Hondo Anvil Herald (Hondo, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 35, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 31, 1995 Page: 4 of 66
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Hondo Area Newspaper Collection and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Hondo Public Library.
- Highlighting
- Highlighting On/Off
- Color:
- Adjust Image
- Rotate Left
- Rotate Right
- Brightness, Contrast, etc. (Experimental)
- Cropping Tool
- Download Sizes
- Preview all sizes/dimensions or...
- Download Thumbnail
- Download Small
- Download Medium
- Download Large
- High Resolution Files
- IIIF Image JSON
- IIIF Image URL
- Accessibility
- View Extracted Text
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
V
Page 4, The Hondo Anvil Herald, Thursday. August 31,1995
Bullock touts
stronger DWI laws
AUSTIN - Lt. Gov. Bob
Bullock is banging the drum for
stronger measures to protect Texans
from the hazards of sharing the
roads with drunks.
Last week, he instructed the
Senate Criminal Justice Committee
to reconsider three bills that would:
■ Lower the intoxication standard
for drivers from a blood-alcohol
level of 0.10 to 0.08;
■ Ban open alcoholic beverage
containers in cars; and
■ Allow law enforcement officers
to conduct sobriety checks on roads
and highways.
All three measures were intro-
duced, but failed to gain Senate ap-
proval, during the last legislative
session.
“I want to make sure that in
Texas we do everything possible
to protect people from drunken
drivers and drunken drivers from
themselves,” Bullock told the Hous-
ton Chronicle.
Bullock’s words were lauded by
Mothers Against Drunk Driving,
but elicited words of caution from
a lawyer group.
j “I think anything Bullock does
• is significant. I couldn’t be happier
;about it,” MADD spokesman Bill
: Lewis told the Chronicle.
State u Capital
HIGHLIGHTS
By Lyndell Williams & Ed Sterling
TEXAS PRESS ASSOCIATION
Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers
Association executive director John
Boston said his group considers so-
briety checkpoints an unconstitu-
tional invasion of privacy.
Boston said his group would op-
pose lowering of the blood-alcohol
standard without allowing defen-
dants to challenge the accuracy of
breath-testing devices.
Sobriety checkpoints were struck
down in 1994 by the Texas Court
of Criminal Appeals because Texas
had no statewide rules governing
their use.
Justice Gammage to Quit
Texas Supreme Court Justice
Bob Gammage has submitted his
letter of resignation to Gov. George
W. Bush, saying it was time to
“focus on family, our personal
financial security and to pursue
HONDO ANVIL HERALD
long-neglected personal goals and
challenges.”
Gammage was elected in 1990
to a six-year term. In announcing
his Sept. 1 departure, Gammage
joins fellow Democrat, Justice Jack
Hightower, who said in June he
would leave the court at the end of
the year.
Gammage said his dissenting
opinions in recent years reflect his
belief that the court is becoming
less objective.
Gov. Bush now has the opportu-
nity to fill their scats with Republi-
cans. Presently, the state’s highest
court includes five Republicans and
four Democrats.
Bush’s press secretary Karen
Hughes said the governor has
begun looking for a replacement to
fill Gammage’s unexpired term.
Coastal Plan Takes Hit
U.S. Department of Commerce
officials sent a letter to Gov. Bush
last week, informing him that a
coastal management plan proposed
by Railroad Commission Chairman
Barry Williamson will not meet
federal approval.
The letter was good news to
Texas Land Commissioner Garry
Mauro, who has been at odds with
Williamson over the plan.
Mauro said Williamson’s plan,
although approved by the state
Legislature, strips his agency of
some of its oversight duties and
can’t satisfy regulations in the
federal Coastal Zone Management
Plan, which already is in place.
Other Highlights
■ The late John B. Connally will
be honored by the University of
Tbxas at Austin with the naming
of an addition to the School of
Law. An $11 million advocacy and
dispute resolution center will be
named the John B. Connally Center
for the Administration of Justice
in recognition of the contributions
to higher education made by
Connally, a member of the Law
School’s class of 1941.
| World War II should be remembered as it happened
By Alan Nichols
The war that lasted six years and
one day ended fifty years ago when
the Japanese finally surrendered or.
August 14,1945.
Nazi Germany had already sur-
rendered on May 7,1945.
World War II cost more in lives
and dollars than any event in thfe
history of mankind. Fifty three mil-
lion soldiers and civilians are esti-
• mated to have died during the con-
flict that cost somewhere in the vi-
cinity of $1500 billion.
After the war, 20 million people
were left homeless.
Seventy million men were en-
gaged as combatants during the war,
with 17 million of them being killed.
Poland suffered the most in pro-
portion to her population with
300,000 soldiers killed and 5.8 mil-
lion civilians murdered by the Ger-
mans, for a total loss of 22% of her
population.
