Tasty treats for a good cause:Senior living center hosts bake sale for children

Despite memory-impairing conditions, people with Alzheimer’s disease still have much to offer society, including a delicious assortment of baked treats.
The Silverado Service Club at the Silverado Senior Living- Kingwood will join Share Our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale to benefit under-privileged children across America.

Residents will create a rich menu of pies, cookies, breads and other baked goods to offer to friends, family and residents of Kingwood in exchange for a donation toward the cause. The event is open to the public and will be held on Alzheimer’s Action Day from 10 a.m. to noon on Wednesday, Sept. 21.

September is World Alzheimer’s Month to raise awareness of the disease, work to find a cure, and also to acknowledge and assist those already affected.

“This event not only will benefit a great cause, it will provide mouth-watering testament that people with Alzheimer’s disease still have a lot to contribute to society,” explains Chris Holland, Administrator at Silverado-Kingwood.

Silverado Kingwood is located at 22955 Eastex Freeway, Kingwood, TX; 281-312-2526. Contact Anne Abraham or Dean Goldman at the above emails and phone, or Chris Holland at the community.
Silverado Senior Living offers assisted living care for those with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of memory impairment as well as home care, care management, and hospice care through its Silverado At Home and Silverado Hospice. Silverado is based in Irvine, Calif. and operates in 35 locations across California, Texas, Utah, Arizona and Illinois. Its website is www.Silveradosenior.com

Bastrop is burning ...

BASTROP

- The most destructive wildfire on record in Texas showed no signs of slowing down Monday, destroying 25,000 acres in Bastrop County and 476 homes, more houses than any single wildfire before and more than all other fires this year combined, according to the Texas Forest Service.

With more than 60 new wildfires raging across the state, Gov. Rick Perry left the campaign trail Monday in South Carolina to address the public and organize requests for more federal aid.

Closer to Houston, a fire in Magnolia burned 20 homes and more than 1,600 acres, and was threatening subdivisions in Montgomery and Grimes counties late Monday. It had moved southwest into Waller County last Monday.

It was one of several fires to hit the area, straining state and local resources as officials focused on the most dangerous blazes. One firefighter was injured and one fire engine burned in blazes in the Magnolia area, said Lt. Dan Norris, spokesman for the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.

Authorities did not yet know how much of the most dangerous fire had been contained Monday, but planned to continue fighting it "as long as necessary," Norris said.

Strong winds and dry conditions fanned the flames and aided the blaze's rapid growth, forcing the evacuation of more than 150 homes. Montgomery County officials were encouraging evacuations from the intersection of FM 1774 and FM 1488, about 42 miles northwest of Houston, up to the Grimes County line, an official said.

Magnolia fire

The Magnolia fire, located off FM 1774 and FM 1488, jumped FM 1488 late Monday and forced further evacuations, although some families were being allowed back to their homes. The Magnolia Independent School District canceled classes today because of the fires. Evacuation shelters were being set up throughout the area, including at Magnolia High School.

Another fire in the area had burned 100 acres and was 80 percent contained, Norris said. It had destroyed one structure and caused no injuries after 50 homes were evacuated.

A fire covering about 100 acres was burning in Oak Ridge North late Monday.

A fire near Nacogdoches that started Sunday night raged to 300 acres Monday and forced 60 families to evacuate their homes, said Ralph Cullom, a spokesman for the Texas Forrest Service. That fires grew with strong gusts of winds and fed off of dry conditions on the ground.

"This drought we're having is just unprecedented," Cullom said.

No injuries have been reported in Bastrop, but two people were reported killed in a North Texas fire Monday. A woman and her 18-month-old child died when a fast-moving fire near Gladewater, east of Dallas, set their mobile home on fire and they were unable to escape.

The Bastrop County Complex Fire, pushed by strong winds and fed by plenty of dry grasses, shrubs and trees, steadily moved south Monday and expanded throughout the day. It jumped the Colorado River twice.

"We will be working days on end," said Mike Fisher, the Bastrop County Emergency Management Coordinator. "The fire is so dynamic we really have no idea where it is."

'Lives at stake'

Perry said the wildfire burning in the central part of the state is "as mean looking" as he's ever seen.

Driest year on record plagues Texas ...

VOA: Weather forecasters and agriculture experts in the southwestern U.S. state of Texas say there is no relief in sight for what already is the worst drought year on record. The searing heat and dry conditions have caused devastating wildfires in the western part of the large state and led to crop losses, cattle deaths and water rationing in areas of east Texas that are normally wet at this time of year.

Driving through the countryside northwest of Houston, one sees dried up fields, dying trees and livestock ponds that are not much more than a puddles of fetid, algae-covered water. In some towns, farmers' markets have been cancelled because local growers have little to offer. Those with wells for irrigation are struggling with the high cost of fuel to run their pumps.

