Shortly before we went to press this week, the Houston Chronicle ran a story on Pete Olson being endorsed by 12 Republican Congressmen in Washington D.C.

“Twelve Republican congressmen from Texas have endorsed former Senate staffer Pete Olson in the primary runoff for Democratic U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson’s district, shunning a former colleague in the process.”

The former colleague is, as most of us know, Shelly Sekula Gibbs, who will be facing Olson in a run off in April. Gibbs spent 6 or 7 weeks in Congress filling the shoes of former Congressman Tom DeLay. Of course she went to Washington right smack in the middle of the Thanksgiving/Christmas season. So, that meant that she actually served actively about two weeks—max.

In those few weeks she did manage to garner headlines nationwide and become the topic of late night talk show jokes. She would like for voters to believe she represented District 22 with style and grace. She would also like for voters to believe that she addressed some serious issues and wants to go back and finish the job. Yeah, right!

It will be interesting to see if the old adage is true—any name recognition, even negative, is better than no name recognition. She certainly has name recognition; there is no argument on that. So, will voters go to the polls and vote Shelly because they remember her name or will they vote for Olson, who seems to have earned the endorsement of his peers in Washington D.C.? Some say Olson is a clone of Tom DeLay. That could be true, but so far he hasn’t made the late night talk shows. Tom did and Shelly did.

Stay tuned.....we will see.

Warm and cozy feeling

When one of our readers contacted us about a group of Fort Bend people contributing for a small unit of soldiers in Iraq, I got a warm and cozy feeling that only comes when we have the opportunity to report the good news. Read the story to hear how one mother’s plea for items for her son-in-law and his fellow soldiers was answered by citizens.

What is sad is the conditions those poor young men are facing. It breaks my heart to think of them out there in the front lines of battle without adequate supplies. Can you even imagine being without a bath for days on end?

So, if you have extra essential supplies or goodies—consider adopting a service man or woman and send those boxes to them. Almost everyone knows at least one person in the military—ask around.