Hannah Montana-mania

How far will a mother go to get Hannah Montana concert tickets for her young daughter? Well, consider the case of one mother in Garland.

Priscilla Ceballos now admits her 6-year-old daughter’s entry into an essay contest was entirely made up.

“My daddy died this year in Iraq. I am going to give mommy the Angel pendant
that daddy put on mommy when she was having me. I had it in my jewelry box since
that day. I love my mommy.”

The heartwrenching essay won the contest, and a free trip to Hannah Montana’s sold-out concert in New York.

If only it were true.

Ceballos and her daughter showed up Friday to Club Libby Lu to collect their prize in front of TV news cameras. But reporters quickly figured out it was a hoax. Ceballos grabbed her daughter and left before the presenation could be made.

Neighbors told us the little girl’s father is a carpet cleaner, not a soldier, and is very much alive.

Later, Ceballos admitted making the story up to win the contest, saying nobody had ever asked her if it was true or not.

And Club Libby Lu, a sort of salon for young girls, withdrew the prize. A public relations stunt had turned into a PR disaster. (They chose not to release the name of the new winner.)

Ceballos appeared on NBC’s Today show with her attorney and psychiatrist to apologize.

Sure, maybe the company should have checked out the girl’s tale without just assuming it was true.

But most people would agree the fault here lies with the mother. Even if she believed the essays could be fictional, who would make up a story like that?

The True Meaning of Christmas

We in the news business often hear complaints that we focus too much on the negative. And sometimes, that criticism may be true.

But the last two nights, I have had the honor of reporting two heartwarming “good news” stories that, to me, become even more special at Christmas.

The first is about a 6-week-old baby, born 3 months premature. Little Sariah Burrell weighs just one pound and 13 ounces, which is actually way up from her birth weight.

Doctors at Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth are now using a new treatment to help premature babies like Sariah. In place of the traditional breathing machine called a ventilator, they are now using a much less invasive technique involving bubbles. Yes, bubbles!

A simple bubble machine basically pumps air through a tube attached to the baby’s nose, and into the baby’s lungs. After just a few weeks, Sariah is now breathing on her own. The “bubbles” technique prevents far more problems — like chronic lung disease — than the ventilator, studies show.

It’s absolutely incredible to see, and one leaves the neo-natal intensive care unit with a new respect for the doctors who continually come up with new ways to help the tiniest and most fragile premies survive. You also can’t help but feel for Sariah’s mother. She had to deliver early because her blood pressure became so high during pregnancy, it presented a serious health risk for her. Despite what she has been through herself, she is most grateful for the dedicated doctors and nurses who have done so much to care for Sariah.

The second story is about a 4-year-old boy from Frisco, Colby Elliott, who in his young life has already undergone five open-heart surgeries. He was literally born with half a heart. The left side of his heart never developed.

His mother Sheila, who happens to be Mrs. Frisco (I never found a way to mention that in my story), met a man who owns a flying service at Addison Airport. The pilot, David Snell, generously offered Colby a free flight to look at Christmas lights.

Colby will one day need a heart transplant to survive. His mother says he has survived against all the odds and is her “energizer bunny.”

At first, Colby seemed afraid to get in the plane. But once in the air, he loved it. His mother says they have learned to enjoy every moment of every day. And that night was a moment to remember.

Two stories, two miracles.

I will remember Sariah and Colby and their mothers on Christmas Day. And also everyone else, from pilots to medical people, who fight to make young lives better.

The Death of the Pay Phone, the Birth of a Revolution

OK, here it is, my first blog. And what better topic to write about than the technological revolution that makes all this possible.

When I was a kid, I would stop by a drug store on my way home from school and buy a cherry coke at the soda fountain. On the wall in the corner was a pay phone.

Well, soda fountains are a thing of the past, and now pay phones are becoming extinct, too. Why pour quarters into a pay phone when you can call from the comfort of your own car with a cell phone? Just about everyone these days has one.

So I read with interest the other day about AT&T phasing out pay phones entirely. Who needs them anymore? My ten-year-old twins will probably go through their entire lives without using one a single time, and one day future generations will see a pay phone in some museum and wonder in amazement about how people used to get by without cell phones and laptops and broadband cards.

Speaking of broadband cards, I am posting this first blog while driving down I-35, coming back to Texas from covering the ice storm in Oklahoma. Here I am with a laptop, fully connected to the web, typing away while photographer Steve Stewart navigates around the semis trucking down the highway. Who would have imagined that, just a year or two ago?

In the future, using this amazing technology, I hope to write about whatever is in the news — from behind-the-scenes accounts of the stories I cover, to my take on what’s going on in the world. Please feel free to post comments. And hopefully what is interesting to me will be interesting to you.