Obituaries
Marjorie Matilda Loraina (Taylor) Squires, 92, of Big Spring and formerly of Sweetwater went to her Heavenly Home Wednesday, May 15, 2024 at Park Place Retirement Living in Big Spring. A celebration of life service will be at 2:00 pm Sunday, May 26, 2024 at McCoy Chapel of Memories with Pastor Scott Burns officiating. Interment will follow at Garden of Memories Cemetery under the direction of McCoy Funeral Home in Sweetwater. A family and friend’s visitation will be Saturday from 6-8 p.m. at the funeral home. Marjorie was born February 8, 1932 in Nolan County to Dewitt and Ruby (Greer) Taylor. She graduated from Newman High School in 1951 at age 19, and met the love of her life, Vernon O’Neal Squires, and they married on November 24, 1951 in Sweetwater. They remained in Sweetwater until 1982, moving to Big Spring until 2007 when they moved back to Sweetwater. Marjorie worked for the Clark Agency in Sweetwater for 20 years. She worked for Reeder Insurance Agency in Big Spring where she retired. She was a bookkeeper, agent and secretary. Marjorie attended and graduated from TSTI Sweetwater. She learned and was very accomplished in Shorthand. After retirement she volunteered her time at Day Care Centers and Mother’s Day Out for the Methodist Church. Marjorie was a member of Highland Baptist Church in Sweetwater. She is survived by her children; Lynn Squires and Melody of Sweetwater, Donna Bennett and Jerry of Big Spring, Sandra Burns and Scott of Phoenix, Arizona and Robert Squires and Lisa of Azle, Texas, her sisters; Linda Penton and Bobby of Sweetwater, Beverly Cole and Ronnie of San Angelo, Patsy Daniels of Abilene, Texas and Nelda Henson of Sweetwater. Marjorie has 10 grandchildren; C.J. Ashley and Heather, Jenny Doggett and Darrell, Robert Squires and Amy, Skyler Ashley and Stephanie, Scarlet Rodriguez, Jason Burns and Danielle, Jack Squires, Ashton Offerdahl, Nathan Burns and David Squires and Christina. She has 18 great-grandchildren, Jaden, Jensen and Julia Doggett, Luke and Ella Ashley, Riley and Ava Squires, Gianna and Deacon Burns, Abigale and Colton Ashley, Zoë and Lincoln Rodriguez, Brayden and Elayna Squires, Ryleigh, Kenzie and Makenna Offerdahl. Marjorie is preceded in death by her parents, husband, and 7 siblings, Robert Taylor, Willard Taylor, Loretta Milligan, Wanda Smith, Ruby Louise Taylor, Dewitt T. Taylor, Jr. and Reba Eaton. Pallbearers will be her grandsons; Jason Burns, Nathan Burns, Skyler Ashley, C.J. Ashley, Robert Squires, David Squires and Jack Squires. Honorary pallbearers are her granddaughters; Jenny Doggett, Scarlet Rodriguez and Ashton Offerdahl. Online condolences may be expressed at www.mccoyfh.com.
Paige Pace Allen, prominent Dallas attorney and Sweetwater native, who graduated from Sweetwater High School in 1976, passed away at her home in Dallas, Texas on Sunday, May 19, 2024, after a short illness. Paige was proud of her Sweetwater and Pace family heritage and was a fierce advocate for her clients in the courtroom.
Paige successfully litigated cases to jury verdict in many areas, including property damage cases, premises liability, transportation, and trucking accidents, business and contractual disputes, and workers compensation. She tried lawsuits and arbitrated numerous construction defect cases on behalf of the general contractor or sub-contractor. In addition, she counseled and advised contractors and sub-contractors on various construction-related matters, including contract negotiation, contract interpretation and compliance, and compliance with bond and mechanics lien statutes.
Prior to beginning her practice with law firms, Paige was a Briefing Attorney for Justice Robert M. Campbell of the Supreme Court of Texas in 1984-1985. She then joined the law firm of Fulbright and Jaworski in Houston (now Rose, Norton and Fulbright) where she was an Associate and Participating Associate. She later moved to Dallas and was a partner at Calhoun and Stacy (now Stacy & Conder) before beginning her own law firm where she practiced for 15 years.
She lectured in continuing legal education programs on a variety of legal topics and has served as a visiting instructor in trial advocacy programs at the University of Texas School of Law and South Texas College of Law. She was a member of the State Bar of Texas Construction Section and the Litigation, Tort and Compensation, and Insurance Sections. She was a member of the Dallas Bar Association and a member of the Tort and Insurance Practice Group of the Dallas Bar Association. She was a District Director of the Texas Association of Defense Counsel from 1999 to 2004 and was a member of the Texas Bar Foundation.
