Southwest Airlines will start once-a-day flights between RDU Airport and Houston's Hobby Airport on June 3, RDU says.
The flight will depart RDU at 4:20pm, arriving at Houston at 6:05pm. The return flight leaves Houston at 1:20pm and arrives at RDU at 5pm.
Houston will become the 12th destination city for Southwest service from RDU. Teresa Damiano, RDU deputy airport director, said Houston will give RDU travelers an alternative connection to key West Coast cities.
Supporters of the diversity policy are mobilizing for Tuesday's Wake County school board meeting, citing graduation statistics and a desire to keep up the pressure on the board majority.
"Two of the school board minority have asked us to keep coming; the new majority wants us to fade away so they can quietly segregate our schools," according to an e-mail message being circulated among diversity policy supporters. "Inside sources indicate that they want to move fast, and are hoping for a lull in the public's attention. . . ."
In e-mail messages, Wake's graduation rate is favorably compared with those of urban districts that don't have diversity policies. For instance, they cite how Wake's 78.4 percent graduation rate is much higher than the rates in places such as Dallas, Detroit and Houston.
GREENVILLE -- Houston's Case Keenum threw for more than 500 yards and five touchdowns, but it wasn't enough to knock off East Carolina as Conference USA champions.
The Pirates intercepted Keenum three times, including the game-clincher in the end zone by safety Van Eskridge on the last drive of the game, to edge No. 18 Houston 38-32 and repeat as C-USA champs on Saturday at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.
To judge from their road stories, the members of Chapel Hill's The Old Ceremony seem like a magnet for weirdness whenever they leave town. For example there's this. And I've heard plenty of gross tales in years of interviewing bands, but maybe the most disgusting ever came up in an interview recently with TOC's Django Haskins and Mark Simonsen. It involved their accomodations for the night following a poorly attended show in Houston last year.
"A kid offered to put us up, bless his heart," Haskins recounted. "First our van and trailer got stuck in a foot of mud at his place, then we get inside and there are wires in the ceiling because he was stealing electricity from the neighbors. But the worst was the bathroom. He'd cut a hole in this brown corduroy recliner and put it over the toilet."
Ewwwwww...
"The smell was so awful, I went in there once and never went back," Simonsen added. "If I had to go, I went outside and down two flights of stairs. We've, uh, started getting hotel rooms when we can."
Still think life on the road is glamorous?
On a more pleasant note, see the story in Friday's paper for some talk about TOC's very fine new album. The group plays an album-release show Saturday night at Cat's Cradle.
ADDENDA(2/16/09): TOC live, and the "Walk on Thin Air" video.