Debbie Cross, who operates a farmers' market near Cypress, Texas, says people are becoming discouraged by the lack of rain and the high temperatures, which are around 40 degrees most days.

“The drought is hurting everything. It is hurting all the crops, the cattle, the hay. There is no grass. The chickens are miserable. I mean everybody is just miserable. We need water,” Cross said.

Cross says local farmers are unable to supply much fruit and vegetables and that she is getting by with produce trucked in from other states where conditions are better.

“We are getting it from the local southern states and southwestern states are kicking in -- Arizona, New Mexico, Louisiana, Oklahoma. Everybody knows that the Texas market is a great consumer market, so they are helping out a lot here,” Cross said.
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One of the hardest hit agricultural sectors is livestock. Texas is the biggest cattle producer in the United States and ships beef to many foreign markets. Earlier this year, ranchers endured one of the worst winters on record, with several days of subzero temperatures in a region where freezes are rare. The drought has made it even harder, driving up the cost of hay and leaving some areas so dry that cattle have died of thirst in their pastures.

One rancher who has managed to get through this crisis with most of her stock in fairly good condition is Dorie Damuth, owner of the Flying D ranch near Magnolia, Texas.

Damuth raises prize-winning Texas Longhorns for breeding and she has managed to find hay and enough water to keep them alive. She says she has seen dry spells before, but nothing that compares to this year.

“The drought is something I, as a cattle woman, and all of my fellow cattlemen and cattlewomen have never experienced before. This is probably the 100-year drought, just like you can have a 100-year flood. It is very devastating for all of us ranchers who work so hard to provide beef for our country as well as for around the world,” Damuth said.

In a dried up lake on her property, there is a Longhorn skull sitting on top of cracked earth that is muddy and soft underneath.

“We have had lakes and stock ponds on the ranch that have dried up because of no rain, no rainfall. They will dry down to a little mucky place in the middle that is still wet and the cattle will sometimes go down and try to get water and they can't. And they step into that mucky mud and it is kind of like quicksand, and they can't get out.”

Lately, there have been beautiful fluffy clouds floating over the area. But ranch hand Chris Quinters is not encouraged by them.

“Those are some nice clouds, but it don't look like they are going to bring any rain,” Quinters said.

Kingwood hiker rescued in Aspen after breaking ankle.

ASPEN — Aspen rescuers were summoned to the West Maroon Trail last Thursday afternoon to aid a Texas hiker who broke his ankle while crossing a stream.

William Sprague, 61, of Kingwood, Texas, was about two miles above Crater Lake, climbing an an embankment after crossing a stream when he fell backward and was injured. He was able to call to nearby hikers for assistance; one of them ran down the trail to Maroon Lake to inform a ranger of the incident, according to the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office.

Authorities were notified at about 2:20 p.m. Eighteen members of Mountain Rescue Aspen responded, reaching the hiker at about 5:30 p.m. He was carried down the trail on a litter, reaching the Maroon Lake parking lot at about 9:30 p.m. Sprague was taken by Aspen Ambulance to Aspen Valley Hospital, where he was recuperating, the Sheriff's Office said.

Kingwood Bank calls it quits ...

By ROBIN SIDEL WSJ

Main Street Bank lends most of its money to small businesses and is earning decent profits. But the Kingwood, Texas, bank is about to get out of the banking business.

In an extreme example of the frustration felt by many bankers as regulators toughen their oversight of the nation's financial institutions, Main Street's chairman, Thomas Depping, is expected to announce Wednesday that the 27-year-old bank will surrender its banking charter and sell its four branches to a nearby bank.

Mr. Depping plans to set up a new lender that will operate beyond the reach of banking regulators—and the deposit-insurance safety net. Backed by the private investment firm of Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, the company won't be able to call itself a bank, but it will be able to do business the way Mr. Depping wants.

"The regulatory environment makes it very difficult to do what we do," says Mr. Depping, who last summer saw his bank hit with an enforcement order from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

A spokesman for the FDIC declined to comment on Main Street, a unit of closely held MS Financial Inc. Dan Frasier, director of corporate activities for the Texas Department of Banking, confirmed that Main Street is "working on the process of moving out of the state banking system," but declined to provide details.

Bankers have long complained about their overseers, but it is rare for a bank to basically close its doors aside from an acquisition or failure. Mr. Depping blames the move on a tightening regulatory noose.

Regulators came under fire in the financial crisis for lax oversight that allowed financial institutions to dole out too much credit to unworthy borrowers. Some bank executives now complain that federal and state agencies have swung to the other extreme, poring over minute details of virtually every loan, including those to small businesses.

"The No. 1 complaint that we hear from community bankers is that they feel that regulators have gone one step too far and are choking off lending," says Paul Merski, chief economist at the Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group that represents small banks.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY AT THE WALL STREET JOURNAL