Fort Worth Star-Telegram from Fort Worth, Texas • Z1

REBUILDING EFFORT Sunday March 4, 2007 www.star-telegram.comFortWorth NEWS FROM THE METROPLEX AND TEXAS The years taken away Gladys ability to make a song her very own. LIVE! 2B still got plenty of soul COMING TOMORROW: in the hole for big bucks after a day of bad luck. IN TARRANT BUSINESS LIVE! 2B OBITUARIES 9-11B PAGEANT NEXT STOP: MISS TEXAS Brooke Webster, above, is crowned Miss Fort Worth, and Elise Bowka is named Miss Arlington in a pageant at Lamar High School. They will compete in the Miss Texas Scholarship Pageant in July in Fort Worth. 4B SEX-ASSAULT CASE EX-OFFICER IS AT LARGE A bounty hunter has been put on the trail of a former Fort Worth police officer who skipped a court hearing Feb.

2. Casey Allen Roe is charged with sexual assault of a child in a case involving his 14-year-old neighbor. 4B FIRE DEPARTMENT WHO WILL BE THE NEXT CHIEF? Five finalists for the Fort Worth fire post were interviewed last week, and City Manager Charles Boswell is expected to name the new chief soon. 4B OPINIONS PONDERING A WEIGHTY ISSUE Lawmakers can sometimes compel us to take care of ourselves (seat-belt laws, for example). But even though the obesity of 65 percent of Texas adults affects all of us through higher insurance premiums and taxes, legislating weight loss work.

WEEKLY REVIEW 1E THEATER ALMOST PLAYTIME Eight North Texas theater groups will participate in a yearlong nationwide play-a-day collaboration. 1D SPECIAL TO THE AARON LAMBERT HITS LIST Want to know which articles were the most read on last week? Here are headlines from the top 10: 1. Cowboys free-agent additions: Good deal or no deal 2. Cowboys shaking it up 3. 6-step plan for Cowboys 4.

Three killed in I-20 wreck 5. Cowboys Notes: surgery cause for concern 6. Cowboys Notes: Persistent pursuit of coach may pay off 7. Motorcyclist dies in collision with car 8. Long trail of mystery and bodies ends in Fort Worth 9.

Cowboys Notes: Bledsoe out, but door open 10. Jerry Jones talking big game as in Super Bowl FORT WORTH After a $3.2 million makeover, the Water Gardens reopens with new safety measures to try to dispel the pain of 2004 PHOTO SOURCES: STAR-TELEGRAM PENNINGTON, GRAY; TEXT SOURCE: STAR-TELEGRAM RESEARCH Problem Budget cuts throughout the 1980sand 1990s led to a lack of staffing, which further caused maintenance deferrals. Workers became inexperienced with the system. Above is the Active Pool after the 2004 accident. Solution Park staffing will increase fromtwo to seven workers, and the park will be staffed from 7 a.m.

to 10 p.m.. The contractor who rebuilt the pump system is writing a detailed oper- ations manual for workers. Problem The open design of the ActivePool allowed visitors easy access to the water. Previously, police have issued citations to people who entered the pool to swim. Solution A wall with a seat has been in-stalled along the top of the pool, with a gate that will be locked from 10 p.m.

to 7 a.m. New railings, like those above, were also installed. Problem The water level in the Active Poolwas close to 9 feet at the time of the accident, more than twice the designed depth of 3 feet. Workers had allowed the water level to rise to help the aging pumps operate more efficiently. Solution The floor of the Active Pool hasbeen raised, so the water will be only about 1 feet deep.

Pumps have been replaced, and automatic sensors will detect high water levels and pump excess water out of the pool. Problem The single drain and itspump system created a strong current that may have pulled the victims underwater. Solution A drain around the pool replacesthe central drain, which will lessen the force. The main pump house is above. Sitting in the green room of Channel 13 Friday morning, I glanced over some notes while watching actor Richard Thomas on a small television monitor as he was being interviewed about preparing for the role in his latest play.

Thomas, in Dallas to portray Juror Number Eight in the production Twelve Angry Men, was the first guest for the taping of the recently launched public television show Think. I was to follow Thomas to talk briefly about the presidential candida- IN MY OPINION Message will transcend race With nothing to prove regarding race, Barack Obama will prove other things as he runs for president. More on SANDERS on 7B Bob Ray Sanders GRAPEVINE Ushers passed out boxes of tissues Saturday morning while projection screens at the front at First Baptist Church in Grapevine showed Chris baby pictures. There were photos of him in a tiny base- ball uniform, and as a toddler learning to swing a plastic bat. Another showed his father teaching him how to shave.

know Chris want us sulking around be- cause of his family friend Bob Iddens, who flew from Williamsburg, for the funeral, told the 700 people at the service. your life like you would if he were still In the midst of the crowd was a sea of CHRIS GAVORA 700 bid farewell to Grapevine ballplayer Grapevine High baseball and softball teams attend the funeral in uniform as a tribute to their fellow athlete. By MARK AGEE STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER More on SERVICE on 8B GAVORA MYSPACE.COM FORT WORTH Centuria Har- ris was the first person to raise the alarm almost three years ago at the Fort Worth Water Gardens. got some kids down here drowning, down at the Water Gardens, in that big pool they he told the emergency dispatcher after dialing 911 on a borrowed cellphone. Harris, a Fort Worth native who had re- turned home to visit relatives, had gone to the downtown park to spend time with his daughter.

Instead, they watched as rescuers pulled bodies from the churning waters of one of the central features, the Active Pool. A little girl. A teenage boy. A father. Another little girl.

Harris and his daughter took a long walk that night. And when he moved back to Fort Worth last year, he visited the park again. kind of shook he said recently. Those are the kinds of memories that ci- STAFFING SAFETY MEASURES WATER LEVELS DRAINAGE Have you ever heard of a of Neither had a newlywed couple until the wife added her name to her Capital One checking and savings account. One day, without notice, the bank emp- tied the now-joint ac- count of $16,000 be- cause the husband, before the marriage, had defaulted on a car loan to a bank that Capital One had acquired.

It was a brutal lesson that saying means do agree to pick up and carry all your financial THE WATCHDOG Early lesson in richer or Amie Streater WATCHDOG COLUMNIST AMIE STREATER REPORTS 5B By MIKE LEE STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER More on REOPENING on 8B REOPENING EVENT TODAY Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief and the president of the engineering firm that designed the changes will speak at a cere- mony. 8B.