Soviet Russia lost 10% of her
population, with 6 million soldiers
killed and 14 million of her citizens
murdered by the Germans.
Germany lost 4.5 million in com-
bat, with most dying on the dreaded
Eastern Front, and 2 million German
civilians were killed by air bom-
bardments.
Japan lost over a million soldiers,
and 600,000'Japanese citizens died
from air bombardment.
Between 3 and 13 million people
died in China. Most of these were
caused by the harsh treatment of the
Japanese, who were in the habit of
bombing open, defenseless cities.
The United States and Britain
each lost 300,000 military person-
nel. Britain suffered the additional
loss of 62,000 civilians and 35,000
members of the merchant navy, but
no American civilians died from
combat activity.
Early in the war, the U.S. watched
as the enemy seemed unstoppable.
The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor
and defeated the American forces in
the Philippines.
The U.S. was not able to save the
thousands of POWs who suffered
torture and death in the* Bataan
Death March, and it was unable to
retaliate immediately for the attack
on Pearl Harbor.
The 16-bomber Doolittle raid
over Tokyo in April of 1942 didn't
do much damage, bufil achieved its
goal of ruffling the Japanese.
By March of 1945, hundreds of
U.S. bombers were dropping tons of
bombs on Japanese cities. In a single
raid on Tokyo on March 8,334 B 29s
dropped 2,000 tons of bombs, de-
stroying 260,000 buildings that
comprised one quarter of the city.
The raid killed 83,000, more than the
initial blast of the Hiroshima bomb,
and it left a million Japanese without
homes. The bomber pilots reported
(hat they encountered no tighter
opposition.
In April, the U.S. invaded Oki-
nawa after months of bombardmenL
The Japanese decided to sacrifice
what was left of their navy - The
monster batdeship Yamato, one
cruiser and eight destroyers. Japan
no longer possessed any aircraft
carriers.
Opposing the Japanese fleet were
27 American aircraft carriers, 10 bat-
tleships and nine heavy cruisers.
Another U.S. fleet of 15 aircraft car-
riers and 8 battleships lay nearby,
ready to intervene if needed.
Nine hundred U.S. aircraft at-
tacked and destroyed the Japanese
fleet. The massacre at sea had no
apparent effect on the Japanese will
to fight, and 110,000 of them fought.
to the death on Okinawa.
American losses numbered
12,500, and concern over the loss of
life in an invasion on the Japanese
mainland became a great concern.
Kamikaze, or suicide air attacks,
had intensified to the point where 30
U.S. ships were sunk and over 100
severely damaged, sometimes with
over 1,000 casualties on a single
ship. A number of aircraft carriers
were put out of action.
Despite the fact that Japan had
been beaten to her knees, and the
United States was more powerful
than any nation in the history of the
world, the Japanese laughed at re-
peated American pleas for Japan to
surrender or face total annihilation.
The United States was amassing a
huge invasion force for "Operation
Olympic," the code-name given to
the invasion of Japan. It was esti-
mated that 1 million Americans
might die during the invasion, and
possibly up to 20 million Japanese
» would die in a mad, final defense of
the homeland which would involve
kamikaze attacks in the air, in the
water and on land. Most Japanese
had agreed to fight to the death. It
was further estimated that a couple
of million Allied soldiers participat-
ing with the Americans in the inva-
sion would die. The Japanese had
orders that 100,000 American
PO W s should be executed if an inva-
sion took place.
The Japanese had no regard for the
Geneva Convention, an agreement
setting standards for the just and
humane treatment of POWs, and for
the protection of medical personnel.
Charles Greinkc, a pilot in the
war, told the San Antonio Express-
News that he was sent to Leyte in the
Philippines in early 1945 to pick up
freed U.S. nurses who were captured
by the Japanese early in the war.
"They were skin and bones," he
recalled of the 54 former prisoners.
A Medina County resident who
served in the First Cavalry helped
carry 800 dead American POWs out
of a Japanese prison on Luzon, in the
Philippines. The men had all starved
to death, and the Japanese had sewn
their mouths shut to prevent them
from eating, should they be lucky
enough to discover something ed-
ible.
"They were so light, we could
easily carry two at a time,” said T5
Avery F. Barrow.
President Harry Truman saved
millions of lives and brought a
speedy end to the costly war when he
gave the order to use the A-bomb.
The Americans dropped thou-
sands of leaflets warning the Japa-
nese to evacuate Hiroshima two
days before they dropped the bomb.
After the blast, the Japanese still
refused to surrender, and it took a
It's school time again. Kids are back
in classrooms instead of playing out-
side. School buses are hauling eager-
-and maybe some not-so-eager-chil-
dren to school each weekday morn-
ing. And those yellow lights that alert
us of school zones are flashing again.
