YOUDON’T SAY?

Chris Woodul is soaring,but it’s not because of theairplane ejection seats heloves to collect.

Mr. Woodul has beennamed the Frontiers of FlightMuseum’s new curator. TheDallas museum, whichopened a new facility in May,features dozens of exhibitschronicling aviation history.

Mr. Woodul, a pilot whoformerly restored cockpits,sees blue skies ahead in hisnew job with only minorturbulence.

“The phone ringsconstantly with people callingwho want to donate things,and 100,000 square feet canfill up quickly,” he said.

“I have a hard time sayingno to things.”

Katie Menzer

Jacquielynn FloydThe columnist has the day off.

Curatorflying highin new job

INDEXRegional roundup ...............................2BLottery ...............................................2BMercedes Olivera................................3BScouts ...............................................4BObituaries .......................................6-7BOvernight ...........................................9BAt a glance ......................................10B

II+ . . . . . . . .

Board, ice makerin ‘real dog fight’Rife with allegations ofbroken promises and gov-ernment abuse, a disputebetween the Melissa eco-nomic development boardand an ice-making compa-ny is getting ugly. 5B

Man hurt in possibleroad rage incidentA 38-year-old man wasseverely injured earlyThursday when he wasbeaten by three men onInterstate 35W in FortWorth, police say. 7B

Deportations keepDallas officials busyFederal customs officials inDallas deported 26 percentmore foreigners in fiscal2004 than the previousyear, one of the highestjumps among the nation’s22 field offices. 8B

INSIDE

METROThe Dallas Morning News Saturday, November 27, 2004

◗BOVERNIGHT

Musical miserSeveral TV stars, including a scowling KelseyGrammer, will be showcasing their musical talentsSunday night in NBC’s A Christmas Carol. 9B

5 25 50 75 95B1127AB001PKB1127AB001PQ B1 II+ 11-27-2004 Set: 23:26:44Sent by: jhouston News CYANMAGENTAYELLOWBLACK

COMINGSUNDAY

Turning herlife around

A year ago, she was16, homeless and anorphan. See how GinaRodriguez’s life haschanged for the better.

Total collected $522,326.12Distributed to date $49,000

The Dallas Morning News iscollecting money throughJan. 31 for distribution to 21agencies that assist thehungry and homeless inNorth Texas. Send yourcheck or money order,payable to:The Dallas Morning NewsCharitiesP.O. Box 910845Dallas, Texas 75391-0845or donate online at:charities.DallasNews.com

CARROLLTON — By all ac-counts, Ryan Dant should no lon-ger be alive.

Instead, the 16-year-old with arare disease has become the post-er boy for a minor miracle thatstarted in North Texas and hasspread across the globe. And inthe world of charity fund-raisers,he and his family have donesomething remarkable — theyhave put themselves out of busi-ness.

“Just because you know thefuture doesn’t mean you have toaccept it,” said Ryan’s father,Mark, who also is a lieutenantwith the Carrollton Police De-partment.

In 1991, doctors told theDants that their son Ryan suf-fered from Hurler-Scheie syn-drome, which affects only severalthousand children worldwide.Most die by the time they areteens.

Rather than resign themselvesto that fate, the Dants took upgolf.

Now 12 years after the firstRyan Foundation charity golftournament, the family andsponsors have raised more than$2 million. The money kept re-search labs open, searching for acure.

It worked.So far, the money and studies

have almost perfected a drug andmedical treatment for Ryan andhundreds of other children des-perately waiting for treatment.

“In 1991, we were told whatour future was going to hold. Wewere told what was going to hap-pen,” Lt. Dant recently told sup-porters at the Ryan Foundation’sfinal fund-raiser.

“You all have given us the abil-ity to think about the future with-out feeling guilty.”

At that crowning fund-raiserin late September, the foundationraised $500,000, the amountneeded to complete the final clin-ical trials for the drug treatment.Ryan will take part in those newtrials next year, and his prognosis

is brighter. At age 3, doctors diagnosed

Ryan as having mucopolysaccha-ridosis, also known as MPS 1 orHurler-Scheie syndrome. Ryan’sbody cannot produce an enzymethat helps clean out certain sugarmolecules from cells, leading todamaging deposits in joints andvital organs.

