Texas
Texas US Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, the first Black woman to chair the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, dies at 88
- Texas US Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson died on Sunday, according to reports.
- Johnson represented Texas in Congress for three decades before retiring this year.
- President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris released tributes on Johnson’s career.
Trailblazing longtime US Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, a nurse from Texas who helped bring hundreds of millions of federal dollars to the Dallas area as the region’s most powerful Democrat, died Sunday. She was 88.
“I am heartbroken to share the news that my mother, Eddie Bernice Johnson, has passed away,” Johnson’s only son, Dawrence Kirk Johnson, wrote on Facebook. “She was a remarkable and loving mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, and great-grandmother, as well as a trailblazer and public servant. While we mourn the loss of an extraordinary woman, we celebrate her life and legacy. She will be deeply missed.”
President Joe Biden, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, and many other leaders issued statements about her death after her son posted about it on Facebook. The Dallas Morning News also confirmed her death with an unnamed source close to the family. No cause of death was given.
Biden hailed her “immense courage” and called her “an icon and mentor to generations of public servants, through whom her legacy of resilience and purpose will endure.”
“She was the single most effective legislator Dallas has ever had,” the mayor said in a statement. “Nobody brought more federal infrastructure money home to our city. Nobody fought harder for our communities and our residents’ interests and safety. And nobody knew how to navigate Washington better for the people of Dallas.”
Vice President Kamala Harris also praised the late politician, calling Johnson a “pioneer” and recalled her time working alongside Johnson in the Congressional Black Caucus.
“At a young age, she witnessed and experienced the profound effects of segregation and decided she would not stay on the sidelines in the fight for justice,” Harris wrote.
Johnson served in the House for three decades after becoming the first registered nurse elected to Congress and the first Black chief psychiatric nurse at Dallas’ Veterans Affairs hospital. She went on to become the first Black woman to chair the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and also led the Congressional Black Caucus. She left office in January after repeatedly delaying her retirement. Before Congress, she served in the Texas legislature.
Johnson announced her retirement in 2021 and later tapped Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett to run as her replacement. Crockett is currently serving in the same seat that Johnson left. In a statement following Johnson’s death, Crockett recalled getting the call from Johnson asking her to take over her seat.
“While I was honored, I was also bewildered when Chairwoman Johnson called me and asked me to run to represent Texas 30,” Crockett wrote. “I was only a freshman in the Texas House, and never in my wildest dreams would I think that she was aware of anything that I was doing in the House. “
Crockett, however, praised Johnson’s intuition.
“But that is the thing about her: she never slept. She was always working,” Crockett said. “She kept her finger on the pulse of what was going on in the Texas House, and while I didn’t fully understand what I was getting myself into, I trusted her, her judgment, and her mentorship.”
Johnson used her committee leadership position to fight against Republican efforts to block action on climate change. Congressional Black Caucus Chair Steven Horsford said Johnson was also “a fierce advocate for expanding STEM opportunities to Black and minority students” who also played a key role in helping the Biden administration pass a major package of incentives for computer chip manufacturers.
She was born in Waco and grew up in the segregated South. Dallas’ once-segregated Union Station was renamed in her honor in 2019.
Her own experience with racism helped spur her to get involved in politics. She recalled that officials at the VA hospital were shocked that she was Black after they hired her sight-unseen, so they rescinded their offer for her to live in a dorm on campus. She told The Dallas Morning News in 2020 that officials would go into patients’ rooms ahead of her to “say that I was qualified.”
“That was really the most blatant, overt racism that I ever experienced in my life,” she told the newspaper.
Johnson nearly quit but decided to stick with it.
“It was very challenging,” she said. “But any job where you’re an African American woman entering for the first time would be a challenge. They had not hired one before I got there. Yes, it was a challenge, but it was a successful venture.”
With a tumultuous nonconference season officially in the books, the Texas Longhorns turn their attention to their SEC slate ahead.
They will kick things off against the Florida Gators on the road, which will be followed by their annual Red River Rivalry game against the Oklahoma Sooners in Dallas.
The quarterback on each of these opposing teams are currently dealing with injuries, making them questionable to appear in their matchups against the Longhorns. Texas faced backup quarterbacks in many of its SEC matchups last year, and it looks like they could start 2025 the same way.
Sooners quarterback John Mateer made headlines earlier this week after the team revealed that he must undergo hand surgery to help repair a broken bone in his throwing hand. He broke the bone in the first quarter of Oklahoma’s game against the Auburn Tigers last Saturday.
He played through the injury to help his team earn a 24-17 victory, but the quarterback is now looking at at least three weeks on the sideline. Healing in time for Dallas doesn’t seem to be entirely ruled out, but it seems like the indefinite injury timeline could mean that the current Heisman Trophy favorite won’t be back until later in the conference season.
