City of Howe advises citizens of water leak

Those that are signed up for the CodeRed service received the following notification:

“The City of Howe wishes to advise you that there is a water main leak impacting their northwestern residents, more specifically, those west of US 75 and South of FM 902. These residents should anticipate that the outage in this area will continue for several hours and then restoration of water service, with no restrictions, should occur very close to 5 PM.”

Those that wish to sign up for the alerts can do so, by clicking here.

Balding tires lead to one-car accident in rain

HOWE, TX – At approximately 1:20 pm, the Howe Police Department received a call about a one-vehicle accident on southbound US Highway 75 just south of Haning Street.  Howe Police Sergeant Michael Hill arrived on the scene and determined what appeared to be a hydroplane accident due to a sudden burst of rain and balding tires on the vehicle.

“He hit the wall head-on and slid a couple hundred feet.  They were able to get back in the vehicle and get it on the shoulder to allow traffic to go by.” said Sgt. Hill.  “They’ve been checked by EMS and no injuries have been reported.”

The officers shut the right lane down for a period of time.  Sgt. Hill gave the individuals a ride to Van Alstyne where they have made arrangements for transportation.

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Howe varsity basketball coach heading back to Pottsboro

In the coaching carousel at Howe High School, the latest coach to leave is Tim Short, who has been the varsity basketball coach since the 2014-15 season.  With the departure of Short, that leaves only Athletic Director and Head Football Coach Zack Hudson from the entire varsity football coaching staff from a year ago.  Previously leaving Howe was Dale West, who took the athletic director position at Collinsville.  He subsequently took Josh Rollins and Richard McAdams with him.  Wes Rhoten landed the offensive coordinator position at Canton High School where he can be closer to his family.  Varsity baseball coach Heath Grant will no longer be on the varsity coaching staff due to a family decision.  Howe will also have a new varsity volleyball and softball coaches next season departures.

Short’s mother is in her 80s and lives in Pottsboro which he says was the driving factor on why he wanted to be closer.  He has been making the drive from Pottsboro to Howe on a daily basis and can now be much closer at a moment’s notice.

” I wasn’t looking to move, this job opened up, I interviewed and was lucky to get it.” said Short.  “I’ve really enjoyed my time at Howe. It’s a wonderful school district. Coach Hudson and Kevin Wilson are probably the best administrators I’ve worked for. The high school faculty is fantastic, some of the best teachers I’ve worked with in 37 years of teaching.  I’ve made friendships that I hope will last a lifetime but probably the most important group of people I’ll miss are the young men and ladies’ lives that I’ve had an opportunity to be a part of for a few short years, they’re a great group, I’m going to miss them. I’m very appreciative of Howe ISD to allow me to be a part of the coaching staff and faculty for the past few years.”

In Monday’s Howe Enterprise, we will feature a full story on the coaching changes and get a feeling of how Hudson feels about his newly assembled cast of star-studded coaches.

 

 

Grayson County Sheriff’s Department’s official statement on standoff in Howe

At approximately, 8:30 pm Friday night, (5/26/2017) our agency received a Welfare Concern call from a family member of Gary Wrede, 63-year-old white male,  stating that Wrede was located near a residence in the 900 block of Bennet Road and that the family member was concerned for his welfare.

Around the same time, our agency received a call from a local media station that a person, who had identified himself as Gary Wrede, had called their station.  He pointed weapons at the DPS helicopter, who was on scene assisting our agency.  A warrant was obtained for the subject while law enforcement was still on scene communicating with him.  Wrede peacefully surrendered to law enforcement officials at approximately 2:05 AM on 5/27/2017.  No one was injured during this incident.

We want to thank all of the agencies that assisted in the peaceful resolution of this incident.  Sherman PD, Texas DPS, Howe PD, Tom Bean PD, and Gunter PD all assisted during this incident.  This is a great example of combining resources and assisting other agencies.

Standoff in Howe ends with arrest

https://www.facebook.com/howeenterprise/videos/1471638762857071/

 

Grayson County Sheriff Lieutenant Sarah Bingham said that the department was involved in a standoff Friday night with a male suspect barricading himself from authorities.  The incident happened in the 900 block of Bennett Road.  The Texas Department of Public Safety and other agencies were called in to assist with the problem.  Bigham said there had been some kind of exchange between the suspect and authorities over the phone earlier in the day.  A negotiator was called in and is spoke with the man over the phone to attempt to resolve the situation peacefully.  The call which started at 8:30 pm finally ended around 2 am Saturday morning with the subject in custody without incident.

