East Texas

The power? That blunt-force ability to lay wood to a baseball and propel it 400, 420, 450 feet? He had it even when he was a boy. Came from God, as far as he's concerned. Harnessing it? Well, that's the work of Chris Davis' life. There's a paradoxical quality to the Orioles' first baseman, who has emerged this season as one of baseball's most fearsome sluggers, a likely All-Star starter who leads the majors with 22 home runs. Growing up in East Texas, Davis was like a puppy with big paws, bowling over everything.

The power? That blunt-force ability to lay wood to a baseball and propel it 400, 420, 450 feet? He had it even when he was a boy. Came from God, as far as he's concerned. Harnessing it? Well, that's the work of Chris Davis' life. There's a paradoxical quality to the Orioles' first baseman, who has emerged this season as one of baseball's most fearsome sluggers, a likely All-Star starter who leads the majors with 22 home runs. Growing up in East Texas, Davis was like a puppy with big paws, bowling over everything.

CENTER, Texas -- Letterman and Leno have asked her on their shows but, no thank you, she doesn't cotton to the idea of flying on an airplane. Politicians stop by to visit when they're " 'lectioneering," and Willie Nelson calls occasionally to say hello.At 87, the host of the radio call-in show "Mattie's Party Line" has drawn a following far beyond her station's 60-some-mile range."It's such a silly program, really," Mattie Dellinger says, attempting modesty about the show that she is actually, and justifiably, proud of. "Party Line" is an island of pleasant chatter in the midst of the sound and fury that dominate talk radio.

FREEPORT, Texas - Thousands of residents of Texas' vulnerable Gulf Coast clogged highways heading inland yesterday as they heeded mandatory evacuation orders. Hurricane Ike churned through warm gulf waters and took aim at southeast Texas. Facing a hurricane that Gov. Rick Perry said could have "extraordinary impact," authorities ordered the evacuation of residents of low-lying coastal areas south and east of Houston. Chemical companies and refineries shut down their plants, bracing for high winds and damaging floods.

The arrival of the Ravens veterans Thursday night changed the training-camp routine for the rookie free agents. For example, until Friday morning's practice at Western Maryland College, the free-agent receivers had just run routes and scrimmaged against one another.The arrival of veterans Derrick Alexander and Michael Jackson reduced the number of plays and practice runs for the seven rookie free-agent receivers, including James Epps, a player from East Texas State. Epps and his counterparts are trying to hang on while the Ravens trim their roster to 53 players over the next month.

At the beginning of Eugene Lee's "East Texas Hot Links," one of the characters remarks that it's so quiet outside, "you can hear the stars shine if you listen hard enough." It's the quietest moment in this explosive drama set in a blacks-only bar in East Texas in the 1950s.In fact, the tension in this play -- receiving its Baltimore debut at Arena Players under Steven Maurice's direction -- is propelled like a slow fuse. Ignited at the beginning with an almost imperceptible spark, it travels quietly along until erupting in a shattering blast at the end.Like Lee's earlier work, "Killingsworth," which was produced at Arena in 1990, this new script is part mystery, part character study.

As talk of sexual misconduct swept through the 143rd Ordnance Battalion at Aberdeen Proving Ground, a small group of female soldiers looked to their company commander, Capt. Derrick Robertson, for help.And they brought chilling complaints -- charging that a drill instructor had raped three of them and abused others.For Robertson, who had seen the Aberdeen posting as the best way to advance his career, it was a crucial moment -- one that within days would put him at the center of the misconduct allegations and endanger his military career.

JASPER, Texas -- East Texas police do things differently than when 45-year-old Sgt. James Carter of the Jasper County Sheriff's office came of age, poor, in the black part of town. Very differently.Thirty years ago, Carter said, local police saw minorities as a kind of outlet for ceaseless, free-floating cruelty. More than once, Carter recalled, he saw a squad car nearing a black man as he walked down the street, and the officers ordering the man to duck his head inside the window. Then they pounded his head with a blackjack.

LUFKIN, Tex. - After more than 2 1/2 months of searching nearly 600,000 acres, the extraordinary process of recovering pieces of the space shuttle Columbia is coming to an end. The painstaking search - which involved almost 6,000 people at its peak in early March - will essentially stop April 30, officials announced this week. The last of the three base camps that have served the people searching huge swaths of east Texas will close May 2. Only 13 people will be left two weeks later. The mother ship for the operation - the Disaster Field Office in Lufkin - shuts May 10, and the remaining recovery operations will move to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

When the last black residents of the East Texas town of Vidor fled their homes earlier this month citing racist taunts and threats of violence, the die was cast for federal intervention. Last year a federal district judge ordered the desegregation of public housing projects in 36 East Texas counties, including one in Vidor, a town of 11,000 residents 85 miles east of Houston.Local Ku Klux Klan leaders vowed to drive out four black tenants who moved into the town's public housing complex this year.