As summer comes to a close and
parents send their children off to
school, it's a good time to take a look
at the importance of education and the
best way to help children learn.
Education is atopic often at the cen-
ter of heated political debates. There
is a great deal of disagreement about
what role the federal government
should play in educating our children.
Currently, Washington provides
about 6% of all education funding, yet
dictates about 40% of how education
funds should be spent. Congress has
spent the last few months debating
whether Washington should continue
to tell communities how to educate
students or whether it should get off
the backs of community leaders and
parents. I prefer the latter.
For years, liberal education bureau-
crats in our nation's capital have
imposed one-size-fits-all mandates
on schools from New York City to
Fort Stockton. Do they honestly think
that schools in New York and West
Texas face the same situations and
sets of circumstances? How can
someone in Washington, D.C. know
what’s best for children in towns
they've never even heard of?
second bomb to convince them that
the U.S. had no intention of sending
millions of people into a bloodbath,
which is what the invasion of Japan
would have been.
The A-bombs caused less death
and damage than the fire bombings,
which failed to convince the Japa-
nese to surrender. It was the fact that
just one U.S. plane and bomb could
cause so much devastation that fi-
nally convinced the Japanese to sur-
render.
If the U.S. had not used the bomb,
the blood of every soldier and civil-
ian killed in the invasion of Japan
would have been on Truman's
hands, and the condemnation of his
decision would be many times
greater than any current outcry.
While I'm sure these "experts" in
Washington have the country's best
interest at heart, my belief is that the
more money and mandates sent out by
Washington, the greater the education
problem becomes. It's time for Wash-
ington to step aside and allow Texans
to decide how best to educate our chil-
dren. If communities want to experi-
ment with innovative education ideas
like school choice or vouchers, they
should be allowed to see how these
new approaches work.
So far, any effort to take some of the
power away from these bureaucrats
and return it to the school districts has
met with tremendous resistance.
Opponents of educational reform will
declare that if anyone wants to reduce
the size of the U.S. Department of
Education, he or she must be against
education. Let's be realistic. Much of
the money Washington throws at
education is spent to keep bureaucrats
employed, not to help children learn.
That's the real reason they're worried.
While the debate will continue over
how to educate our children, we as
parents should do everything we can
to help our kids learn. We should
participate in parent-teacher confer-
ences and school events. We should
help our children do their homework
and improve their reading skills. No
matter how much government money
is spent on education, parental in-
volvement will always be the best
way to help children learn.
WEEKLY REPORT
Congressman
Henry Bonilla . 3
23rd District, Texas -S
The best way to improve education
THE BUREAUCRAT
f Since you were
promoted Clerk 0,
I’m going to try for
V Clerk m.
' What makes
you think you’ll
get it?
I’m here everyday, work
faster and better than anyone,
and make no mistakes.
tyWanH.Fnrih
In this Deportment/
yov haven’t got a
chance.
A day to remember
Saturday, September 2,1995 is the day marking exactly 50 years
since Japan officially surrendered to the United States and their allies
on board the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay ending WW U.
We have tried to assemble some of the names of people you may
know who took part in that conflict, and while we know it is not
complete, we have done our best.
There is a celebration scheduled for Fredericksburg Saturday which
is expected to draw thousands of visitors, and probably the largest
number of veterans assembled anywhere for the occasion. Former
President George Bush is to lead the parade, as a WW n carrier pilot
Admiral Chester Nimitz' son, a retired admiral himself, will be there,
and since it is not so far from Medina County, there will probably be
a sizeable number of our citizens there as well. The Confederate Air
Force is planning an appearance. This one will no doubt be the grand
finale for a long series of anniversary events.
Sparks may take a different direction next week, but from time, to
time, we will still call attention to past history.
No history book that I have read tells the story of a great nation which
won a bitter and world wide struggle without taking enemy territory.
No nation ever spent billions of dollars helping former enemies
rebuild their industry, and certainly no other nation ever opened up its
bonders to free trade the way we did.
History should record that this nation set an example of Christian
charity unequalled in world history.
Now we are engaged in reducing our military strength, assuming
that we will not need so much, of it in the future.
Let's hope that the bread we have cast upon the waters has not been
in vain.
WWII serviceman's wife
recalls memories of Hondo
(Editor's note: During World War
II many people gave selflessly to help
make others'lives happier, if only for
a brief time. Many Hondo families
did exactly the same kinds of things
Mrs. Reicken speaks of in her letter.)
August 26,1995
Dear Editor,
I am writing to honor some of
your local people as we are
honoring our soldiers, as we
celebrate the 50th year of the
ending of World War II.
My husband was stationed at
Hondo Airfield and my name at
that time was Lilly Tranmer.
