HIGH SCHOOL GYMNASTICS: Gold rush ends for Lady Cats Collins 3rd in all-around; Hansen 2nd on uneven bars

ALVIN, Texas — For the first time since 2003, the Central High School girls gymnastics team will return to the James R. White Gymnastics Building without some kind of gold from the Texas High School Gymnastics Championships.

The best finish for the Lady Cats in Saturday’s individual event finals was Julia Hansen’s second place on uneven bars. Hansen scored a 9.85 to Lake Highlands’ Sarie Morrison’s 9.90.

The German exchange student also finished sixth on vault with a 9.70 to end her Texas high school gymnastics experience.

“It was really fun,” Hansen said. “I am glad I got to compete and I got second on bars. First would have been better, but second was cool, too.”

In other individual event results for the Lady Cats, Stormy Luera was sixth on balance beam with a 9.675. Chaney Collins tied for seventh on uneven bars with a 9.55, took ninth on floor exercise with a 9.40 and tied for 10th on vault with an 8.70.

It wasn’t the finish Collins was looking for. Central head coach Tony Walker explained that the judges claimed Collins shuffled her feet between leaps during a dance sequence on the floor exercise and deducted her heavily.

Neither Walker nor Collins was happy about the outcome.

Collins’ day was somewhat redeemed when she was awarded a scholarship and was named to the Texas team that will compete in Florida next month.

Friday night, the Lady Cats finished second to Lake Highlands in the team standings, and Collins was third in the all-around.

Late Friday night, the Central boys finished eighth as a team following the optional round of competition. Unlike a year ago when the Bobcats dropped a spot after the second day, they managed to hold on to the place they were in after the compulsory round this year.

The finished with a score of 305.30.

“Overall, I am extremely proud of the team,” Central boys coach Kern Arrott said. “They have come a long way this year. They have fought hard. For them to be here at the state meet was a huge thing, and to get up there and finish eighth was awesome.

“The seven teams that were ahead of us were very, very good teams.”

Humble Kingwood won the boys team title with a score of 330.350.

Central’s Ryan Terrill was 12th in the all-around with a score of 107.75. He was in fifth place after the compulsory round and couldn’t keep up with the difficulty of the other gymnasts’ routines.

The Bobcats’ other all-arounder, Christian Finley, was 32nd. Hurst L.D. Bell’s Elijah Holt won the boys all-around with a score of 112.85.

“His difficulty level is not where those other guys’ are,” Arrott said of Terrill. “He has seen a lot of difficult skills thrown, and I have told him that he is capable of that.

“It comes down to spending time in the gym, and that is something he is going to have to think about.”

Terrill competed in three events on Saturday. He finished seventh on vault with a 9.20 and ninth on high bar with a 7.75.

He also competed on floor exercise but didn’t finish in the top 10.

The top 10 in each event after Thursday and Friday’s rounds, including ties for 10th, advanced to Saturday’s finals.

“I feel OK about it,” Terrill said. “I had a couple of bobbles, a couple of things I was disappointed about. It just didn’t all come together.

“I thought I would be higher. I thought I would do better.”

Now both teams look toward next year with high expectations. Arrott is pleased with the experience his team gained this year and is excited about what next year holds.

Walker will lose Collins but will gain a couple of talented freshmen to go along with another team that will have only one senior, Luera, next year.

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Oil spill threatens Gulf Coast

(CNN) -- A huge oil spill oozing toward the Gulf Coast on Thursday threatens hundreds of species of wildlife, some in their prime breeding season, environmental organizations said.
The Coast Guard said Wednesday that the amount of oil spilling from an underwater well after an oil rig explosion last week has increased to as many as 5,000 barrels of oil a day, or 210,000 gallons, five times more than what was originally believed.

Although efforts to minimize the damage are under way and options under consideration include asking the U.S. military for assistance, wildlife conservation groups say the oil could pose a "growing environmental disaster."

"The terrible loss of 11 workers (unaccounted for after the rig explosion) may be just the beginning of this tragedy as the oil slick spreads toward sensitive coastal areas vital to birds and marine life and to all the communities that depend on them," said Melanie Driscoll, director of bird conservation for the Louisiana Coastal Initiative, in a statement.
Coastal areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida could be at risk, the organization said.

"For birds, the timing could not be worse; they are breeding, nesting and especially vulnerable in many of the places where the oil could come ashore," she said. "The efforts to stop the oil before it reaches shore are heroic, but may not be enough. We have to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst, including a true catastrophe for birds."

"The best case is, the wind shifts and the oil doesn't hit," said Tom MacKenzie of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "I'm not real confident about that. ... We're doing everything we can to prevent it, but it could be a bad one."

It's not just birds that could be affected, although they are usually the first to feel the effects, said Gregory Bossart, chief veterinary officer for the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. The birds are right at the surface, get covered in the oil and swallow it, causing liver and kidney problems.

"They need to be rescued and cleaned," he said.
But the coastline of Louisiana, with its barrier islands and estuaries, "is a very unique ecosystem. It's very complex," Bossart said.
Plankton found in the estuaries nourish organisms all the way up the food chain. Crabs, mussels, oysters and shrimp feed on the plankton, he said. Oil smothers the plankton, meaning they cannot eat.

Also, "the estuaries here are a nursery ground, literally a nursery ground, for the entire fish population in this area," Bossart said.

River otters in the region eat mussels and other animals. And "we know, in this area right now, that there are sperm whales. There are dolphins right in the oil slick," he said.
If an oil spill is small enough, animals can leave the area.
"Some of them can get away," Bossart said. "It's totally dependent on the size of the slick, and this is huge."