In the event that he is unable to play, sophomore quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr. will take the field instead.
As far as Florida quarterback DJ Lagway’s health goes, he was wearing a walking boot this week. but there’s not nearly as much concern as with Mateer.
If Lagway were to reaggravate the injury leading into the Texas game, true freshman quarterback Tramell Jones Jr. would take his place. Should this happen, this would be the second consecutive year Texas faced a Florida team forced to resort to its backup quarterback.
Ou Vs Texas Syndication The Oklahoman / BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK
Including the SEC Championship, the Longhorns played nine conference games last season. Depending on how one looks at it, between four and five of these matchups took place against backup quarterbacks.
Here are those players from last season:
– Michael Van Buren Jr., Mississippi State
– Michael Hawkins Jr., Oklahoma
– Aidan Warner, Florida
– Cutter Boley, Kentucky (replaced Brock Vandagriff mid-game)
– Gunner Stockton, Georgia (replaced Carson Beck mid-game)
A discrepancy exists when deciding whether or not the second matchup against Georgia in the SEC Championship last season can fully be considered to be against a backup, given that starting quarterback Carson Beck played the first half before suffering an elbow injury. He was replaced by Gunner Stockton, who led the Bulldogs to a win in overtime.
Either way, Texas has fared well in terms of facing backup quarterbacks since their entrance into the SEC ahead of the 2024 season.
The Longhorns’ already daunting defense has been let off the hook in this way against several impressive teams, and depending on how Mateer heals, their lucky streak could continue in the weeks to come.
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – Emergency services leaders from across the State of Texas are in College Station this week to share and learn about best practices.
Officials with emergency services agencies from the Texas-New Mexico border down to Beaumont are in College Station for the Texas EMS Alliance conference.
It’s a three-day conference where EMS agencies ask questions and learn from one another, then take the knowledge back home with them.
Officials say collaboration of this level is essential for the growth of EMS agencies across the state of Texas.
Adam Gallagher, EMS Chief with Robertson County EST, said the conference is jam-packed with opportunities to learn, network, bounce ideas, and problem-solve.
“We feel like we’re kind of running into the same problems, but we didn’t know we were until we all got together in the same group to be able to discuss and go, ‘yeah, I’m seeing that problem too. Let’s figure out how to fix it.’ And this program- this organization, this conference- does that for us,” he explained.
A significant issue for agencies across the state, according to Gallagher, is rural healthcare funding. That’s why they are being taught how to best push for advocacy.
He added that there hasn’t been a hospital with an emergency room in all of Robertson County since before the year 2000.
Butch Oberhoff, president of the Texas EMS Alliance, said this makes it more challenging for EMS officers to provide life-saving care. That’s why collaboration is key.
“‘What can we do to save more lives in Texas?’ And the ‘Whole Blood Initiative’ sort of was produced from that, and now Texas leads the nation in providing whole blood in the pre-hospital environment. We’re saving lives, we’re saving health care dollars, believe it or not,” said Oberhoff.
The Whole Blood Initiative is a program that supplies EMS agencies with life-saving blood for emergency trauma care. It’s a resource especially needed for rural healthcare agencies that lack the resources available in bigger cities.
“Rural healthcare is especially challenging in any rural part of Texas. But by having a voice and working with other EMS agencies, we can bring resources back to those communities,” Oberhoff furthered.
It’s an issue we’re also seeing in Robertson and Leon counties.
“We’re not a fancy service. We’re not flashy, but there’s things that we do that take the taxpayers into consideration, and that’s why it’s important that we don’t put the burden on them; that we come here and we talk and we advocate, and we go to the state and we say we need federal funding for these things,” added Gallagher.
Texas House Representative Tom Oliverson (R-District 130) made an appearance as a keynote speaker, honing in on the importance of rural health care funding across Texas.
Gallagher told KBTX a portion of the $50 billion from the Trump administration’s Big Beautiful Bill will be allocated toward funding rural healthcare.
Copyright 2025 KBTX. All rights reserved.
The Arizona State Sun Devils were pushed by Texas State last season, but led from start to finish when the teams squared off on Sept. 13 in Tempe. ASU prevailed 34-15 in front of a sellout crowd at Mountain America Stadium.
ASU (2-1) led 20-3 at the half, then scored on its first possession of the third quarter to take a 27-3 lead that was never in jeopardy.
“Establishing the run was huge, and a couple of the first early drives, we were trying to figure it out,” ASU coach Kenny Dillingham said. “Running the ball is one of those things that you have to be dedicated to because of the move in the game.
