The 1976 Bum Steer Awards
Life! Ah, what magic lies in those words! But the question of 1975 was this: Is there life after Dolph? Looking back on the past year, we’re not even sure there was life during Dolph. But even if life failed us, Bum Steers did not. Day after day, month after month they reared their long, horned heads and mooed. We heard them, saved them, and now it’s your chance to hear them, too: this year’s Texas Monthly’s Bum Steer Awards.
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CRIMESTOPPERS TEXTBOOK #287: MEN WITH SNAKES AROUND THEIR NECKS SHOULD BE REGARDED WITH SUSPICION
In Houston, Gail Williams, a gas station attendant, was robbed after a man threatened to throw a snake draped around his neck at her. He and the snake fled with $80.
30 DAYS IN JAIL WILL TEACH THEM BEES A LESSON
The Texas Senate voted unanimously for a bill to prohibit Brazilian killer bees from entering the country.
DOO-DAH, DOO-DAH
Houston Representative Mickey Leland claimed the environmental movement was another “clandestine plot” to divert attention and money from the poor and dismissed the U.S. landing of men on the moon as “jive.”
TURN ON, TUNE IN, BUG OFF
City Attorney Crawford Reeder was shown shooting the finger at reporters on San Antonio’s Channel 5 nightly news broadcast.
AND WHAT’S MORE, IT WILL
An attorney for Southwestern Bell Telephone argued before the Texas Supreme Court that the telephone company had the legal right to charge $1000-a-minute on in-state calls if it so desired.
DON’T CALL US—YOU CAN’T
Citizens of Longview can no longer call their post offices. All numbers for main and substations are unlisted.
WE’RE NOT SURPRISED
The swearing-in ceremony for new Texas Utilities Commission members was interrupted by an electrical brown-out.
EVER WONDER WHY AGGIES ARE PARANOID?
The Federal Communications Commission ordered Texas A&M to replace maroon and white stripes on their TV antenna with regulation orange and white ones.
THAT’S TO MATCH THE WORLD’S LARGEST INDOOR EGO
Astro boss Judge Roy Hofheinz interrupted the Rice University Band program and confiscated the band’s script after its announcer called the Astrodome “the world’s smallest indoor football stadium.”
CAN YOU SHOOT THE BIRD?
A brochure from Fort Worth’s Green Oaks Inn advertises: “A bird-watchers paradise. You can see the big birds like the AF’s B-52 bomber and KC-135 jet tanker; medium size birds like the sweep-wing F-111; and soon, little birds like General Dynamic’s new F-16.”
THE LOSER GOT A BUSHEL OF CUCUMBERS
For the opening of the movie Linda Lovelace for President, Austin’s Texas Theatre sponsored a weenie-eating contest for all female movie goers. Entrants got in the movie free and the winner received $125 worth of prizes.
YOU SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH AND THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREAK
“Pornography; The Sexual Mirage,” a 190-page handbook produced by the Baptist General Convention to help Southern Baptist ministers fight smut, was denounced as pornographic by many of the same sponsoring ministers.
THE AGGIES NEVER MISSED IT
The Texas A&M Liberty Bell’s 70-pound, yard-long cast-iron clapper, which disappeared ten years ago, was returned to the campus.
THAT’S THE ONLY REASON, BUNKER
After he and his brother were acquitted on wiretap charges, H.L. Hunt’s son Bunker said, “My heart goes out to the poor, to the people who cannot afford to defend themselves. Herbert and I were able to hire fine lawyers and that’s probably a big reason why we are free today.”
NOBODY’S PERFECT
When Charles Washington applied to become a Houston policeman, he answered, no, he had not been in trouble with the police, but yes, he had robbed a store once but wasn’t caught. During the interview the police matched his prints with those in an unsolved robbery, and arrested him.
YOU GO TO KANSAS CITY AND TURN LEFT
Ohio drill press operator Demetrio Garza and his father-in-law took a taxi from Toledo to Laredo to visit their mothers.
DON’T BOGART THAT PLUM, MY FRIEND
The Dallas district attorney dismissed charges of possession of peyote against a 27-year-old man after the suspected narcotic turned out to be a dried plum.
TOO BAD HE DIDN’T MAKE DEEP THROAT
Dennis Stanfill, board chairman of 20th Century Fox, maker of The Towering Inferno, was speaking to San Antonio Chamber of Commerce officers when flames engulfed a curtain in a nearby ballroom, sending smoke into the gathering.
GRIM REAPERS
The Dallas City Council ripped out a two-story-high philodendron in City Hall to make room for individual Gittings portraits of themselves.
THE MISSING WORD IN THIS SENTENCE IS:
a. APPETITES
b. DRIVES
c. HANGUPS
d. ORGANS
e. FANTASIES
Houston Mayor Fred Hofheinz, speaking about hiring new police officers, declared, “We’re going to offer police jobs to qualified women regardless of their sex.”
AREN’T YOU GLAD YOU USE DIAL?
Six prisoners escaped from the Brownsville jail using a pistol carved out of soap.
BUT OCCIFER, I WAS RIDING A WHISHKEY SOUR
Austin police stopped a motorcyclist who was wearing a plastic ice bucket on his head instead of a helmet.
BIG D, BIG A, DOUBLE S
The Dallas City Council prohibited newsrack display of magazines or books which depicted nudity on the cover. The week after the ordinance was passed, Newsweek was censored because its cover showed the naked body of a slain Vietnamese child.
A TSAR IS BORN
The only college campus in the nation where student protests occurred during 1975 was at UT Austin after Dr. Lorene Rogers was named president. Faculty members claimed the new Madame President kept enemies lists and reduced or eliminated scheduled salary increases for professors who disagreed with her.
I DO I DO ALREADY
Dallas’ Reverend Wayne Rothberg married a couple who began the ceremony by stripping and another with the bride in labor pain.
THE HIGH AND THE MICEY
Houston police finally got rid of the mice that continually feasted on the department’s seized sacks of marijuana.
OH BOW WOW, MAN
Officials in Spring Branch and Pasadena have hired German shepherds and Labrador retrievers to sniff out drugs at some of the cities’ high schools.
GUARDS, GUARDS, SEIZE THIS MAN
J.W. Burdell of Sherman sold his three horses, six pigs, rooster, seeder, and fertilizer; quit his welding job; hocked his car for a run-down school bus; put $34 in his kitty and announced plans to run for the presidency with the slogan “You’ll Get Well With Burdell.” Shortly after his announcement, Burdell was arrested for driving while intoxicated.
ON WEDNESDAYS THEY DRESS UP AND PLAY ARMY
The El Paso City Council at work.
HAPPY SENIOR CITIZEN’S DAY TO YOU… HAPPY SENIOR CITIZEN’S DAY TO YOU…
San Antonio state legislator G.J. Sutton, 66, co-sponsored a bill in the last session which would create a Texas “Senior Citizen’s Day” on June 22—his birthday.
GUARDS, GUARDS, RELEASE J.W. AND SEIZE BILLY JOE
When evangelist Billy Joe Clegg received a $1500 check, he interpreted it as a sign from God to run for the presidency again this year. Four years ago Billy Joe named Jesus Christ as his campaign manager and a host of angels as his campaign aides. He lost.
WE’RE OK, YOU’RE NOT
Jack Earthman’s neighbors in Houston have gone to court to kick out a Vietnamese refugee family living behind Earthman’s home. Deed restrictions in the neighborhood permit only household help to live in garage apartments.
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