FORT WORTH, BROWNSVILLE and SAN BENITO, Texas, Oct.

By Brenda Moore, The Monterey County Herald, Calif. Feb. 19--The National Steinbeck Center hopes to turn Monterey County into one giant book club over the next month, urging readers to pick up a copy of "The Grapes of Wrath" and get acquainted -- or reacquainted -- with the literary masterpiece.

By Allen Essex, Valley Morning Star, Harlingen, Texas Jan. 14--HARLINGEN -- Long lines of traffic clog the streets while motorists wait for freight cars to inch their way past a railroad crossing. It's a familiar scene in Harlingen. And it's a scene that Cameron County officials hope to erase.

Freddy Fender, the "Bebop Kid" of the Texas-Mexico border who later turned his twangy tenor into the smash country ballad "Before the Next Teardrop Falls," died Saturday. He was 69.

Freddy Fender, the "Bebop Kid" of the Texas-Mexico border who later turned his twangy tenor into the smash country ballad "Before the Next Teardrop Falls," died Saturday. He was 69.