Linda DeCuir/Mary Wells
Mini Reunion 2025
it's about time for another get-to-gether. Mini reunion 2025 is getting close, here's all the information you need to be apart of it.
Saturday, Sept. 27, 2025
11:30am
Nice Guy Ricky’s Restaurant (formerly Catfish Cabin)
192 S. Hwy 287/US 69
Lumberton, TX 77657
RSVP
Let Mary Wells Know you're interested.
(409)460-8828 (text or call)
Please specify if bringing +1
KOLE (1340 AM) radio station
A four-person consortium trading as the Port Arthur Broadcasting Company applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on March 23, 1946, for
permission to build a new radio station on 1340 kHz in Port Arthur, to broadcast with 250 watts day and night. The principals had worked at newspapers
and radio stations in nearby Beaumont. The FCC granted the application on November 27 and issued the construction permit on December 11. Promising
"good music, late news, all sports", KOLE began broadcasting at noon on March 30, 1947. By the end of 1948, only two of the four principals, Mary Ann
Petru and Socs N. Vratis, owned the company.[3] The station would eventually evolve into Port Arthur's heritage Top 40 station, with popular personalities
playing contemporary music. In one case, one disc jockey, Ricci Ware, challenged another, Dick Harvey, to a cow-milking contest on the streets of the
city.
Petru and Vratis sold KOLE in 1959 to Radio Southwest, Inc. This firm was a partnership between John Hicks, who moved his family from Dallas to
Port Arthur, and Edward L. Francis. The station moved from its original studios on Fourth Street to a new facility in the Adams Building. During
his father's ownership, John's son Tom, then in high school, worked at KOLE as a disc jockey under the on-air name of Steve King. Tom Hicks went on
to be a major private equity investor, including in the radio business. John Hicks sold his interest to Francis four years later in order to buy
KFDM radio and television in Beaumont.
EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
Judge Roy's Playground: Astroworld
The youngest judge in the county's history and a former mayor of
Houston. Hofheinz had achieved fame and fortune through a varity of
business ventures. Earlier in the 1960s he succeeded in bringing major league
baseball to Houston and, With the assistance of Harris County taxpayers,
oversaw the construction ofthe "eighth wonder of the world," the Astrodome.
The opening of the Astrodome- which was not only a multi-purpose stadium
but also Hofheinz's home- was the first in a series of events that led to the
construction of a family entertainment complex in south Houston that included
hotels, exhibition halls, and an amusement park.
Hofheinz approved plans for the amusement park in January 1967,) with
the formal announcement made in September. At the press conference,
Hofheinz declared that his park would become the world's greatest tourist
attraction, bringing untold millions of dollars into the Houston area
economy. Originally fifty-six acres, the Judge indicated that the facility
ultimately would become twice that size and entertain over one and a half
million visitors annually.
Hofheinz realized that Houston's humid weather would be a factor in the
park's success. He indicated that over 2,000 tons of central air conditioning
more than at any other outdoor amusement park in the world would be blown
on all shaded areas, not just inside gift shops and restrooms. One of the rides
at the park would give visitors a chance to experience the thrill of real snow
and the Abominable Snowman on the "Alpine Sleigh Ride," a toboggan ride
through a man-made mountain that the Judge named "Hotheinzberg.