Exposure to the oil for a prolonged period of time can result in a toxic effect on the skin, and mammals can suffer lung damage or death after breathing it in, Bossart said.
"When the oil starts to settle, it'll smother the oyster beds. It'll kill the oysters," he said.

The Audubon Society, which is affiliated with the Louisiana Coastal Initiative, is recruiting volunteers in Florida and making its Center for Birds of Prey available for bird cleansing and rehabilitation. Elsewhere, Audubon said it was gearing up to mobilize volunteers and provide assistance as the oil reaches land.

The spill also threatens the Louisiana and Mississippi fishing industry, as crab, oysters and shrimp along the coast could be affected, along with numerous species of fish. Gulf shrimp are in their spawning season.

More than 400 species are threatened by the spill, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported Thursday, citing the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
"When you stop and begin considering everything that this could impact, it really is stunning," Karen Foote, biologist administrator with the department, told the newspaper.

A handful of "Important Bird Areas" -- designated because of their value to bird species -- face immediate threat from the oil, the initiative said. They include the Chandeleur Islands and Gulf Islands National Seashore areas in Louisiana and Mississippi, along with the Active Delta area in Louisiana, which includes Delta Island National Wildlife Refuge and the Pass-a-Loutre Wildlife Management Area.

Several species of birds are cause for special concern, the Louisiana Coastal Initiative said. They include the brown pelican, the state bird of Louisiana, which nests on barrier islands and feeds near shore. The brown pelican's breeding season just began, according to the Initiative, and "many pairs are already incubating eggs."

The species was taken off the federal endangered species list last year, but "their relatively low reproductive rate means any disruption to their breeding cycle could have serious effects on the population."

More than 800 brown pelicans died when a smaller oil spill hit Louisiana's Breton Island National Wildlife Refuge a few years ago, MacKenzie said.

Species of beach-nesting terns and gulls, beach-nesting shorebirds, large wading birds, marsh birds and ocean-dwelling birds are also at risk, along with migratory shorebirds and songbirds, the Initiative said.

The migratory songbirds move across the Gulf during a two-week period from late April to early May, for instance.

"The journey across 500 miles of open water strains their endurance to its limits," the Initiative said. "They depend on clear skies and healthy habitats on both sides of the Gulf in order to survive the journey."

According to a 1998 study by Louisiana State University, more than 500 million birds fly over the Gulf and enter the United States along coastal areas in Louisiana and Texas each spring.
The barrier islands east of Louisiana's Lake Pontchartrain have still not recovered from the blow dealt by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Bossart said, and a spill such as this one could seriously threaten their recovery.

"I think at this point it would be wrong to say it's catastrophic, because it really hasn't hit any area except out in the Gulf proper," he said. But "it's certainly a very serious thing" that could pose a long-term environmental challenge.

Plans have been under way to protect wildlife since the spill was discovered, MacKenzie said. "We know what we're doing to try to protect those key assets. ... A lot of people are leaning forward in the foxhole to address this."

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Breaking News: SWAT stand off ends peacefully in Clear Lake

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Police say an armed man who barricaded himself in a Clear Lake area home has surrendered peacefully

The situation began this morning at around 4am when police responded to the sound of gunfire on Oak Links near Golf View Trail. Authorities say the suspect took a shot at another male who was in the house, along with the suspect's parents. The shooter missed and the three of them left the house, leaving the shooter inside.

When authorities arrived, they found the suspect had barricaded himself in the home. He was armed with a shotgun and a pistol and refused to come out, according to authorities.

The suspect eventually walked out of the house after 7am and was taken into custody without incident. No one was injured.

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ALVIN, TX (KTRK) -- One year after bringing back the paddle at a central Texas school, the Temple school district says the policy is working. Parents in Temple demanded the change last year. Now, the district says behavior at schools has improved dramatically.

You might think paddling doesn't happen around here anymore, but it does. Spanking and paddling is a polarizing issue and it's a policy that was revived in Alvin ISD in 2008.
It's a throwback technique used to set kids straight. Alvin ISD policy states "corporal punishment may be used as a discipline management technique limited to spanking and paddling."

Parents must sign off on the policy at the beginning of each school year. On a form, they can check either yes or no. Manvel High School Principal Darrell Alexander said, "We send home that policy, and some parents do check yes, but we don't use it here."

The school district refused to let us speak with a principal who uses the policy. But Alexander says some parents request students be paddled if necessary.
"Maybe five to ten times a year, a parent may request or want us to do it," Alexander explained. "I think that's because they revert back to when they were in school, when it was more common."

Gary Wiltz is one of those parents.

He said, "I think corporal punishment is probably what we need to go back to because it worked for us."

According to Alvin ISD, with parental permission, an unruly student may be taken to an administrator's office and, in private, receive three swats to the bottom. A second administrator is on hand as a witness.

Jimmy Dunne, with People Opposed to Paddling Students, said, "I call it legalized child abuse, which I think it is. We're leaving bruises on kids' buttocks."

Dunne heads POPS. His group is calling for Texas to abolish its corporal punishment policies in schools. He equates paddling to abuse and blames lazy educators for defaulting to the paddle to discipline children.

"It's wrong to hit a child with a board," Dunne said. "If it happened any other place but the school, these people would be arrested for criminal assault of a child."

Most of these techniques are used in high schools rather than elementary schools. Alvin's policy will be reviewed by end of school year. At that point, it'll be up to school board to decide if they choose to keep the policy.

Most school districts banned paddling in schools a long time ago. We checked with several districts in our area and found Houston, Fort Bend and Cy-Fair do not paddle students.

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