To be Bebee or not to be Huckabee

Being Reader Representative for The Enterprise sometimes gives me the chance to go back to my reporting days chasing down information in an effort to correct inaccuracies.

Sometimes I verify what callers tell me and, sometimes, I find out they are wrong and we were right. This story illustrates that, as well as how distracted I have become from the current political process.

A caller on Tuesday pointed out a national brief on page 2A, referring to an Arkansas law that contained an error that would allow Arkansans of any age – even toddlers – to marry without parental consent. The article quoted Ar-kansas Gov. Mike Beebe.

The caller, with great conviction, told me that was an error, that the governor of Arkansas was Mike Huckabee. He sounded so sure of himself I thought I was wasting my time checking the information, but I did.

Turns out we (actually the Associated Press) were right, the current governor is Mike Bebee.

But the former governor is Mike Huckabee – the one who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination (did I say I’d become distracted from the current political process?)

So, bottom line is, the caller was wrong, but he’s paying attention – more attention than I’ve apparently been paying.

It’s a great day to be a woman

A shelf in my office holds a small framed sign that says: “I am woman, I am invincible, I am tired.”

Well, today I am not tired, I am invigorated by the power and the passion and the strength that womankind represents.

A Southeast Texas organization called Pioneering Women today hosted their “Women of Passion and Ambition” luncheon honoring eight area women who have made our world better. The luncheon is always in August, a salute to the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote.

The honorees included Sheri Arnold, Jo Ann Block, Yolanda Avery, Verna Rutherford, Dora Nisby, Connie Berry, Michelle McCalope and Juanita Falcon.

I’ve known several of the women for decades. I’ve watched them, year after year, offer their time and talents in service for a variety of individuals and organizations. They are, truly, women of passion and ambition.

But in addition to the event being a wonderful way to honor wonderful women, it’s an amazing gathering of women who support and nurture one another as each, in her own way, tries to make a difference in her own world.

Thank you Pioneering Women, for a great event, and for renewing my spirit.

Sometimes high pressure is a good thing

Those residents who are new to the Gulf Coast or hurricane country in general might wonder, what’s the big deal about high pressure ridges?

For those of us who’ve spent much of our lives watching the Gulf, it’s plain. Hurricanes, like most everything else in nature (or life) move to the area of least resistance. High (barometric) pressure areas are like hurricane repellent. That’s what keeping Hurricane Dean moving more westerly and headed toward Mexico rather than Beaumont.

So, in general, high pressure might not be a wonderful thing, but in hurricane terms, it’s definitely on the wish list.

As we wait and watch and hope for landfall in some remotely populated area far away from us, some readers might also have noticed information in Sunday’s Enterprise regarding a helpful Web site, http://www.texashurricanenews.com/.

The Web site is an offshoot of The Enterprise’s experience during Hurricane Rita in September of 2005.


Though we’ve hosted a newspaper Web site for years, the storm was one of our first real tests as a news media evolving to react to news more immediately. It’s when we became more keenly aware of the need to make our product available not only in a daily printed format, but in a frequently updated electronic form as well.


When the storm blew in, taking out our electricity and seriously damaging our newspaper building, our staff didn’t shirk its responsibility to report the news, we simply took the news on-line.


After the storm, we received a multitude of e-mails and letters thanking us for providing so much information in a form that evacuees and their concerned families could use. The evolution of that experience led to a permanent site offering information on all things hurricane related, including this year’s hurricane handbook.


So, though we appear to have dodged a big one this time with Dean’s current predicted path, we all know there will, most likely, be more scares in the coming weeks.


Bookmark the site to get the information you need, and, of course, keep checking The Enterprise site for updates on news as well.

Journalists need to know a little about a lot

In my role as Reader Representative and Associate Managing Editor at The Enterprise, I frequently represent the paper at career days and other events sharing information about journalism as a career.

One of the suggestions I always share with potential young journalists is the importance of getting a good broad-based education. Yes, they should take psychology and sociology and world history and (at least one) foreign language, and biology and chemistry and math – whether they like it or not. The reason is that journalism is about all those things and more.

A reporter, particularly a young beginning reporter, is likely to be sent out – on the spur of the moment – to cover a story about anything from a car accident to highway construction to agriculture. They need to be educated enough to understand anything they are thrown into and, more importantly, confident and curious enough to ask about anything they don’t understand.

I have, more than once, counseled inexperienced journalists to ask every question that pops into their heads – and to ask it again and again in as many ways as they have to and of as many people as necessary until they understand their subject thoroughly enough to write about it.

Or, as I sometimes put it very plainly – “It’s much better to look stupid to one person who’s an expert in the subject than to look stupid to thousands of people who read your inaccuracies in the paper the next day.” That is, truly a major part of our role as professional communicators – understanding things well enough to communicate them clearly and succinctly to our readers.

So, whether we are writing about fish kills or kills in a volleyball game, hundredweights of rice or pounds per hour of chemical emissions, we recognize our responsibility to know what we are talking about – or to take the time to find out.

When we fail, as we occasionally do, we also recognize our responsibility to acknowledge and correct our errors – and to make sure we learn from them.

Elvis lives on in memories of his fans

The Enterprise has, for more than a week now, been soliciting readers for their memories of Elvis Presley, who died Aug. 16, 1977, almost 30 years ago.

We even have a special phone line set up for fans who’d like to call in with their own rendition of their favorite Elvis hit.

Mine, for the record, is the little known, ”Young and Beautiful,” from the 1959 RCA album, “A Date With Elvis,” which, in 1959, was probably every teen-age girl’s dream.

Elvis was trying to make a living singing when I was an infant. He made the 1959 album before I was in kindergarten and his popularity peaked (at least during his lifetime) before I was in high school.

I had been out of college little more than a year and was working as a cop reporter at a small newspaper when he died, so I also recognized the news value of that story.

But to those of us who grew up with his omnipresent music and predictably amusing movies, his life was as much of a story as his death. To us, he will always rank as an entertainment icon.

The young reporters in the newsroom, many of whom weren’t born when Elvis was alive, look at me as though I am an archeological relic when I tell them I once actually saw Elvis perform live.

The year was 1970 and Elvis was among performers at the legendary Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, held in the equally legendary Astrodome.

My older sister and I had nosebleed seats – and binoculars – so we could see him well. The acoustics of the Astrodome being what they were – made for sporting events, not concerts – I always joked that we saw him once and heard him several times.

And, yes, at the end of his show, the dome went dark briefly. When the lights came back up, they said, exactly what you would expect: “Elvis has left the building.”