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Today’s Page 1
Editor
Victor Cerda
Vol. 104
No. 290
INDEX
Amusements
Crossword
HCISD
Obituaries
Opinion
Sports
Texas
Valley
Weather
A6
B7
A8
A7
A4
B1
A5
A3
B8
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By JULIÁN AGUILAR
The Texas Tribune
Despite an $800 million appropriation that includes money
to permanently station more state troopers near the Rio
Grande, the Texas Department of Public Safety will continue
rotating officers from around the state in and out of the border
counties for the foreseeable future.
That acknowledgment by Texas DPS Director Steve McCraw
came during an interim Joint Committee on Border Security
hearing at the Capitol this past week, where lawmakers also
heard that some county sheriffs say they were left out of key
discussions on the border-security effort.
McCraw said that since August, 124 new troopers have been
sent to the border region, including many who had previous
law enforcement experience and graduated from an abbrevi-
ated department trooper academy last summer. About 140 new
cadets are currently in training.
“We can’t take all 140 and put them down there because, in
effect, [they] would be rookie troopers,” he said. “It would be
unfair, plus it doesn’t provide us the capability and coverage
we’d like to have in that regard.”
MARJORIE KAMYS COTERA/THE TEXAS TRIBUNE
Texas DPS Director Steve McCraw gives testimony during a joint committee hearing on border security on
Thursday in Austin.
By TRAVIS M. WHITEHEAD
Staff Writer
H
ARLINGEN — The rocket screamed into the
sky, a sharp, almost burning whisper cutting
the air.
The Harlingen High School Engineering
and Technology Club had just launched its
first rocket of the year, inaugurating its march toward
the Team America Rocketry Challenge in May.
“How high?” asked Paul Tenison, club sponsor, as
Connor Smith, a senior, returned with the payload.
“Six thirty,” answered Smith, club president, indi-
cating the altimeter read of 630 feet.
“It didn’t go as high as we would have liked,” said
Connor, 17. “Today isn’t very good. It’s very windy.We
are 220 feet short. This wind pushed it.”
What is the contest?
The Team America Rocketry Challenge is billed as
the world’s largest student rocket contest and a key
piece of the aerospace and defense industry’s strategy
to build a stronger U.S. workforce in science,
technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Teams from Harlingen High School and Harlingen
Early College High School are the only teams from
the Rio Grande Valley on the list to compete in this
year’s contest.
Sponsored by the Aerospace Industries
Association and the National Association of
Rocketry, the contest was created in 2002 as a one-
time celebration of the Centennial of Flight, but by
popular demand became an annual program.
Harlingen students prepare
for national rocket contest
See ROCKET ★ A7
State trooper rotations
to border will continue
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See a gallery of the test.
valleystar.com my
See a video of the test.
valleystar.com
my
Find out more about the rocket contest.
valleystar.com
MARICELA RODRIGUEZ/VALLEY MORNING STAR
TOP: Harlingen High School senior Connor Smith reviews the steps of preparing the rocket for launch with several fellow club members.
ABOVE: Paul Tenison, engineering teacher and sponsor of the Harlingen High School Engineering and Tech Club, watches as club members
launch the rocket they used in competition last year. They made a test launch with last year’s rocket before launching the rocket they will
compete with in the Team America Rocketry Challenge.
See BORDER ★ A7
Continued on A7
See SCHOOLS ★ A5
By ED ASHER
Staff Writer
SAN BENITO — A 20-year-old San
Benito woman was arrested yester-
day and charged in connection with
a fatal hit-and-run accident last
week.
Sommer Rae Camacho turned
herself in to police at the San Benito
Police Department at 1 p.m.
She was charged in the crash that
killed a 36-year-old man who was
walking lastWednesday night along
FM 2520 north of FM 675 near San
Benito, said Department of Public
Safety Trooper Sgt. Johnny Hernan-
dez.
A justice of the peace in San Beni-
to set bond at $50,000 on a charge of
accident involving death, a second-
degree felony, Sheriff Omar Lucio
said.
“A woman came in to turn herself
in,” San Benito Assistant Police Chief
Michael Galvan said.
“The DPS were notified immedi-
ately and they came to the station
and interviewed her. And they left the
station with her.”
The suspect vehicle, a 2003 Nissan
Altima, was impounded and is being
processed for evidence, Hernandez
said.
Camacho was taken to the Cam-
eron County jail.
DPS troopers continue to investi-
gate the crash.
Woman
charged in
fatal crash
By MATTHEW WATKINS
and EDGAR WALTERS
The Texas Tribune
Blair Cushing is just the kind of
doctor Texas needs.
She’s training to be a family phy-
sician, one of the most sought-after
types of practitioner in the state.
And she wants to work near the U.S.
border with Mexico, one of Texas’
most medically underserved areas.
But after graduating from the
University of North Texas Health
Science Center’s Texas College of
Osteopathic Medicine last year, she
shipped out to another border
Is Texas building
too many
medical schools?