Citizens Against the Landfill in Hempstead

02/02/2024

Following is DIANA TATUM'S obituary, containing service details as shared by her family today:

Diana Lynn Tatum passed away following a brief illness on January 13, 2024. Her loss was completely unexpected and her family is profoundly saddened.

Diana was born to Sylvia and Frank Tatum on August 20, 1958 in Houston, Texas. She was the youngest of three children. She is survived by a brother, Jimmy Tatum and a sister, Charlotte Hayes.

Diana graduated from Northwest Academy in 1975 and signed with a modeling agency to pursue her dream of becoming a model. At age 17, she went to Paris and modeled for some of the top French designers. When she returned to the states, she landed in New York City where she was very much in demand for photographic modeling. She had always dreamed of becoming a Vogue cover girl and she achieved that goal while in New York City.

Once she returned to Houston, she modeled for Neiman’s, Tootsies, Saks and other fine stores. She was well known in Houston for being “the face” of Tootsies, appearing in their weekly newspaper ads for a number of years.

Diana was raised in the city but once she grew tired of the glitz and glamour of the modeling industry and she yearned for a quiet place in the country. She purchased her home in Hempstead and fell in love with longhorns. She bought her first longhorn (Hotshot) and created her business, TXLONGHORNSFORHIRE. She acted as her own booking agent and began making appearances at special events, sometimes riding her steer into the event.

Diana loved gardening and grew beautiful flowers and vegetables in her yard. She was passionate about her community and was very involved in the “Fight the Hempstead Landfill” committee. She was artistic, creative, generous, caring, hard working and fearless. She made an impact on many lives and she will be forever missed. She lived her life her way.

Predeceased by her mother, Sylvia Tatum and father, Frank Tatum.

A celebration of life will be held for Diana on February 18, 2024 at 1:00pm at the Classic Events Café, 615 US Business 290, Hempstead, TX 77445. Space is limited, therefore the family requests that you please respond to: [email protected] should you wish to attend.
Photo by: Brenda Gunter Photography

01/17/2024

We are heartbroken to have to share news that Diana Tatum passed away at home on Saturday, January 13, 2024, after a brief illness.

Diana was surely a force of nature, full of energy, ideas, and optimism. She had a deep passion for her state, community, animals and any moral and ethical cause and left no doubt about how she felt. Her efforts in all of these arenas have resulted in great successes and good results (in the case of CALH, helping to stop Pintail Landfill), and It is almost impossible to imagine that Diana is not here to continue these passions.

Known as the ‘Longhorn Lady’, Diana ran her own well-respected Longhorns For Hire business, handling huge longhorn steers and long trailers in traffic and tight spaces with amazing ease. Diana was the originator of the garage sale fundraising idea for CALH. Her enthusiasm turned skeptics into believers and, from her trailer gathering items in Brookshire Brothers parking lot on a freezing December afternoon, the event developed into CALH’s very successful monthly ‘more than a’ Garage Sale. Each of those 44 sales began with a prayer, then Diana would welcome shoppers to spend their money on the thousands of treasures we offered, many of which she had handled, cleaned and polished for maximum value.

On this past December 28, Diana was among many of the garage sale gang who got together for dinner and a margarita. We laughed and reminisced about those old garage sale days and Diana looked great. She was talking of retirement and had to leave early, for her animals she said. Diana will be remembered and missed by all of us.

We will share news of arrangements or services as we learn them and ask for prayers for Diana’s family at this sad time.

05/23/2022

UPDATE: You may have noticed that our website finally went down for good recently. In an effort to preserve the efforts of 7 years of hard work, events, news items and documents, last August, we asked an archiving company, Archive-it.org (an archiving company for libraries, universities and other organizations) for help. Archive-it kindly offered to save as much as possible of our website at no charge for which we are very grateful. By the way, individuals can research any topic for free at Archive-it using a simple search box on their website. Watch for the link to CALH's archived website below.

01/13/2022

UPDATE: Waller County Library in Hempstead is close to the hearts of many CALH members due in part to our organization’s donation to the worthy library renovation project last summer. For this reason, we wanted to share with you news of the opening of the Literacy Garden at the library yesterday.

Located outside the new front entrance to the library, the Literacy Garden was a project sponsored by Library Friends of Hempstead and lead by Mary Ann Drawl. The space offers a wonderful lighted, seating area for patrons, decorated with inspirational art poles. Each pole is sponsored by a local business or individual and depicts a book of their choice…from To Kill A Mockingbird to Harry Potter and many more; each book is illustrated on the pole by wonderful, original artwork. Funds from CALH covered the entire installation as well as lighting and seating wall (see photos).

Please make a point to stop by in person to see this beautiful installation and USE this first class facility which will benefit all of our community for many years to come.

