Bum Steer Awards 1982
(Page 3 of 3)
WELL, DO YOU KNOW WHO’S BURIED IN GRANT’S TOMB?
After Jewish community leaders in Fort Worth complained that the nondenominational Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast featured the song “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” event chairman A. M. “Aggie” Pate explained, “I didn’t know ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ was a Christian song.”
IT HELPS TO HAVE THE RIGHT KIND OF CUSTOMER
The Housing Authority of the City of Houston paid $300,000 for an IBM computer that is already obsolete, now sells for just $8000, and cannot handle numbers large enough to work with the agency’s budget. Asked to explain the purchase, the agency’s executive director said, “These computer people are damned good salesman.”
THE JURY WAS INTO IMPRESSIONISM
Fort Worth artist Bill McLean was arrested after he terrorized a museum meeting on the survival of artists by bursting into the meeting room waving a fake pistol and brandishing bogus Molotov cocktails. At his trial McLean unsuccessfully argued that his conduct was merely “performance art.”
YOU’D QUIT TOO IF THEY KEPT CALLING YOU COACH ROACH
Herschel Roach, new football coach at Rockdale High School, resigned after one practice.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
Please spare us in 1982 from:
• CROOKS WHO COMPLAIN
David Ruiz. The former Texas Department of Corrections inmate who was in the plaintiff in the lawsuit that led to court-ordered reforms of the Texas prison system, Ruiz was rearrested and charged with armed robbery in Austin.
• POLITICIANS WHO PANIC
Lieutenant Governor Bill Hobby. Under pressure from Governor Bill Clements, Hobby abandoned his personal opposition to the worst bill of the session and led wiretapping to passage by masterminding a series of parliamentary maneuvers.
• KILLERS WHO COLLECT
Vickie Daniel. Shortly before going to trial and being acquitted of murdering her husband, former House Speaker Price Daniel, Jr., Vickie Daniel sold an option on the television and motion picture rights to her life story.
• BROADCASTERS WHO BIAS
ABC-TV. The network invited Brownwood coach Gordon Wood to appear on Good Morning, America to defend high school football, then introduced him by showing a film clip of another coach, not identified, who was slapping and punching players.
• MILLIONAIRES WHO MEDDLE
Bud Adams. The Houston Oilers’ owner fired coach Bum Phillips because of the team’s unimaginative offense, but new coach Ed Biles returned to the old offense after four games, and the Oilers failed to make the play-offs for the first time in four years.
• CHRISTIANS WHO CHEAT
Ron Meyer. The SMU football coach, who calls himself “a totally committed Christian,” won the Southwest Conference championship with a team on probation for numerous recruiting violations and said in a midseason speech that a coach has a right to hit a player.
THEN STOP RECRUITING OUR FOOTBALL PLAYERS
Oklahoma public health officials blamed Texas for a 100 per cent increase in syphilis cases.
AFTER YOU KEN
Kenneth L. Smith of San Angelo was arrested for shouting “Jump!” to a distraught man threatening to leap from a bridge.
NEVER MIND
While a San Antonio police officer was radioing headquarters that he had found a stolen car, a thief jumped into it and drove off.
UT BEEN BERRY, BERRY GOOD TO ME
The University of Texas gave a track scholarship to a broad jumper from Ghana on the basis of a newspaper article the athlete mailed to UT recruiters. When his performance didn’t approach his press notices, UT athletic officials discovered that the recruit had altered a story about a different jumper by substituting his own name.
OH, HOWARD, YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE
Southwest Airlines employees received their first Christmas bonus ever—a recording of then-company president Howard Putnam singing “White Christmas.”
IT WORKED WHEN THEY TRIED IT ON EACH OTHER
Chillicothe public schools had to be evacuated for a month due to chemical contamination after three school board members fought a lice problem among students by personally spraying classrooms with an insecticide designed solely for use on cattle.
WE’RE SHOCKED TOO. CAN WE GET ON YOUR MAILING LIST?
Morality in the Media, a Houston organization supporting antipornography legislation, distributed a packet to legislators that included numerous photocopies of hard-core pornography.
OR WE COULD USE THEM TO FILL POTHOLES
Houston mayor Jim McConn, upset over frequent political demonstrations by foreigners that required the presence of police officers, suggested that the city should stop the demonstrations by taking hostages.
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES AND HE’S STILL NOT DRY
Vivian Touchstone of Austin found a live ten-foot boa constrictor in the dryer with her clothes.
THEN HE TOOK THEM OVER TO VIVIAN TOUCHSTONE’S
San Antonio animal control officer Albert Morgan was fired after he drove animals in open cages through a car wash.
AT LAST, A POLITICIAN WHO’S NOT AFRAID TO SPEAK THE TRUTH
Announcing his decision to leave office early to run for Congress, Fort Worth mayor Woodie Woods said, “I am convinced that I can better serve the people of Fort Worth by resigning.”
LISTEN, SISTER YOU GOT JUST TWO HOURS TO GET OFF THE BUS
A woman flagged down a city bus driving through a Dallas housing project, but when it stopped she discovered it contained only Mayor Jack Evans and three city councilmen on a tour of city housing facilities. She thereupon introduced herself as the Chocolate Stone, performed bumps and grinds, and gave the mayor a prolonged kiss.
TO PROTECT THEMSELVES AGAINST MARAUDING REPORTERS
In a story on the background of unsuccessful presidential assassin John Hinckley, the Washington Post described Texas Tech as a place where students frequently take guns to class.
THEY’RE GETTING THE KIDS READY FOR TEXAS TECH
Clear Lake Elementary School in Southeast Houston offered a class to teach children in grades two through five how to shoot guns.
BEFORE, TOO
After a 55-gallon drum of ethyl mercaptan spilled in downtown Beaumont, office buildings were permeated with a skunklike smell.
THE REAL TRICK WAS FINDING AN AVERAGE AGGIE
A study by two Texas A&M psychology professors found that college football players are “less aggressive than the average student.”
THANKS ANYWAY, BUT WE’LL STICK WITH CUTTY’S ARK
Tom Crotser of Frankston, who previously claimed to have found Noah’s Ark, announced that his new expedition had located the Ark of the Covenant.
FERDINAND AND ISABELLA JUST LOVED RHINESTONES
After a treasure hunter challenged the authenticity of an exhibit of sixteenth-century Spanish treasure at the San Jacinto battleground museum, state archeologists admitted that one third of the artifacts were phony.
YOU KNOW. LIKE POLICE CHIEFS
Houston police chief B. K. Johnson, concerned that 70 per cent of his recruits were Northerners who had recently moved to Texas, complained, “Yankees are like hemorrhoids. If they come down and go back up, that’s fine. But if they come down and stay, they can be a constant source of irritation.”
EAT A BALL PARK HOT DOG AND AN HOUR LATER YOU’RE HUNGRY AGAIN
Following a brawl on a chartered bus after a Texas Rangers baseball game, Rick Rose, a Dallas County district attorney’s investigator, was fired for biting off part of another man’s ear.
FRESH LIVER TODAY!
An Abilene pathologist complained to Taylor County officials that the lack of county medical facilities had forced him to perform autopsies in the alligator pen at the local zoo.
LONGNECKS AND RHABDOMYOLYSIS. NO PLACE BUT TEXAS
The New England Journal of Medicine reported that a twenty-year-old complaining of severe thigh cramps and blood-red urine had a case of “urban cowboy rhabdomyolysis,” a condition resulting from riding mechanical bulls.
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