The lighst
in my room went off so we changed the light
bulb, because I we thought the light had gone
out. We flipped the switch on the wall, but the
6 4rP wo people came and checked
1 the [fuse] box at the back. The
next thing we knew one of the men
came running around from the back
and said the switch was messed up.
The we heard a man yell, ‘Hey, we’ve
got a fire.’ The fire started in my bed-
room.”
_ — Fire v(ctlm Angle Williams
light wouldn’t come on. I called the landlord
to have someone come check the electrical
wiring.
Two people came and checked the [fuse]
box at the back,” she said. “The next thing we
knew one of the men came running around
from the back and said the switch was messed
up, Then we heard a man yell, ‘Hey, we’ve
got a fire.’ The fire started in my bedroom.”
Apartment 306A on the ground floor was
burned beyond habitation, and according to
County Emergency Management Coordinator
J.D. Craze, the fire had spread to the wall in
another room and at least included the
sheetrock in apartment 306C on the second
floor.
Smoke damage on the outside of the house
indicates that the fire breached the inner wall
of the top floor and got at least as far as the
sheetrock if not further, he said.
According to SSFD Capt. Skipper Hurley,
fire teams were able to put the biggest part of
the fire out in 20 minutes.
“It took 20 minutes from the time we got in
and found the hidden fires,” Hurley said.
Stiff Photo By Maria Plnsky
Cleaning up
Sulphur Springs firefighters remove furniture from
a residence on College Street Tuesday afternoon
after three apartments in the house were damaged
by fire.
In The Company Of Wolves
Wolfdogs find sanctuary with Reilly Springs couple
By BRUCE ALSOBROOK
t starts as the low moan of one
I voice, a tremulous vibration
JL tickling the air, then rises in
pitch and mass. An eternity of
instinct takes over as two, three, then
five more
throats join in
the irresistible
chorus, and all
human conver-
sation is
drowned out by
the sound of the
wolfephotyl. „
“They’re just
talking,” assures
Kathi Ebert-
Spears, nuzzling
a wolfdog pup
as the impromp-
tu howls slowly
rise to a
crescendo, then
recede into a
quiet to match
the whispering
winds blowing
through the sur-
rounding
woods.
The sounds
of wolves that
were long ago
removed from
the countryside
of Hopkins
County have returned to a 40-acre
patch of woods, water and wildlife
south of Reilly Springs where Kathi
and her husband. Rich Spears, are
building one of only a handful of
sanctuaries for wolf-dog crosses in
the United States.
“When I started doing some
research, I found there were very
Still cuddly
Kathi Ebert*S pears nuzzles one of
10 wolfdog pups being raised at the
wildlife sanctuary.
Stiff Photo By Marta Plntky
few rescue centers that take wolf
hybrids,” said Kathi. “All the
humane societies, if they can’t find a
home for them in three days, they’ll
put them down, and that’s if they can
keep them three days.”
The rescue center, Kali Ma
Memorial
Wildlife Sanctu-
ary, is a non-
profit organiza-
tion providing a
home for
abused,
orphaned and
jihanfinn/»(i cap-
five-bred wolf-
dogs. The sanc-
tuary wasn’t
supposed to
open until
March, but the
overwhelming
need for homes
for unwanted
wolfdogs forced
them to begin
accepting ani-
mals four
months early.
“We weren’t
planning on
opening so
quick,” said
Rich. “We’re
not even physi-
cally set up, but
we had to. in
order to keep them from being put
down.”
One canid is scheduled to arrive
from Wisconsin, another from Ten- PI^V tlUlC
nessee. Dash, a particularly hand-
some timber wolf-German shepherd
cross with a penchant for digging
l
&
v
^f/&*»*■
i • ■ ;
W$#L''
W? .i
• >. i
,■ 'T' - *
r* _. .v ; -w
——^
■Cm
■■ ■■<- ’ v
&&&?
-
•*; • ■ ,e I i* ■'
•. • rV-
• ■ ?■>„.. •,
: Xu
Please See HOWLS, Pg. 4
Shilah, an abandoned female wolfdog housed at the
Kali Ma Memorial Wildlife Sanctuary, exhibits a
playful spirit for Kathi Ebert Spears, who formed
the sanctuary with her husband, Rich Spears, on 40
' ’
• i
Staff Photo By Maria Plniky
acres of wooded land near Reilly Springs. The res-
cue center for abandoned, orphaned and abused
wolfdogs is one of only a handful in the L nited
States.
12-year-old’s petition drive tops in Texas
____ . _____■ .k.nc effort frr>m nnn on notebook oaoer and collected But the bulk of the autographs we
By BRUCE ALSOBROOK
the U S. population —, suffers from
diabetes, and the seventh-leading
cause of death, according to the Cen-
ters for Disease Control.
Brooks started gathering names in
in the summer after seeing the peti-
tion in “Diabetes Forecast,” the pub-
lication of the American Diabetes
Association.
“I found it in there, and just started dtooks siancu g«uKi.u6 muiu ~~ r------- -
getting busy,” Brooks said. late August and averaged more than everybody that came in to buy gas or
The ADA, which purports that the one signature perhour over the next whatever would sign it.
o _________a___J. IdllioA n tkroo nmnthc KvPnlitfinO 3 Small
Brooks Roberts surprised a lot of
people by gathering 3,035 signatures
on a petition to support research in
finding a cure for diabetes.
