Sunday, June 29, 1997
Reporter's notebook
ANTHONY WILSON, city hall reporter
In response to a question making the rounds: yes, former city
manager Lanny Lambert continues to draw a $3,522 paycheck every
other week through August even though he's landed a new job.
Following his resignation May 8, Lambert and the Abilene City
Council agreed on a 3-1/2-month "resignation package"
that will pay him approximately $25,000. Council members explained
they were trying to treat Lambert fairly until he could find other
employment.
Though he said he was burned out on municipal government when
he quit his post after only 2-1/2 years, Lambert landed the city
manager's job in The Colony just a month later. His annual salary
there is $72,000, about $17,000 less than he made in Abilene.
The amount of Lambert's compensation package angered some taxpayers,
who argued such courtesies aren't extended to working joes who
quit their jobs.
That Lambert continues accepting Abilene's checks while on
The Colony's payroll has disappointed some city leaders, who had
hoped their former manager would decline the money once he got
a new job.
---
RICHARD HORN, public affairs editor
When Attorney General Dan Morales passed through Abilene in
late April, he told our editorial board he had "something
to do" in town that night. He didn't mention he was dating
someone here.
Less than a month later, his office announced his engagement
to a 28-year-old Abilene woman, Christi Glenn.
The Reporter-News and TV stations quickly heard reports that
Glenn's employment history included a stint as a topless dancer
here. Glenn soon left town, so calls were made to Morales' spokesman,
who no doubt envisioned the headline, "Politician to wed
ex-stripper." The queries were dismissed as rumor-mongering.
On June 15, the story came out, in a sympathetic feature in
the San Antonio Express-News, Morales' hometown newspaper. The
article contrasts Morales' self-described "Leave it to Beaver"
upbringing with Glenn's troubled childhood.
She lost her parents at an early age, spent part of her childhood
in a Baptist children's home, dropped out of college and suffered
through an abusive relationship and a failed first marriage. As
a single parent with two children, she re-entered college and
graduated from Howard Payne in 1996. But she had trouble finding
work and finally ended up driving two nights a week to Abilene
to dance in a topless club.
"I didn't want to do it," she told the Express-News,
"but I was going to take care of my babies."
She then got a job at Snelling Personnel in Abilene. KRBC,
who had her resume in its file, hired her to do weekend weather
but abruptly fired her when word got around about her topless
work, according to the article.
Back at Snelling, she met Morales last March when he spoke
at a Better Business Bureau luncheon in Abilene. She gave him
her card after his speech, and he later sent her a note asking
her to dinner the next time he visited Abilene. It turned out
to be a month later.
They'll be married later this summer.
"It will be the 'yes' moment in a modern Cinderalla story,"
the Express-News said, "and their union will be one of the
most interesting marital combinations in Texas."
---
GLENN DROMGOOLE, editor
What the heck are those little flaps in the paper?
That, in so many words, is a question we've been getting at
the Reporter-News< the last couple of weeks. The "flaps"
are the little one inch strips that are folded over in some sections
of the paper. They carry ads for the newspaper or our Internet
home page.
The mail is, you might say, overwhelmingly negative about this
great new idea.
"Lose it!" is the way one reader put it. Others were
even more direct.
Well, rest assured that this is not a permanent feature. The
situation is this: We have some newsprint in house that is wider
than the paper we usually use. We need to use it. We tried to
find other uses for it, but we couldn't, so one of our press folks
came up with the idea of the one-inch folds.
Hey, I thought they were kind of cute. But not many of you
shared that enthusiasm.
So when the paper is gone, we'll forget about the flaps, and
I can already tell they won't be missed.
This is the second time I've been involved with spadias, as
they are formally known. Years ago at a larger newspaper, we almost
ran out of paper during a newsprint shortage. But we had some
odd-sized paper in storage that had flaps about four inches wide.
For several days we ran that paper and put news stories on both
sides of the flaps.
As I recall, readers weren't too crazy about the idea then,
either.
---
LORETTA FULTON, regional editor
Last Monday was a better day for dogs than people in Eastland.
Rising flood waters from the Leon River forced many people
out of their homes, but the adversity apparently brought out the
best in them.
Eastland Police Chief Cecil Funderburgh likened himself to
the Pied Piper when he sprung seven dogs from the city's flooded
pound. The thankful strays followed him single file to higher
ground.
And, Cowgirl, a lucky pooch belonging to the James and Alfie
McCormick family, has quite a yarn to spin herself.
When the water level rose to four feet in the McCormick home
in the wee hours of Monday morning, the family left and tried
to let the dogs loose from their pen, too.
Cowgirl dog-paddled away in the darkness while pal Foxy stayed
with the family. Later in the day a daughter, Carolyn Arnold,
went back into the house to survey the damage.
When she opened a bedroom door, there lay Cowgirl on a mattress-turned-raft,
floating along nervously, waiting to be rescued.
Carolyn said she tried to put Cowgirl, a blue heeler, under
her arm with her head out of the water, but Cowgirl had other
ideas.
"She reached up and locked her front legs around my neck,"
Carolyn told <I>Reporter-News<I> correspondent Maybelle
Trout. "Even when we reached dry ground she wouldn't let
go."
Those lucky dogs.
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Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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