Monahans News
Monahans, Texas
Thursday, June 10, 1998
Meterorite 7 regains space rock
Monahans' Meteorite 7 got their space rock (estimated value $19,000 and climbing) back. The vote of the City Council was unanimous.
Patrick and Alvaro Lyles, 8 and 11 years old; Jose Felan, 11; Flavio and Neri Armandariz, 9 and 12; Eron Hernandez, 10; and Javier Juarez, 9, are happy. Patrick says he knew all along the Council would act in favor of the Meteorite 7. After all, Patrick notes, they found it first.
Orlando Lyles, father of two of the children and the designated spokesman for all of the families, has the
meteorite at home.
The city relinquished custody about 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 9, amidst the laughter of the children and the buzz of television cameras. Lyles showed the meteorite to all who wanted to see it before going home.
Steve Arnold, a meteorite broker from Tulsa, Okla., was skewered by the city officials. Arnold brokers sales of spatial debris to collectors, scholars and museums.
Arnold's roasting came from City Manager David Mills; Mayor Pro Tem Clarese Gough and District 3 Council Member Curtis Howard. All noted what they termed scurrilous tactics and
slanderous internet postings by the broker.
Arnold represents the parents of the seven Monahans children who first retrieved the wandering rock from the Asteroid Belt.
It had just zipped over their heads into Manuel Juarez's vacant lot while they were playing basketball on a warm Sunday afternoon in March. Arnold says he will receive a 25 percent commission when the meteorite eventually is sold.
Gough presided because Mayor David B. Cutbirth was away on vacation. District 1 Council Member Mary Garcia moved that the city return the meteorite (Monahans'98-I) to the children. District 2 Council Member Jeppie Wilson seconded.
Howard said he would have made the same motion except Garcia beat him to it.
The city retains a sibling of the meteorite retired to the children christened Monahans '98-II for possible eventual display at City Hall.
That was the bottom line of the meeting of the Monahans City Council on Tuesday afternoon, June 9, in the Council chambers at City Hall, a meeting crammed with the Meteorite 7, friends, relatives and assorted members of the national and international media.
After District 4 Council Member Ted Ward, Howard, Garcia and Wilson voted to return the meteorite, Gough recessed the meeting to allow the City Council Chambers to empty. Gough, who represents District 5, could not vote because she was presiding over the Council in the absence of Cutbirth.
Herd journalism hurts city
Now that the City Council of Monahans has voted unanimously to give meteorite Monahans '98-I back to the kids who found it, is possible that we can begin to repair the damage done to the community's image by the current scourge of the Western World. We call this scourge herd journalism.
Here is how it works. A reporter reports something and gets it almost right. An editor on the largest daily close to the scene of the action decides it would sound better if it were written another way and changes what the reporter on the scene has written. This altered version makes it into print and on to the Associated Press wires. Once it is on the AP, it is fact at least in perception. Absolutely no media outlet, with the possible exceptions of the New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the London Times or the
Monahans News ever would challenge the veracity of an AP report.
Two weeks ago, it was said from Hong Kong to London, from London to Moscow, from Moscow to Bangkok and from Bangkok to Dallas that the mean, stingy and rascally officials of Monahans had stolen a meteorite from seven little kids and were not going to give it back.
That was balderdash then. It is balderdash underlined now.
The City Council never said it was not going to return the meteorite to the kids.
And, in fact, after a few well chosen words from assorted city officials about the modern phenomenon of mass media and how it can be manipulated by amateurs, the Council voted unanimously to give the kids their space rock. It was.
E-mail flooded our offices attacking the city. We fielded telephone calls in French, Spanish, English, Vietnamese and two or three languages we didn't recognize all attacking the city for something it didn't do.
Council Member Curtis Howard said it best and forcefully.
Howard said City Council speaks for the City Council - no one else and the City Council is the elected representative of all of the citizens of Monahans - no one else. Council Member Jeppie Wilson said, "Amen."
So do we.
And we are glad the Meteorite 7 has their space rock back.
We also are glad the city retains Monahans 98-II for future display in an appropriate place to mark the Spring meteorites and heard journalists rained on Monahans.
We survived both.