But the 12-year-old Sulphur i ne aua, wmen purports uw» me u..<- t~.----------
Springs student and his father. Texas U.S. government spends $40 biUion a three months bjpnlisting ai small
department of Public Safety Trooper year treating people with diabetes but army of friends, family and strangers
Bruce Roberts, goff a surprise this only 1 percent of that amount to try to help, but he began the old fash-
week when they were told that and cure it, launched a campaign in ioned way — one house & a time
Brooks had collected the most signa- the summer to gather one million “Me and my friend Keith Hams,
tures in Texas, and the sixth-highest names on petitions calling* for the who lives near my grandparents
number in the nation. government to spend at least $1 bil- neighborhood, we d just go around
“I did not know that,” Brooks said lion a year to find a cure for the dis- door-to-door and get signatures,
after finding out the news. ease. Diabetes affects an estimated 16 Brooks said. "Another friend of mine.
Brooks began collecting signatures million people — about 6 percent of Whitney Jordan, made her own peti-
tion on notebook paper and collected
names.
“Then we’d go to stores like Jack-
in-the-Box or Swatsells or E-Z Mart
and leave the petitions there, and
Local
crime
figures
on rise
By BRUCE ALSOBROOK___
Major offenses reported to the Sul-
phur Springs Police Department rose
almost 10 percent in 1999. despite a
big downturn in crime in the last hall
of the year.
The number of major offenses —
which include homicide, sexual
assault, robbery, assault (other than
simple assault), burglary, theft over
$200. and motor vehicle theft — rose
from 342 in 1998 to 375 in 1999. a
gain of 9.6 percent.
It was the first time since 1995 the
crime rate moved upward, but the lat-
est figures are still far below the num-
bers reported that year, when 601
offenses were logged.
And the crime rate also appears to
already be on the downswing. Crime
actually declined in the last half ol
1999, with only 154 offenses report-
ed, compared to 221 in the first six
months.
"My hope would be that we’re
starting a downward trend again,"
Sulphur Springs Police Chief Donnie
Lewis said Tuesday.
Lewis was nevertheless visibly
unhappy with the increased number
of stolen vehicles and other property
thefts in 1999. Thefts rose from 146
in 1998 to 154 last year, while auto
thefts jumped from 23 to 43.
“Those two categories concern
me,” he said. “Those are two cate-
gories that I plan to pay particular
attention to. especially the motor
vehicle thefts. I’m going to be getting
the individual offense reports and see
why we’re having so many."
Assaults also climbed slightly, from
49 to 56, and there were 10 robberies
in 1999 but only five the year before.
There were no reported robberies of
convenience stores, however, which
had been a problem in past years.
Burglaries, meanwhile, dropped
more than 9 percent, falling from 116
in 1998 to 109 last year. The number
of burglaries also declined signifi-
cantly in the last half of 1999. Of the
109 reported, only 36 came in the
final six months of the year.
The month of May was the busiest
for police in 1999. with a total of 51
major offenses reported, followed by
June with 46. The quietest month was
September, with only 20 offenses
logged by police. Only 22 offenses
were reported in October and Novem-
ber.
While th/enme rate in 1999 went
up, so did the clearance rate. For all
categories of offenses. there were
1.238 reports made in 1999. up from
1,131 in 1998
His father also collected a few
names while working at a weigh sta-
tion near Mount Pleasant.
“I’d just leave one out and truck
drivers would come by and sign it,
Bruce Roberts said. “In fact, we got
signatures from every state in the
union except Alaska. We even got a
signature from somebody in Aus-
tralia, and from Canada ”
But the bulk of the autographs were
from students at Sulphur Springs,
teachers, church members, and cus-
tomers at places like Jack-in-the-Box.
Swatsells and Joe Bob’s.
“That was the main thing, every-
body pulling together to help us, and
we want to thank the community,
everybody that got involved." Bruce
said. “It was really amazing. When
we started and he was going door-to-
door and we squeaked out 70 or 80
petitions, we never thought we would
be in the range we were
“We’d have some people we didn t
even know who would mail petitions
to us,” he added.
PETITION MASTER: Brooks
Roberts' 3,035 signatures puts him
at the top in Texas.
z___ u«u. Maria Samos Camposin looked up at the judge and said. Yes, J^nce S™on nunum baseball bat. lay stained with
The man who eluded authorities for August:of lWT^tecaaehad en mgrn tv. ^ 1997 The first officer on the blood on the floor about two feet
two years after the 1997 bludgeoning scheduled for trial in February Had a Zapata told the court he was mtox IS bk)od the bot- from Campos body
death °f iMSgfrlfrrend in Sulphur jury f“nlj W ye£s in S saidte^mik’ter wuh’die^e - tom of an outside glass door, then believed Zapata, who shared
prison!*0 X bS b^dunng an a^ument He said f^ndCampoa. a waitress at a local the (tapfrxwithCampos. committed
different aliases*
since March ot
1997.
Investigators
were certain Zap-
ata had fled Sul
phur Springs and
mu INUUU1U1S-----— -t V—.---;.TTT----. . suspected he may have gone home to
. „. ._he wanted lo try and help her, but “I restaurant. the crime, but didn t learn his identi- his native Mexico, but he surfaced
p*1*00- ^ i rhk waa Beared-” * There wore signs of a maaaive ty until three days later Detectives tgMn Fayetteville, Ark . on June
Oscar Evelio Zapata, 31, accepted you are guilty Eighth JuAcial Div ,.f of _ items knocked from evoartually determined Zapata had ]99q
CMapos. 44. lying-in a ubk». ov«w»ed fun.!**, Ad op-dn* ’
Rural Nevus: 4
Club News: 2
1
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Keys, Scott & Lamb, Bill. The Hopkins County Echo (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 205, No. 3, Ed. 1 Friday, January 21, 2000, newspaper, January 21, 2000; Sulphur Springs, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth780774/m1/1/: accessed July 9, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Hopkins County Genealogical Society.