“Everybody moves a little differently on the defensive line. You have got to figure it out. So once we got to figure it out, our guys did a good job, and then we simplified the plan. We probably cut our play sheet down by about 25-30%, if not a little more. We really made sure that our guys were all dialed in and all on the same page, and it showed.”
What went right
More pass catchers involved: Much has been made of the reliance on junior WR Jordyn Tyson in the first two games. Dillingham said he was going to get more players “involved,” using that word as many as seven times in answering that question early in the week. Against Texas State, five players had catches and two others were targeted, with tight end Chamon Metayer recording a career-high six catches.
Defensive line pressured the passer: The Sun Devils totaled five sacks, the most in a game since a 2023 contest against Colorado, when they also had five. There were several other occasions when QB Brad Jackson was hurried. Jackson only ended up going 25-for-36 for 184 yards, after coming in averaging 250. He also had a fumble.
Running game set the tone: Raleek Brown ran for a career-high 144 yards — highlighted by a sparkling 75-yard touchdown run — on just 12 carries. Leavitt scrambled for 59. Five players factored in the rushing total as Dillingham pulled his starters late in the fourth quarter.
Jumped out to an early lead: Last week, ASU allowed Mississippi State to jump out to a 17-0 lead, and it was an uphill climb after that. The first drive ended with a failed fourth-down try at the Texas State 35, and the Sun Devils settled for a field goal on the second, but got rolling after that and were never really challenged.
Got a momentum-changing takeaway: Up 10-3, ASU got a fumble recovery by Myles Rowser and turned that into a touchdown that gave the host team a 17-3 lead. The Sun Devils were sixth in the country in turnover margin last season, but managed only one in the first two games, and it wasn’t an impactful one.
What went wrong
Offensive line still struggling: Leavitt was sacked three times, and there were a handful of other occasions where he had to escape the pocket or get off a throw earlier than he would have liked.
Third-down conversions need to be better: This was a major problem in the first two games as ASU converted only five of 24. It did slightly better, going 5-for-13, but that number still should be better.
Plays called back: ASU only had five penalties for 40 yards, so that was a positive, but once again, a touchdown was wiped off the board. This time, it was a 98-yard kickoff return for an apparent touchdown by Jaren Hamilton that was nullified by a holding call on Alfred Smith. ASU ended up scoring on the possession anyway.
Grades
Offense (B): ASU totaled 433 yards, exceeding its season average of 395.5. That consisted of 245 on the ground and 188 through the air. ASU worked to establish the run early, unlike in previous weeks when they leaned more toward throwing the ball. ASU averaged 6.5 yards per play. Tyson had six catches for 105 yards.
Defense (B): ASU held Texas State to 303 yards and did not give up big plays. The longest play it allowed was a 24-yard run by the quarterback. It had five sacks and got a takeaway. The Sun Devils also got two fourth-down stops. LB Jordan Crook had 12 tackles, 3.5 for a loss, while S Myles Rowser had 10 and a fumble recovery. Keyshaun Elliott and Adrian Wilson each had seven tackles.
Special Teams (D): Matt McKenzie averaged 35.5 on two kicks. He was subbing for the injured Kanyon Floyd and is new to the position. His first was for just 33 yards. It gave the Bobcats good enough field position that they were able to try a field goal on the last play of the first half, although it was short. Jesus Gomez made his lone try from 47 yards. The grade is also docked a bit because of the holding penalty that nullified a touchdown return.
Personnel notes
RB Kyson Brown, WR Jalen Moss, DL Zac Swanson, S Xavion Alford and P Kanyon Floyd were out with injuries. That was in addition to the players lost for the season in DB Plas Johnson (knee) and DL MyKeil Gardner (foot). Adrian “Boogie” Wilson got his first ASU start in place of Alford while Australian newcomer Matt McKenzie subbed for Floyd.
They said it
“I was grateful with what happened at Mississippi State. If we had come out of there with a W, we wouldn’t have attacked the week the way we did. Little issues would have gotten blown over, so those came to show and we honed in on those things and were able to band together as a team. That second half against Mississippi State carried over into this game. We have to figure out how to build upon this and keep the same mojo.” — Leavitt
“It means a lot. I’ve been working for like two years, or a year and a half. I’ve been working a lot. I just thank coaches and everybody who believed in me to play running back and just keep going. It meant a lot.”
— ASU RB Raleek Brown on his big game after missing last season due to injury
“That was definitely our focus all week. With the second half of last week, we kind of saw who we were. I think once we realized that, all week the focus was to come out here and get back to playing our type of ball. And I feel like we went out there and did that tonight.”
— ASU LB Jordan Crook, on needing a convincing win
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