11/21/2018 Edition of the Fort Bend Star

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Two FBISD teams advance in playoffs: Page 8

SICK AND TIRED OF BEING SICK AND TIRED AND IN PAIN?

Medications Not Working? KPRC Channel 2 Houston Life Featured

Dr. Ferryl B. McClain With BioEnergetic Works, LLC To watch the taped segment go to: www.bioeworks.com 281-915-0793

WEDNESDAY • NOVEMBER 21, 2018

Fort Bend / Southwest • Volume 43 • No. 14

Visit www.FortBendStar.com

Matson recounts harrowing adventure Team raced across Atlantic Ocean in a rowboat By Joe Southern

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Mike Matson has done something few people in their right minds would even think of doing. Two years ago he and two other men rowed across the Atlantic Ocean in a race sponsored by a whiskey maker. The Missouri City resident recounted his adventure Oct. 19 as the guest speaker for the Cullinan Park Conservancy’s Picnic for the Park. Racing as a three-person team in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, Matson and his friends David Alviar and Brian Krauskopf set out on Dec. 14, 2016, from the Canary Islands, off the coast of North Africa, on a 3,000-mile journey to Antigua off the South American coast. “There is no external power outside of your oar,” he said. “There’s no sails, there’s no motors. You’re entirely self-contained in the boat; you are not allowed to be reaching any outside help. If somebody were to drive by and drop a bagel into your boat, you’re disqualified. You were 100 percent at the mercy of the elements.” Matson is a graduate of Elkins High School. His senior year was marked by the 9/11 terror attacks. Upon graduation, he went into the U.S. Naval Academy where he did competitive rowing. He eventually

Mike Matson of Missouri City is pictured in the Anne, a 22-foot rowboat he and two other men rowed across the Atlantic Ocean in a race. (Submitted photo)

went to Rice University where he helps coach rowing. He also became a volunteer firefighter. “At the Naval Academy I learned a lot of skills that were pertinent to this ocean crossing. A lot of the background that I brought to the team came from there,” Matson said. “I learned how to row, that was part of it. I was on the men’s heavyweight crew team while I was there; rowed

three years with them. I learned my seamanship and navigation skills, which comes important when you’re in a 22-foot boat away from land.” The rowboat is a 22-foot carbon fiber vessel custom made in England, which Matson named Anne in memory of a close friend, Anne McCormick Sullivan, who was one of four Houston firefighters to die in a fire in 2013.

“Anne actually got christened by the governor to be an official vessel of the Texas Navy,” he said. “So Texas was once its own country and when it was it had its own navy. So she is an honorary vessel to the Texas Navy and she was the first vessel in the Texas Navy in over 100 years.”

SEE ROWING, PAGE 2

Locals named to Texas Radio Hall of Fame By Donna Hill FOR THE FORT BEND STAR

Theresa Egly hugs daughter Sophie at the Fort Bend County National Adoption Day Celebration. Sophie was one of 18 children who were adopted at the Fort Bend County Courthouse during last Friday’s superhero themed celebration. (Submitted photo)

18 children adopted in Fort Bend County From staff reports FOR THE FORT BEND STAR

Judges Ron Pope, Brenda Mullinix, and David Perwin finalized 18 adoptions on Friday in celebration of National Adoption Day. An additional 10 children were adopted out of the foster care system earlier this year. The Fort Bend County 328th, 387th, and 505th District Courts joined courts across the country in opening their doors on National Adoption Day to complete adoptions and celebrate all families who adopt. “This year’s National Adoption Day was a wonderful celebration” said Metoyer Martin, CASA program director and chair of the event. “It is always great to see the attorneys, CPS, Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteers and judges all work together to finalize

the adoptions and ultimately give these children safe, permanent and loving homes. It is wonderful to see them all settled in loving homes. In August of 2017, there were 29,954 children in foster care in the state of Texas and 8,055 were free for adoption.” In Fort Bend County, the district courts, Child Advocates of Fort Bend (CAFB) and its partner agencies: Texas Department of Family Protective Services, Fort Bend Bar Association, Fort Bend County Child Welfare Board, Fort Bend County Attorney’s Office, Fort Bend Lawyers Care, the Fort Bend Court Team for Maltreated Infants and Toddlers, H.E.B., Bikers Against Child Abuse, and the Rosenberg Exchange Club worked together to celebrate the joys of adoption and encourage more families and individuals to give children permanent homes through adoption.

Both are radio alumni with ties to Houston radio. One began her career in broadcasting from the University of Houston; the other, her mentor; a news director from one of the largest country radio stations in Texas. T.J. Callahan, former morning show personality at KILT FM, and Chuck Wolf, former KIKK radio news director, are now inductees of a prestigious radio group – the Texas Radio Hall of Fame (TRHOF). Last weekend, Sugar Land residents Callahan and Wolf joined 16 other broadcasters from across the state at the induction celebration inside the Texas Museum of Broadcasting and Communications in Kilgore. The museum showcases vintage broadcast memorabilia and equipment, along with a library of historical documents and media, including one of Thomas Edison’s recording inventions. Callahan’s foray into media began when she covered sports for the university’s newspaper, the Daily Cougar. She then landed an internship her senior year with Wolf at radio station KIKK in Houston. She also worked at WTAW/ KTAW in College Station, but eventually ended up back in Houston, taking a job as a traffic reporter. KILT radio then came calling with Callahan providing traffic reports, writing and reporting the news. Most of Callahan’s broadcast career was spent at KILT. In all, she has over 30 years in radio. At her acceptance speech at TRHOF, she mentioned how lucky she was to be at one station for so many years.

News Director Chuck Wolf, from his early radio days, was inducted this year into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame. (Submitted photo)

T.J. Callahan, pictured during her days at KILT radio, was inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame. (Submitted photo)

“First I’m interning at KIKK with so many amazing people to work with. Then being hired by KILT and working with news veterans like Robert B. McEntire, and Jim Carolla. As soon as I got into that news environment, I listened and really heard what they were writing. You watch them type the news stories. And you’re in that environment of how they do things and you learn.” Yet Callahan has never been a coffee drinker. Not even when getting up each morning at 4 a.m. Calla-

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han is now a member of the Houston Film Critics Society, a nonprofit organization of print, broadcast and internet film critics based in the Houston metro area. She’s also a member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association, producers of the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, which Callahan attends each year in Los Angeles. But the induction into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame still reigns supreme for Callahan, her name on a wall surrounded by legends in Texas radio. “You get into radio because it’s fun. And you get to meet a lot of famous people and there are a lot of perks, but you keep doing it not for the notoriety, but because it’s what’s in you. It doesn’t pay a lot, but you feel lucky you’ve been in this business for a while, able to do something that you enjoy doing.” Sugar Land native Wolf, with nearly 30 years of broadcast experience, worked as the news director for KIKK AM/FM

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from 1980 to1993. He also brought in Callahan as the station’s news intern. Wolf believes internships are a part of broadcasting, a way of giving back and helping future journalists into their first job. “When I started the internship program, we would select four interns each semester. They would work in the newsroom and learn how to write news stores, take down associated press news feeds, edit tape, do everything a reporter or production assistant would do,” Wolf said. “All of us in broadcasting had somebody who gave us a break so I wanted to pay it forward.” Wolf worked in several markets in addition to Houston: San Antonio, Denver, Kansas City, and Omaha. After covering a particularly severe series of tornadoes in Omaha, Wolf realized for the first time how important it was for a newsroom to be prepared

SEE RADIO, PAGE 9

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