Rick Perry News Blog @newzblogz.com

One of the people responsible for the growth at Abilene Regional Airport is moving on.

The airport's business development manager, Chris Proctor-Cleveland, plans to work in marketing for Abilene Psychiatric Center, a not-for-profit inpatient psychiatric hospital. Her final day with the airport will be Monday.

''The thing that I love to do more than anything is to take a new program that has goals and put everything into place to make it happen,'' she said. ''I think that is one of my work strengths. And I have that opportunity at Abilene Psychiatric Center.

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Gov. Rick Perry and governors from Florida, California and New York on Tuesday sent a letter to congressional leaders crafting the 2007 farm bill to advocate for the priorities of the nation's most populous states.

Perry added his signature to those of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

In the letter, the governors asked lawmakers to look at priorities for the farming community, asking for additional funding and resources in six areas.

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AUSTIN (AP) - Three women who worked together at an elementary school in suburban Austin died today when their car slid on a wet highway and slammed into a truck.

Earlier, authorities rescued a man from atop his minivan after floodwaters swept it from a road northwest of the West Texas town of Winters.

And yesterday, a 44-year-old Bedford woman died in a weather-related motorcycle accident.

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Three women who worked together at an elementary school in an Austin suburb died Monday when their car slid on a wet highway during a rainstorm and slammed into a truck in the hills west of the city.

Storms throughout the state Monday caused street flooding and, in one case, forced a high-water rescue of a man stranded atop his minivan in West Texas.

The women killed in Monday's crash were identified as Debbie Picha, Susan Blount and Patricia Matheny. Ms. Picha was a first-grade teacher and Ms. Blount a speech therapist at Fern Bluff Elementary School in Round Rock. Ms. Matheny was a school counselor until February, said JoyLynn Occhiuzzi, a spokeswoman for the school district.

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AUSTIN – State Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson is proud that he can still work a bulldozer, a skill he learned early on the ranch and in the gas fields. Others would say he still drives it at meetings, committee hearings and town hall gatherings.

Mr. Williamson, 55, is one of the most influential men in Texas. He has the ear of the governor, with whom he speaks almost daily. He is the architect behind the state's road plan for the next 25 years. He is smart, studious, self-made. And critics, who seem as endless as a West Texas highway, say he is arrogant and unswerving.

"He's an amazing guy," said House Transportation Committee chairman Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock.

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