Each year, the condition af-fects about 40 newborns nation-wide. In comparison, doctors di-agnose about 1,000 new cases ofcystic fibrosis nationwide eachyear.

When two doctors, a socialworker and a geneticist broke thenews to the Dants in 1991,

Raising chances for a longer life

LAWRENCE JENKINS/Staff Photographer

Victor Warmerdam (foreground), Ryan Dant’s uncle, snaps a photo of Ryan and his aunts Barbara Warmerdam (left) andBetty Bradford at a gala on behalf of Ryan and to raise money to fight his disease, Hurler-Scheie syndrome.

Occupational therapist Amy Lake wraps a brace around RyanDant’s hand at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children.

“Just because youknow the future

doesn’t mean youhave to accept it.”

Mark Dant

Family’s aidhelps find curefor rare disease

By TONY HARTZELStaff Writer

See FUND-RAISERS Page 4B

VERNON BRYAN/Staff Photographer

FORT WORTH — A plan todouble the size of downtown FortWorth and create acres of new wa-terfront development has cleareda major hurdle: money.

Congressional authorizationthis month of $110 million for theTrinity River Vision could allowconstruction to start in the next

couple of years. The proposal, sim-ilar to one in Dallas, would openthe river to development and cre-ate an urban waterfront.

“This takes the project a longway from abstraction to reality,”said Fernando Costa, the city’splanning director.

The project is not a done deal,though. The U.S. Army Corps ofEngineers still has to complete animpact study. A draft of that reportis expected in March.

After that, the focus will be onobtaining the rest of the federalfunds, which are expected to payfor about half the total $360 mil-

lion cost. Fort Worth, TarrantCounty, the Tarrant Regional Wa-ter Authority and a tax-incrementfinancing district will pay the re-mainder. The TIF, which wouldpay $93 million, would use addi-tional tax dollars generated in thenew downtown area to help payfor the project.

If all goes smoothly, the projectcould be finished in a decade.

Andy Taft, president of Down-town Fort Worth Inc., said the pro-ject could bring 10,000 newhomes to downtown and attract

FW gains backingfor river project$110 million approvedfor Trinity plan; city insearch of more funds

By JEFF MOSIERFort Worth Bureau

See FW Page 7B

There were no pumpkin piesor other rich desserts in theThanksgiving feast Nancy madefor her family this year.

It’s not that she wasn’t crav-ing the holiday sweets.

But she’s fought off urges tocompulsively eat for more thanfive months. She couldn’t risk aslip — not even to cook the

treats for others. “All I have to do is just lick

my fingers, and it starts me go-ing,” said Nancy, who’s battledovereating, especially sweets,for 22 years. “There are certainthings that I can eat that willgive me the same feeling as alco-hol or drugs.”

The same temptations, oftenmore plentiful throughout theholidays, weighed on otherswho attended an OvereatersAnonymous meeting on Fridayat a Plano church.

They’re thankful they made

For overeaters,holidays a trial

See HOLIDAY Page 7B

With food at everyturn, sufferers cling toone another for help

By MATT STILESStaff Writer

PLANO — There’s the oneabout the fork in the road …

So what about a mailbox in themiddle of the sidewalk?

In some Plano neighborhoods,replacement sidewalks have beenpoured around freestanding mail-boxes close to the curb.

Nice for the mailman but toughgoing if you’re using the sidewalkfor, say, walking, as was pointedout to Plano City Council mem-bers recently after a sidewalk re-hab in an eastside neighborhood.

The U.S. Postal Service regu-lates where mailboxes should goon urban streets.

That means boxes stay put.Future sidewalk pours will try

to create obstacle-free walkways —at least 36 inches wide around in-sidewalk mailboxes, the city says.

Existing slabs with protrudingboxes will be remade with a curvehere or there, making them morenavigable.

“We’re going to eliminate thisproblem,” said Jim Foster, Plano’spublic works director.

First up are several areas ofeastern Plano. The city says what’sdone in front of one house will bedone all along a particular block, tokeep up appearances.

A city inventory found almost800 homes with mailboxes in side-walks. It will cost more than$100,000 to fix the problem city-wide, officials say.

City Council members say theretrofit deserves some bucks.