Mr. and’Mrs. Joe Brocks of
Hondo welcomed us and made us
an apartment over their wash
house. To us it was a beautiful
apartment as we were together. I
was pregnant at the time and we so
wanted to be together at the baby's
birth. The Brocks' daughter's
husband left for service and their
daughter needed the apartment, so
the neighbors across the sheet, Mr.
and Mrs. Milton Heyen, made us a
neat home in their garage where we
remained until my husband's
discharge. The Heyens also rented
out spare bedrooms in their home
to airmen's wives.
Our baby was bom and died
Dec. 24,1942, and is buried in
your beautiful cemetery.
What would we have done at the
time if it were not for the love and
care of people like the Heyens and
Bruckses? We couldn't have gotten
any more loving care if they had
been our own people. Also, Mrs.
Amelia Saathoff across the street
brought us delicious food after I
returned from Hondo Hospital.
The love and care never stopped
there, either.'
The Heyens were in the trucking
business and, thanks to Lilly, I saw
quite a bit of your beautiful
country in Texas as she took me
trucking with her after my husband
left for camp each day. Truly their
hearts were touched by God. They
should be honored, also, as they
made many service men and their
wives happy by letting them be
together, many probably for the
last time.
My husband died in 1946. Later
years I remarried and in 1978 we
made a return trip to Hondo.
Neither of the two couples were at
home, but as we sat in the car in
front of their homes, all the
memories came rushing back of
their love and unselfishness in
sharing their love and homes to
perfect strangers.
Truly they need to be honored,
also, for taking in perfect strangers
so we could be together during that
trying time.
I will never forget and will bless
them and remember them in my
prayers always. They made their
sacrifice, also!
Mrs. Lilly Riecken
Box 238, Bancroft, NE 68004
4-H Horse Judgers say thanks
Dear Editor:
The Medina County 4-H senior
horse judging team would like to send
a huge "thank you" to the many
people who helped make our chicken
bar-b-que fundraiser a success. We
would like to recognize the following
"helping hands" for their extra special
efforts: HEB for donating the beans;
Mr. and Mrs. Tom Carskadden for
donating wood; Eddie Boggess, Gary
Zinsmeyer, Rodger Welch, Bobby
Ainsley, Rene Mosqueda, Eddie
Havel and Eddie Thigpen for being
the best chicken cookin' crew ever in
the history of bar-b-ques; Wayne
Scholtz and Bobby Mumme for their
incredible bean expertise; Pam Thig-
pen and Nancy Mumme for being
fantas ic first time slaw fixers; Pat
Havel, Marcie Rothe, Annie Rothe,
Brandi Mumme, Krystle Mumme and
Tammy Zinsmeyer for being such
super servers, pickle handlers and
plate closers; Kelley Thigpen for
"goin' fer" anything we asked; Mr.
and Mrs. Mark Kidd for distributing
chickens in Devine; and a special
thanks to all of the wives, husbands
and families who allowed these
people to spend their Sunday on us.
Also, to all who bought tickets and/or
donated money to our cause, we are
extremely grateful. Within the next
few weeks, we hope to raise the re-
mainder of the funds necessary for our
trip Sept. 29 to the Solid Gold Na-
tional Judging Contest in Illinois.
Again, thanks to all who have and
continues to support our efforts.
Kate Havel, Rakel Thigpen
Jim Bob Mumme, Laura Kidd
Missy Ainsley, Coach
HONDO ANVIL HERALD
Published every Thursday it 1601 Ave. K, Hondo, Medini County, Texu
by Aiiociited Texas Newipiperi, Inc.
Emin consents C1995 Hondo Anvil Herald
Entered at the Poat Office, Hondo, TX aa Second Claae Mail
SUBSCRIPTION RATES:
In Medina Co. - SIS per year, In Texaa - $20 per year. Out of Texaa - $25 per year
ISSN 249-280
William E. Berger and Jeff Berger, Co-Publisher*
I
Any erroneous reflection upon the character, standing or reputation of any person, firm or corporation
which may appear in the Anvil Herald will be oorrocted upon being brought to the attention of the:
publiahers.
i
No charge ie made for publication! of notion of church or other public gathering! whan no edmiasian la
charged. Whan admission is charged or when goods or warn of any kind ate offered for sale, the Anvil
HaraUt special advertising raw will apply.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes lo The Hondo Anvil Herald, P. O. Box 400, Hondo TX 71161.
Telephone: (210) 426-3346
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Matching Search Results
View 44 places within this issue that match your search.Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Hondo Anvil Herald (Hondo, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 35, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 31, 1995, newspaper, August 31, 1995; Hondo, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth818057/m1/4/?q=Homecoming+queen+1966+North+Texas+State+University: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Hondo Public Library.