Word: houston
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...increase efficiency, checkers are going back to school. In Houston, independents and chains send their checkers to a four-week course at the University of Houston called "Grocery Checking with Charm," the nation's first such course. It teaches them personality and poise, how to dress and make up properly, how to discuss problems with customers, how to stand on a hard floor all day without becoming grouchy (keep a straight back and a stiff upper...
...school district of Aldine, Texas, on the outskirts of Houston, is a spectacular example of money over mind. Two years ago, the Aldine taxpayers' association got full control of the seven-man school board, and nothing but penny-pinching grief has resulted since. The Aldine district (pop. 45,000) has had three school superintendents in two years, turned over 9% of its students to Houston to save money. Last summer the board cut the proposed school tax from $1.58 per $100 property assessment to $1.35. Result: the town's twelve schools (9,000 students) temporarily lost accreditation: after...
...that, even the board had misgivings, got special permission from the state legislature to raise $200,000 by selling short-term warrants to its Houston bank. As citizens cheered, the board voted to reopen the schools and even to boost the tax rate next fiscal year to $1.75. But trouble was far from over: the bank flatly refused to buy Aldine's warrants, and the schools stayed closed...
Last week, trying to reopen the schools by themselves. Aldine's citizens plunked down $85,500 toward the time warrants needed. At the same time, the Harris County (Houston) grand jury announced that it was looking into a charge that two board members had "pecuniary" interest in last year's purchase of a new school site. Whatever the outcome, the Aldine school system was already a proven mess. Many a weary citizen spoke out in favor of a sad but sound solution: give all of Aldine's schools to Houston...
With a $3,000,000 Cubana airlines jet-prop Britannia at his disposal, Prime Minister Fidel Castro was the Western Hemisphere's happiest tourist last week, speeding from Montreal to Houston to Brasilia to Buenos Aires. "This one day I spent in Montreal," said Castro, "has impressed me more than all the time I spent in the U.S. There is a Latin atmosphere." In Houston, he accepted a blue-blooded quarter horse, gave permission to Oilman Frank Waters to make a movie about the revolution. "To do justice to a story so powerful," said Waters, "I have hired...