The City of Sugar Land will hold its annual International Art and Kite Festival - Page 3
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Missouri City native says hometown values reflected in his U.S. Navy service By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Andrew Hanchar, Navy Office of Community Outreach Petty Officer 2nd Class Jairo Rodriguez a native of Missouri City, serves the U.S. Navy aboard USS Tripoli operating out of San Diego. Rodriguez graduated from Thurgood Marshal High School in 2015.
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Meyers, Patel to square off in Precinct 3 commissioner race after primaries By Ken Fountain KFOUNTAIN@FORTBENDSTAR.COM
In last week’s primary elections, Fort Bend County primary voters were largely in step with their counterparts across Texas and the states that held Super Tuesday primaries, with Democrats overwhelmingly choosing President Joe Biden and Republicans choosing former President Donald Trump. After the Super Tuesday contests,
it’s all but assured that the November presidential race will be a rematch of the one in 2020. In still-unofficial results, Biden won 31,175, or 79,82 percent, of the 31,175 votes cast in Fort Bend, far ahead of this closest competitor, motivational author and speaker Marianne Williamson. who took 6.87 percent of the vote. In the Republican primary, Trump won 42,556, or 75.37 percent, of the 56,464
votes cast, well ahead of his remaining major competitor, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who took 2,685 votes, or 19.23 percent. Haley, who had previously vowed to remain in the race through Super Tuesday and lost all of the Tuesday races except Vermont, suspended her campaign the following day but pointedly did not endorse the former president, saying he had to earn the votes of her supporters. In perhaps the most close-
ly watched local race, longtime Fort Bend Precinct 3 Commissioner Andy Andy Meyers Meyers easily defeated his Republican challenger, businessman Mike Khan, taking 62.52 percent of the vote to Khan’s 37.48 percent. In November, Meyers will face Taral Patel, who took 51 percent of the vote in a
five-person Democratic p r i m a r y. Patel, a former chief of staff to Fort Bend Coun- Taral Patel ty Judge KP George and staffer in the Biden Administration, enjoyed significant support from the Democratic establishment in the race.
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‘Sugar Land 95’ memorial project work continues
Petty Officer 2nd Class Jairo Rodriguez a native of Missouri City, Texas, serves the U.S. Navy aboard USS Tripoli operating out of San Diego. Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jordan Jennings, Navy Office of Community Outreach
The skills and values needed to succeed in the Navy are similar to those found in Missouri City. “I took the lessons of having a clear goal and chasing it from home, and have used it towards making petty officer third class and now petty officer second class,” said Rodriguez. Rodriguez joined the Navy five years ago. Today, Rodriguez serves as a fire controlman. “I joined the Navy to make something of myself and my life better,” said Rodriguez. “I didn’t want to go the traditional route of college and the Navy provided an amazing alternative.” Tripoli is an amphibious assault carrier that provides presence and power projection as an integral part of Joint, Interagency and Multinational Maritime Expeditionary Forces. Supports Marine Air/Ground Task Force requirements, from small-scale contingency operations to Expeditionary Strike Group operations to forcible entry missions in major theaters of war.
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This rendering from the Boston-based MASS Design Group depicts a conceptual design for the main entrance to the Sugar Land 95 memorial project at a Fort Bend ISD campus. Image courtesy Fort Bend ISD
By Ken Fountain KFOUNTAIN@FORTBENDSTAR.COM
Work continues apace to create a memorial project at the burial site of 95 people who had died while part of the convict labor leasing system in a property which now is the site of a Fort Bend ISD campus, leaders of an affiliated community group said on Saturday. Board members of the Friends of the Sugar Land 95, which is partnering with Fort Bend ISD on the memorial project, held a quarterly meeting in the massive cafeteria of the Fluor campus in the Lake Pointe area of Sugar Land. “Sugar Land 95” is the name applied to the deceased convicts whose unmarked remains were discovered during preparatory work on the site of For Bend ISD’s future James Reese Career and Technical Center in 2018. The discovery set in motion a series of legal proceedings and
controversies, which made national and international headlines, as the ugly history of the area’s convict leasing system became widely known. A handful of community members first heard from Marilyn Moore, the president of the organization, and other board members about the work the group has been doing to advance the project. Moore is the widow of Reginald Moore, the former longshoreman and one-time guard at the Texas Department of Correction’s former Jester Unit, who for years nearly single-handedly advocated for paying proper respect to those who had died during while being part of the area’s convict leasing program. Moore died in 2020. “We’re here to carry on the legacy that he began. We don’t want him to be forgotten. That’s the main reason I got involved in the project,” Marilyn Moore told the attendees. After providing the attendees an overview of the group’s
Marilyn Moore, president of the Friends of the Sugar Land 95, discusses plans for the memorial project during a meeting at the Fluor campus. Photo by Ken Fountain
mission statement and goals, Moore offered a look at conceptual plans of the memorial project, which Fort Bend ISD officials last fall. The designs are by Boston-based MASS Design Group, which also
worked on The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala., which pays homage to the victims of lynching in America. Moore said the memorial project has an estimated cost
of $5 million. She said the group’s leadership has been in ongoing discussions with officials from the Fort Bend
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