“I think the cost is not unrea-

sonable,” said Mayor Pro TemShep Stahel.

Other parts of Plano come withuser-friendlier sidewalks, wheregrassy parkways separate curbfrom concrete path, providing aconvenient space for mailboxes.

E-mail lkpowell@dallasnews.com

In Plano, mailboxes tostay, sidewalks to move

City plans to makeconcrete slabs widerto help pedestrians

By LEE POWELLCollin County Bureau

JUAN GARCIA/Staff Photographer

Mailboxes are positioned forletter carriers, not walkers.

As twins, Shannon and Bran-don Haynes maintain an uncannylikeness, and for police and prose-cutors, that’s part of the problemas the trial in the death of LeonMartin Jr. approaches.

Prosecutors charge that Shan-non Haynes shot Mr. Martin, 26,in a stairwell outside a northeastDallas apartment building in April2002.

The case balances on an eyewit-ness who told police that the 23-year-old brothers had been to-gether the night of the shootingand that Shannon Haynes was the

one who fired the deadly gunshot.But that witness had also spent

the evening hanging out outsidethe apartment, passing around agin bottle before the single gun-shot was fired, striking Mr. Martinin the head, according to court re-cords.

With any other case, DNA evi-dence recovered from the crimescene might help support such apotentially sketchy witness ac-count. But besides their similarappearances, identical twins sharethe same DNA. Fraternal twinsare products of two fertilized eggsand have a different assortment ofgenes, but identical twins comefrom the same egg and are the onlypeople in the world with identicalDNA.

Prosecutors have obtained a

Twins’ DNA is atroot of slaying caseIdentical material could

complicate brother’smurder trial

By ROBERT THARPStaff Writer

See DNA Page 7B

METROPage 4B Saturday, November 27, 2004 _ DallasNews.com The Dallas Morning News

Actress Natalie Portman gets personal about her career, herfamily, and it’s the little things in life that matter most to her,tomorrow in Parade.

What Natalie’s thinking

Tomorrow in PARADE

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EAGLE SCOUTSEagle Scout is the highestrank in the Boy Scouts ofAmerica. To earn the honor,Scouts must complete acommunity service projectand other requirements.These youths have earnedthe honor.

Jonathan A. BackofJonathan, 17, designed and

coordinatedtheinstallation ofa prayergarden in thecourtyardbetweenPrestonwoodChristian

Academy and PrestonwoodBaptist Church. He is amember of Troop 1077, asenior at PrestonwoodChristian Academy and theson of Marsha and AlanBackof of Plano.

Alex JacksonAlex, 18, restriped the

outsidegymnasiumat BrentfieldElementarySchool inDallas. He isa member ofTroop 1077, asenior at J.J.Pearce High

School and the son of Dedeand Jerry Jackson of Dallas.

Calvin MarstonCalvin, 19, built a large

supplycabinet fortheafter-schoolcamp atNeighbor-hood ServiceCouncil. He isa member of

Troop 1077, a freshman atBaylor University and theson of Nancy and WaltMarston of Dallas.

Justin SnaselJustin, 18, designed and built

a privacyfence for FirstPresbyterianChurch inRichardson.He is amember ofTroop 1077, asenior at J.J.

Pearce High School and theson of Marcia and MarkSnasel of Dallas.

News about Eagle Scout or Girl Scout Awardrecipients should be mailed to Holly Warrenat The Dallas Morning News, Communica-tions Center, P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, Texas75265. Please include the student’s name,age and birth date, troop number, school andgrade, a brief description of the project, par-ents’ names, a mailing address, day and eve-ning phone numbers, and a nonreturnablephoto. Announcements appear in the orderreceived, and all information is verified ver-bally before publication.

they said Ryan probably wouldnot live past age 15. Until then,the disease almost always provedfatal.

Lt. Dant immediately set asidehis hopes and dreams for his son:helping Ryan get his first car, see-ing him graduate from highschool and go to college, watchinghim get married and have chil-dren.

“That all went away. But now ithas all come back,” he said. “Thecool part about it is we get to beMom and Dad again.”

That means more focus onschoolwork. Ryan used to getsome leeway on his homework.Household chores also slipped onoccasion as the Dants tried tokeep things in perspective andprovide Ryan a normal life.