WEWOKA, Okla. -- The wind-whipped flames were upon them before they knew it, Margo Weger recalled, and the cattle disappeared behind plumes of smoke that parted to reveal a terrifying sight. "Larry!" she remembers screaming to her husband, "the cows are burning!" Nine days after a wildfire scorched their ranch here in east-central Oklahoma, the Wegers, like others in the drought-stricken region, are reliving narrow escapes and counting their blessings. They were spared, as were their 75 head of cattle.

GRAPELAND, TEXAS -- On the run from the fierce winds and rising waters of Hurricane Rita, thousands of Gulf Coast residents found themselves caught in a different kind of struggle yesterday, stranded, here and there, along rural highways across East Texas with no gas, no shelter and grim choices as they braced for the storm that would reach them within hours. Places such as Grapeland, a town of 1,450 on a secondary highway about 100 miles north of Houston, were overrun with evacuees who had abandoned the jammed interstates in search of gas, food and refuge.

LUFKIN, Tex. - After more than 2 1/2 months of searching nearly 600,000 acres, the extraordinary process of recovering pieces of the space shuttle Columbia is coming to an end. The painstaking search - which involved almost 6,000 people at its peak in early March - will essentially stop April 30, officials announced this week. The last of the three base camps that have served the people searching huge swaths of east Texas will close May 2. Only 13 people will be left two weeks later. The mother ship for the operation - the Disaster Field Office in Lufkin - shuts May 10, and the remaining recovery operations will move to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

JASPER, Texas -- East Texas police do things differently than when 45-year-old Sgt. James Carter of the Jasper County Sheriff's office came of age, poor, in the black part of town. Very differently.Thirty years ago, Carter said, local police saw minorities as a kind of outlet for ceaseless, free-floating cruelty. More than once, Carter recalled, he saw a squad car nearing a black man as he walked down the street, and the officers ordering the man to duck his head inside the window. Then they pounded his head with a blackjack.

CENTER, Texas -- Letterman and Leno have asked her on their shows but, no thank you, she doesn't cotton to the idea of flying on an airplane. Politicians stop by to visit when they're " 'lectioneering," and Willie Nelson calls occasionally to say hello.At 87, the host of the radio call-in show "Mattie's Party Line" has drawn a following far beyond her station's 60-some-mile range."It's such a silly program, really," Mattie Dellinger says, attempting modesty about the show that she is actually, and justifiably, proud of. "Party Line" is an island of pleasant chatter in the midst of the sound and fury that dominate talk radio.

A rival telephone company is about to enter Bell Atlantic territory.SBC Communications Inc., perhaps the most aggressive of the nation's regional telephone companies, announced yesterday that it has agreed to merge with Southern New England Telecommunications Corp., a phone company that serves Connecticut.The $4.4 billion all-stock merger would give SBC a beachhead in the Northeast, a region that Bell Atlantic Corp. has dominated since its merger with Nynex last year.Many analysts had expected that SNET might be absorbed.

FIRST TEAM OffenseQuarterback -- Chris Simdorn, North Dakota State, 6-0, 184, senior, Minneapolis.Running backs -- Fred McAfee, Mississippi College, 5-10, 195, senior, Philadelphia, Miss.; David Jones, Chadron State, 5-8, 175, senior, Casper, Wyo.Wide receivers -- Ernest Priester, Edinboro, 5-9, 180, senior, Cleveland; Andrew Hill, Indiana, Pa., 6-3, 200, junior, New Brighton, Pa.Tight end -- Frank Wainright, Northern Colorado, 6-3, 240, senior, Arvada, Colo.Linemen -- Randy Bostic, Southern Utah, 6-2, 275, senior, Riceville, Tenn.

AUSTIN, Texas -- A three-way race allows the politicians to play all sorts of games with numbers. And here in Texas the key number for the Democrats is 36.That is the percentage of the vote Walter F. Mondale managed here against President Ronald Reagan in 1984. So the Democrats figure it is the rock-bottom base for Bill Clinton eight years later in the race with President Bush and Ross Perot for the state's 32 electoral votes, the third-largest prize after California (54) and New York (33)

The arrival of the Ravens veterans Thursday night changed the training-camp routine for the rookie free agents. For example, until Friday morning's practice at Western Maryland College, the free-agent receivers had just run routes and scrimmaged against one another.The arrival of veterans Derrick Alexander and Michael Jackson reduced the number of plays and practice runs for the seven rookie free-agent receivers, including James Epps, a player from East Texas State. Epps and his counterparts are trying to hang on while the Ravens trim their roster to 53 players over the next month.

As talk of sexual misconduct swept through the 143rd Ordnance Battalion at Aberdeen Proving Ground, a small group of female soldiers looked to their company commander, Capt. Derrick Robertson, for help.And they brought chilling complaints -- charging that a drill instructor had raped three of them and abused others.For Robertson, who had seen the Aberdeen posting as the best way to advance his career, it was a crucial moment -- one that within days would put him at the center of the misconduct allegations and endanger his military career.