It’s Been Weird, Y’all: Our 10 Favorite Strange Texas Stories of 2019A monkey on the loose, a sharpshooting great-grandmother, activist witches, and more quirky news stories that caught our eye this year.
Rose Cahalan
Dec 28, 2019, 6:00 am CST
The Observer is best known for longform investigations on serious subjects. Our reporters and editors spend months immersed in heavy topics like rural suicide and racial violence. That work takes an emotional toll, which is why we can always use a healthy dose of humor.
There are a few telltale signs that someone has just shared an especially funny link: laughter from the writers’ room, followed by furiously clacking keyboards. Many of those stories end up in Strangest State, the Observer’s bimonthly roundup of weird Texas news. It’s a real grab bag, but we can always rely on animals on the loose—alligators and rattlesnakes, in particular—and bumbling criminals. Below, enjoy the strangest of the strange stories from 2019. ...
... AUSTIN // A man posed as a Beto O’Rourke campaign volunteer in order to break into a house and steal a Popsicle. The Austin American-Statesman reports that a neighbor questioned James Bradford Gibbon II, 28, when she saw the man loitering on a porch. Gibbon, who was wearing a black Beto T-shirt, replied that he was “campaigning for Beto for president.†A few minutes later, another woman arrived home to find Gibbon in her kitchen, holding the wrapper of a frozen treat he’d just filched from the freezer. Gibbon, who was charged with burglary, also admitted to rifling through a wallet and attempting to hack an iPad. ...
TASCOCITA // A man tested the limits of Petco’s “all leashed pets allowed†policy by walking his 1,600-pound steer into the store. A Facebook video shows Shelly Lumpkin leading Oliver, a 14-year-old Ankole-Watusi, through the sliding doors as the steer carefully tilts his 9-foot horns to fit. ...
There are more at
Texas ObserverAt first glance, the folks in Austin may have thought it really
was Robby Francis O'Rourke - sounds like something he'd do.