Since the first fund-raiser in1993, Ryan has grown accus-tomed to being the center of at-tention, both at galas and in theworld of obscure medical re-search. At school, however, theHebron High School sophomoreprefers to blend in. He managesthe wrestling team. He also pre-fers not to tell his classmatesabout his condition.

“I don’t tell them because theywould treat me differently,” hesaid, adding that only some class-mates and the wrestling teamknow about his disease. “I can belike a regular guy with the wres-tlers.”

Ryan has come a long way inthe 61⁄2 years since he began re-ceiving weekly infusions of en-

zyme therapy. He has grown 15inches and added 78 poundssince then, unremarkable num-bers for a typical teen but as-tounding growth for someonewith Hurler-Scheie syndrome.

“Before, I could pick him outamong the crowd of kids whenschool let out,” said Lt. Dant. “Hewas the little tiny guy with thelimp. Now I can’t find him [with-out the limp].”

Ryan has endured nine sur-geries, including a hernia proce-dure and carpal tunnel surgeryon both wrists. Most of the proce-dures occurred before he was 10.

Last month, Ryan underwentwhat could be the final surgicalprocedure he will require for along time. Living with the diseasecaused his fingers to curl inward— a classic sign of his condition.To fix his hands, doctors had tobreak each finger and insert a se-ries of metal pins that fused hisfingers at the first knuckle. Byfusing the knuckles, the fingersremain straight and give himmore use of his hands.

“I can still throw a perfect spi-ral,” he said shortly before a sur-geon at Texas Scottish Rite Hos-pital for Children removed thefinal collection of two-inch pinsfrom fingers on his right hand.

Ryan still faces huge hurdlesas he grows bigger and older. Theenzyme treatment costs about$300,000 a year, a figure basedon Ryan’s 131-pound weight.With every new pound, the costwill rise. Lt. Dant’s insurance willcover Ryan only through college.

As Ryan gets older, his heart

may suffer the only serious sideeffects from the disease. His heartvalves, damaged before he startedreceiving medication, may haveto be replaced.

The weight of living under theconstant scrutiny of doctors hasworn on the polite, affable teen-ager.

“I want to get this doctor stuffover with,” said Ryan, who esti-mates that he has visited the hos-pital 100 times or more.

At school, Ryan mixes wellwith the hundreds of other stu-dents in his class.

“I’m not the shortest one inschool now,” he said.

But it is as manager of thewrestling team in which Ryan hasfound a home. He travels with theteam to matches. He stays afterschool for their practices. He

even earned a letter jacket lastyear.

“I’m proud of that letter jack-et,” he said.

The next big step involves en-suring that Ryan and other Hurl-er-Scheie patients get the medi-cine to the brain, something thata home-based IV treatment can-not do. Ryan and others with thedisease will need an occasionalspinal tap to get the missing en-zyme.

Clinical trials will start soonon the brain treatment, said Dr.Emil Kakkis, the senior vice pres-ident of BioMarin Pharmaceuti-cal Inc., who researched and per-fected the treatment while at theHarbor-University of Californiaat Los Angeles Medical Center.Starting sometime next year,Ryan will begin getting spinal

taps every month to six months.“The Dants were an incredible

inspiration,” said Dr. Kakkis,whose research would havestopped without the Ryan Foun-dation funds he received in theearly years.

Many people are pulling forRyan, including notable golf clubmaker Barney Adams, founder ofAdams Golf. He signed on to sup-port Ryan’s cause when his busi-ness was still growing, and hissuccess has mirrored that of theRyan Foundation.

“The odds were impossible.Here was a guy facing the longestof odds,” Mr. Adams said whilecelebrating with the Dants attheir final fund-raiser. “Howmany things end like this?”

E-mail thartzel@dallasnews.com

Fund-raisers help find cure for diseaseContinued from Page 1B

Photos by VERNON BRYANTtaff PhotographerRyan Dant checks himself out in a mirror during a fitting for a tuxedo at Al’s Formalwear inLewisville. Fund-raisers have made Ryan grow accustomed to being the center of attention.

In 1991, the parents of Ryan Dant, now 16, were told theirson probably would not live past age 15.