Paige received her Bachelor of Science in Journalism from Texas Christian University and her Doctor of Jurisprudence, Cum Laude, from South Texas College of Law. While at South Texas Law School, she was a member of the National AwardWinning Moot Court Team.
Paige was also licensed to practice before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and the Northern, Southern, and Eastern Districts of U.S. District Courts of Texas. She was board certified in personal injury law from 1990 to 2021.
She married Robert D. (Bob) Allen on November 8, 2012, whom she earlier met as a law clerk for the Texas Supreme Court. They spent many happy years together traveling all over the world as well as visiting family and friends, both in Sweetwater and Chicago. Additionally, she was an avid golfer and bridge player.
Page was preceded in death by her parents, Dr. James Pace and Barbara Pace of Sweetwater. She is survived by her husband, Bob of Dallas and her siblings, James Tann Pace of Flower Mound, Merry Laine Wetsel of Sweetwater and Robert Dillard Pace of Dallas and seven nephews and one niece.
Pallbearers will be her husband, Bob Allen, Rod Wetsel, Tann Pace and Rob Pace. Honorary Pallbearers will be nephews, Dillard Pace, Lane Pace, Finn Pace, Britton Pace, Dr. Zach Wetsel, Quentin Wetsel and Kurt Wetsel. Columbarium bearer will be her niece, Lenyx Pace.
Services will be held at 2:00 p.m. at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church of Sweetwater on Saturday, May 25, 2024, where she was a member since infancy. All services are under the direction of McCoy Funeral Home. Her husband and family request that in lieu of flowers, donations be sent to St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Sweetwater.
Online condolences may be expressed at www.mccoyfh. com.
William Douglas Bell, 93, of Abilene, Texas passed away at Northern Oaks Living and Rehab on Sunday, May 19, 2024. His wishes were to be cremated with a memorial service at a later date.
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s lawyers rested their defense Tuesday without the former president taking the witness stand in his New York hush money criminal trial, moving the case closer to the moment when the jury will begin deciding his fate.
“Your honor, the defense rests,” Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told the judge. Trump’s team concluded with testimony from a former federal prosecutor who had been called to attack the credibility of the prosecution’s key witness, one of two people summoned to the stand by the defense. The Manhattan district attorney’s office called 20 witnesses over 15 days of testimony before resting its case Monday.
The jury was sent home for a week, until May 28, when closing arguments are expected, but the attorneys returned to the courtroom to discuss how the judge will instruct jurors on deliberations. Trump, the first former American president to be tried criminally, did not answer questions about why he did not testify.
Trump had previously said he wanted to take the witness stand in his own defense, but there was no requirement or even expectation that he do so. Defendants routinely decline to testify. His attorneys, instead of mounting an effort to demonstrate Trump’s innocence to jurors, focused on attacking the credibility of the prosecution witnesses. That’s a routine defense strategy because the burden of proof in a criminal case lies with the prosecution. The defense doesn’t have to prove a thing. Yet even as the Trump denounces the trial as a politically motivated travesty of justice, he has been working to turn the proceedings into an offshoot of his presidential campaign. He’s capitalized on the trial as a fundraising pitch, used his time in front of the cameras to criticize President Joe Biden and showcased a parade of his own political supporters.
Prosecutors have accused the presumptive Republican presidential nominee of a scheme to scoop up and bury negative stories in an illegal effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. It’s the first of Trump’s four criminal cases to go to trial, and quite possibly the only one before the 2024 presidential election.
“They have no case,” Trump said Tuesday morning before court adjourned. “There’s no crime.”
Jurors have been given a lesson on the underbelly of the tabloid business world, where Trump allies at the National Enquirer launched a plan to keep seamy, sometimes outrageous stories about Trump out of the public eye by paying tens of thousands of dollars to “catch and kill” them. They watched as a porn actress, Stormy Daniels, recounted in discomfiting detail an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in a hotel room. Trump says nothing sexual happened between them.
And they sat intently in the jury box as Trump’s formerlawyer-turned-foe Michel
Cohen placed the former president in the middle of the scheme to buy Daniels’ story to keep it from going public as Republicans were wringing their hands in distress over the fallout from the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape.
But the crux of the prosecution’s case centers not on the spectacle but on business transactions, including internal Trump Organization records in which payments to Cohen were falsely labeled legal expenses. Prosecutors argued that those payments were really reimbursements to Cohen doled out in chunks, for a $130,000 payment he made on Trump’s behalf to keep Daniels quiet. Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records. As he left a news conference Tuesday with supporters of the former president outside the courthouse, Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. defended his father’s decision not to testify.