Latest news with #WeatherfordDemocrat
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Parkers from Comanche, white lines of county namesake meet for barbecue and fellowship
The two sides of Parker County's namesake family recently got together for barbecue and brotherhood in Weatherford. More than 30 members of Cynthia Ann Parker's bloodline, white and Native American, shook hands at Baker's Ribs and heard keynotes from their Comanche matriarch and white patriarch. Parker, the 9-year-old settler taken in a Comanche raid on Fort Parker in East Texas, innocently stepped into Texas legend 189 years ago come May 19. 'She had a whole life, and that life changed in the blink of an eye,' her great-great-great-granddaughter, Tina Devlin Emhoolah, said as she started wiping tears that continued throughout her talk. 'Everything she knew — her life was snatched from her that day.' Emhoolah led direct descendants to the meetup in Weatherford from Ft. Sill, Oklahoma and other parts of the former Indian territory. Her distant cousin, Trevor Wardlaw, and the white relatives descend from Parkers who survived the raid on Fort Parker north of Groesbeck. Wardlaw told the Weatherford Democrat those survivors included Cynthia Ann's father, Silas, who with the rest migrated to Elkhart and Palestine in Anderson County. 'So, here we are in Parker County,' he greeted everyone. 'For now, 1836 is where the story begins for the Parkers, but that's not true.' Wardlaw explained the Parkers left their mark in Virginia, Georgia and Illinois before Elder John Parker and his Primitive Baptist congregation arrived in time to make history. 'Here comes the Texas Revolution.' More significantly, for the Parkers, here came the Comanche. Emhoolah's address to the group focused on the 9-year-old girl at the center of the story. Others were kidnapped in the raid, some were rescued. 'But for her, no one came,' Emhoolah said. 'I can't tell you a love story. Her life has been written into a love story, it's been romanticized. Cynthia Ann was a daughter of Silas (Parker), the son of Elder John. I know that I came to be a Comanche because of a little girl that was taken as a child. 'She had the will to live, she had the will to persevere. She had the will to be a survivor.' Parker had two sons and a daughter with the man she married, her captor Chief Peta Nocona. Of sons Pecos and Quanah and daughter Prairie Flower, Quanah grew to be a historical figure in his own right. He also clearly learned things his mother passed to him from her childhood memory of life before the raid. 'The Parker family came, as many families, across the water to this country with freedom of religion, coming in the name of God,' Emhoolah said. 'She would've known these things up to the age of 9.' Quanah, she said, displayed charisma as he grew to be a fierce Comanche leader. He also could read change in the wind. 'He was a leader who was able to adjust,' Emhoolah said. 'So, there were some things that she carried with her that she taught to him.' In his address to the group, Wardlaw said Cynthia Ann didn't know what to think when she was recovered by Texas Rangers in 1860 at Mule Creek, midway between Fort Worth and Amarillo. 'She just didn't know what was going on,' he said. 'She thought, would she be killed?' Wardlaw also highlighted Quanah's closeness to his mother, whom he lost after she'd been returned to the white world. 'Quanah lived a very different life,' he said. 'His mom and sister had been taken away. His father eventually passed away. He was orphaned and had to grow up pretty fast. But he survived — make no doubt about it, Quanah was a warrior.' Wardlaw quoted historian Billy Dixon's account of the 1874 Second Battle of Adobe Walls: ''There was never a more splendidly barbaric sight. Hundreds of mounted warriors in splendid colors on the bodies of the horses.'' By 1875, Wardlaw said, 'Quanah was the holdout,' the last Comanche to lay down arms. 'He saw the progression and where he needed to take his people,' he said. 'He was a huge proponent of education.' He echoed Emhoolah's assessment of Quanah's resilience. 'In 1905, he rode with Teddy Roosevelt in his inauguration parade,' Wardlaw said. 'That's a change, baby.' Quanah remained devoted to his mother after she was taken from him. 'There's not much written about Quanah searching for his father,' Wardlaw said. 'But he never stopped searching for his mother.' Quanah died in 1901 and is buried atop Chiefs Knoll, the highest point in the Fort Sill Post Cemetery in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He lays next to Cynthia Ann. Wardlaw said a photo of the man shows him standing next to pictures of his mother, his sister and Jesus, a pistol in its belt draped over a bedpost. 'That picture captures everything that we know about the Parker family,' he said. Wardlaw and Emhoolah closed with a public invitation to join the clans at their Oct. 11 family reunion at Fort Parker. 'Everybody's welcome,' Wardlaw said.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Yahoo
Millsap ISD superintendent, teachers arrested in abuse of special-needs students
The superintendent of the Millsap school district and two educators were arrested Thursday after the teachers were caught on video abusing a special-needs student, authorities told the Weatherford Democrat. The student's mother shared the abuse allegations in a video posted to Facebook on March 10, the Star-Telegram previously reported. The video has since been made unavailable. The video shows one special education teacher at Millsap Elementary School attempting to slap the 10-year-old boy across the face and another teacher throwing an object at him, according to the parent. The superintendent, 53-year-old Edie Martin, faces a felony charge of failure to report with the intent to conceal, according to jail records. The child's mother, Carissa Kozak Cornelius, told the Star-Telegram that the incident in her son Alex's classroom happened on Feb. 18, but Martin didn't notify her until Feb. 28 and even then didn't tell her that the incident involved her son. The mother later obtained the video recorded by a teaching assistant, she said. One of the educators, 44-year-old Jennifer Dale, is charged with official oppression, a Class A misdemeanor, according to the Parker County Sheriff's Office. The other educator, 25-year-old Paxton Bean, is charged with official oppression and injury to a child with intentional bodily injury, a third-degree felony. Parker County Today reported that arrest warrant affidavits accuse Bean and Paxton of abusing two additional students. Jail records show that all three women were released on bond. A school board meeting has been scheduled for Friday morning, March 21 to consider a 'separation agreement' with the superintendent, according to an agenda on the school district's website. The district has said that the other educators involved were placed on leave during the investigation and are no longer employed by Millsap ISD. 🚨 More top stories from our newsroom: → Sexual assault charge dismissed against Arlington pastor → Here's what's behind bill to eliminate Texas Parks Department → Family mourns death of Boswell High senior in kayak accident [Get our breaking news alerts.] Millsap is a small North Texas town about 15 miles west of Weatherford. Cornelius told the Star-Telegram that her first contact with law enforcement was when she reached out herself to the Parker County Sheriff's Office and Child Protective Services once she obtained the video and learned more about what happened with her son. Cornelius said that the superintendent later informed her of other prior incidents including her son — who has autism and is nonverbal — getting a shower without her permission, getting called vulgar names by staff and teachers, and receiving other inappropriate comments. She pulled her son out of the school and said she plans to homeschool him. In a statement about the arrests, Texas Rep. Mike Olcott said that Parker County Sheriff Russ Authier informed him there are three victims in the case. 'I am especially disturbed that these individuals who were hired specifically to care for students in the special education program would subject such vulnerable children to this type of abuse,' Olcott said. '... I expect the Board to fully consider what took place and discover if any other faculty members participated in or attempted to cover up the abuse that took place. Moreover, if the teachers are convicted of abusing these children, they should never be permitted to teach in a school again.'