Note: A specially selected book was dedicated to each pole sponsor, as well as CALH…appropriately, the book selected for CALH was ‘The Little Engine That Could’!

08/05/2021

FYI: Our website www.stophwy6landfill.com will be deleted at the end of this month (August 31, 2021). A lot of time and effort went into keeping it current during our landfill battle and it is full of information, documents, videos, photos, chronicling the events of our struggle. Volunteers have been funding the website to date but can no longer do so. This is your invitation to browse around one last time if you wish before it's gone!

For almost 7 years, Citizens Against the Landfill in Hempstead (CALH) has been fighting to prevent the Pintail Landfill proposed for a location on a 723 acre property called the Rainey Ranch, just north of 290 on Hwy 6, a mile north of Hempstead, Texas.

06/03/2021

GREAT NEWS! At today's Re-Opening of the Waller County Library in Hempstead, the community was invited to tour their newly renovated and beautifully furnished public library, now open and ready for readers! The contribution CALH funds was able to make to the project will be appreciated by young and old for many years to come. Following are just a few photos of the day but, if you missed today’s event, please make a point to stop by to see for yourself what a wonderful facility our county now has to offer!

This event also marks a fitting and final comment to our 10-year Facebook presence. It was a long, hard but worthwhile journey and, as always, we thank you so very much for your continued support!

05/22/2021

GREAT NEWS!! We are very pleased to share with you news of an OPEN HOUSE to be hosted by Waller County Library Staff Members and Waller County Officials in celebration of the RE-OPENING of the WALLER COUNTY LIBRARY in HEMPSTEAD.

The OPEN HOUSE is scheduled for Wednesday, June 2, 2021, at 2 p.m. at the Waller County Library, 2331 11th Street Hempstead, TX 77445 (see their flyer below).

As you will recall, upon our successful defeat of the proposed Pintail Landfill along Hwy 6, CALH designated its hard-earned surplus funds to assist and enhance the ongoing Waller County Library project in Hempstead. We hope that each of you who donated in so many ways toward CALH’s incredible 7-year community effort will also be proud of helping to make our local library an extra special place for everyone to enjoy.

Of course, Waller County and its taxpayers have funded the bulk of the renovation and construction costs of the library project. CALH’s contribution includes extras, covering new shelving, circulation desk, all the beautiful furnishings, and many more items not in the County’s budget. We would like to make special mention and give thanks to our neighbor, Prairie View A & M and their Karl Henson, who donated furniture and desks, as well as local business owner, James Newcomb of James Newcomb Furniture, who went above and beyond with sourcing furniture, as well as generously storing and delivering all the furniture at no charge.

We hope to see you at the WALLER COUNTY LIBRARY OPEN HOUSE on Wednesday, June 2, and that you enjoy Hempstead’s library for many years to come! Please share news of this event with your friends, family and neighbors.

01/12/2021

LIBRARY UPDATE: Sharing a few photos taken today at the Waller County Library in Hempstead, showing some of the special touches CALH has been able to contribute to the ongoing library renovation.

11/17/2020

UPDATE: The Waller County Library renovation project in Hempstead has been progressing slowly but here are a few photos of recent contributions which CALH funds have helped purchase. We are going to have a library to be proud of when the work is completed!

06/25/2020

FYI: Maybe today would be a good day to share a happy memory? You may recall that June 25 marks an important anniversary for the Citizens Against the Landfill in Hempstead. It was on this day two years ago that we learned that Green Group Holdings would abandon their Pintail Landfill project along Hwy 6 just outside of Hempstead. GGH waved the white flag via a short press release issued on June 25, 2018, marking the conclusion of our community's unified 7 year effort to achieve what many said was the impossible. Truly a great day for our community and well worth remembering!

In addition, we wanted to share a quick update with you on CALH's contribution to the Waller County Library project. CALH's remaining funds were donated to this project as you will recall and, so far, have been used to purchase, among other things, a vaulted ceiling for the entry, new cabinets and circulation desk along with all new furnishings and decor for the main library, the children's area, reading room and teen room. (See work in progress photo below) Due to the ongoing pandemic, project completion has been delayed, but CALH members should be very pleased and proud of their contribution made to what will ultimately become a wonderful asset for everyone in our community.

Also, recently, we had the option to close or retain our website www.stophwy6landfill.com and decided to keep it available for another year in case you want to visit and relive some of our high and not so high moments!

01/10/2020

FYI: We understand that the Waller County Library in Hempstead will be holding a public groundbreaking ceremony tomorrow, Friday, January 10th, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. as work begins on the long-awaited County funded library renovations. The County's plans will be available for viewing if you are interested. The scope of CALH's project for the library is still undetermined but we will share news periodically as progress is made.