An East Texas sheriff has identified the two children who died in a weekend storm as brothers riding in the back seat of a moving car that was crushed by a falling pine tree.

Angelina County Sheriff Greg Sanches on Monday said the victims were 8-year-old Dilynn Creel and 3-year-old Jace Creel. The accident happened Saturday in a rural area near Pollok, about 150 miles southeast of Dallas.

Sanches says the victims were from the Pollok area. The brothers were dead at the scene. Their parents, in the front seat, were not harmed.

Law enforcement officers say at least eight people died in the weekend storms from Texas into the Midwest and the Mid-Atlantic region in a system that spawned some tornadoes.

 

Fort Worth revamps language services

FORT WORTH — Fort Worth school officials are retooling the English as a Second Language program they offer refugee students from non-Spanish-speaking countries, because fewer such refugees are being sent to Tarrant County.

The refugee students mostly flee war, religious prejudice or persecution in their native countries.

For the past 25 years, the school district has provided English as a Second Language Services through a language center plan that sends students to central locations.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that the district’s ESL officials say that plans are underway to eliminate seven language facilities for elementary students that serve refugees and newcomers.

 

LBJ statue unveiled at South Texas school

COTULLA — A statue of Lyndon Baines Johnson holding a book has been unveiled at a South Texas school where the future president taught more than 30 years before reaching the White House.

LBJ’s daughter, Luci Baines Johnson, was on hand Saturday at Wellhausen School in Cotulla, 80 miles southwest of San Antonio.

The San Antonio Express-News reports more than 500 people attended the unveiling by sculptor Armanda Hinojosa at the school where LBJ taught and was a coach and principal in 1928-29.

Cotulla Mayor Javier Garcia says Johnson believed education was the way to defeat poverty, segregation and any roadblock you’d meet in life.

 

Garage catches fire at Texas home of George Foreman

HOUSTON— Authorities say an accidental fire in a garage at the Texas home of former heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman damaged the garage and several vehicles, but caused no injuries.

A spokeswoman for the Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office, Rachel Moreno, says the Sunday night blaze didn’t spread beyond the garage. She says smoke and water damaged some of the approximately 40 vehicles inside. Moreno said the fire started on a golf cart.

Foreman later tweeted, “Don’t worry all is well.” He thanked firefighters who responded to the home in Huffman, an unincorporated community in the Houston area.