Remembering Howe alumni’s first war casualty

From the archives of the Howe Enterprise.  Originally published in the Memorial Day publication of Monday, May 26, 2014

Tony Weber Brinkley entered the US Navy as a 16-year-old Howe High School graduate in December of 1942. He wanted to serve his country that was deep in the midst of World War II. Sixteen months later, he lost his life in the Southwest Pacific.

Brinkley, a Howe native, was born to Joe and Lillie Brinkley. He was a star football player that lettered four years for the Bulldogs and led them to a district championship and bi-district playoff tie as their quarterback and “coach.”  Because of the war, Howe had no head coach, so the team coached themselves and Brinkley called the plays and helped structure the practices.

Brinkley was an aviation machinist’s mate, third class and was the first Howe High School graduate to be lost during World War II.

His father had passed away before he entered the Navy, therefore, his widowed mother received the news on a Thursday afternoon that Brinkley had died in the service of his country and his remains were buried in allied territory, outside of continental limits. The message requested that no information on names or location be given. It was later publicized that Brinkley was killed on Bougainville Island.

Lt. Stuart Dyckman, USNR, of Dallas told the story about the casualty of Brinkley.

Dyckman said in 1944: “Tony was an aviation metalsmith. It was his job to help repair the fuselages of our fighter and bomber planes when they returned from battling the Japs from the air. The job was a grind. The planes were coming in and going out all the time. Tony worked and worked fast from 12 to 14 hours a day. The pace of the job would have been enough, but the Japs on the island got the range of the airfield and were dropping shells on it trying to wreck the installations.

Sometimes the shells hit pretty close, but Tony kept at his job. He knew how important it was that those planes stay airworthy, Tony might have been able to get away for a little rest, but he elected to stay on the job he was doing magnificently. The shells had been exploding all around our airfield for 10 or 15 days when Tony finally got it. But his death did not go unavenged. The same planes that Tony had helped put back in the air had blasted those Jap guns. Tony was just a boy, but he was doing a man’s job.”

Finally, in July of 1948, Brinkley was given a military reburial. The dedication was held at First Baptist Church in Howe (where Skinner Plumbing Supply now sits at 200 S. Denny St.). The Rev. Lowell Brinkley, chaplain of the Hughes-Brinkley Legion Post of Howe officiated. He was formally buried at Hall Cemetery in Howe.

Brinkley was a classmate, teammate and fellow World War II veteran with L.B. Kirby who is Howe’s own most decorated living veteran in the state of Texas, with seven Bronze Stars, two Bronze Arrowheads and a Purple Heart, awarded for his service in the army during World War II.

.Kirby often gets teary-eyed when discussing his friend Tony Brinkley.

“What I remember most about Tony is that he was a leader. He would always step to the front.” Kirby said in an interview in 2014. “He was good at calling the plays. We won. Tony was an exception. He very seldom ever mentioned what he did, whether football or any sport.”

Kirby would have liked to have been with Brinkley during the war but recalls that the officers wouldn’t let friends be together under any circumstances. “I never got to see him or talk to him or anything. I don’t know why, but they didn’t like old friends to talk to each other. I never understood that. What would it have hurt? Combat or not, it didn’t make a lot of a difference.” said Kirby.

Howe’s famous war hero L.B. Kirby (third from left) was a classmate and teammate of Tony Brinkley

Kirby talked about the job that Brinkley had to do off of the coast of Bougainville Island. “They did a lot of repairs from the ships. I never saw how they landed on those ships. I still don’t know how, but they did every time. They’d repair them and back up they’d go.” said Kirby. “I was on a land operation. He was in the Navy and I was in the Army. I wish we’d have been able to stay together.” Kirby figured that if the officers wouldn’t let them communicate, it was because if one would have been shot, the other friend would have been there to try and rescue him and ended up with two casualties instead of one.

Kirby remembers that he would get really upset when he came back and people were laughing at some of the war veterans that came home after the war.

“People didn’t understand what we were doing over there. One man asked me, ‘how was the hunting’? I said, ‘there was no hunting. We killed people and they tried to kill us.’ They didn’t really realize what combat really was. I didn’t even realize what it was. But it doesn’t take you all day to learn. War is a dangerous thing. War is a business of killing people and being killed. We understood that there were going to be people that were going to be trying to kill us. That’s what our job was, killing people. It’s a dirty business.”

Tony Brinkley is a name that most Howe citizens don’t recognize. However, the sacrifice he made for his country is enormous and the leader that he was should be an inspiration to all of this community.

He was only a kid.

His headstone at Hall Cemetery in Howe, Texas.

Tony Brinkley was inducted into the first class of the Howe Hall of Honor in April of 2015.