State Senate Candidate Recounts Bad Boy Past -

He's looking forward to a chance to attract venture capital

The only willing Republican candidate for the District 22
State Senate seat that will be vacated by Wacoan Kip Averitt
went to work at the age of 14 on a hardship driver's license
to aid a father who was deeply in debt following a bruising
divorce.

They had been in Lubbock where he racked up an impressive
record for youthful infractions on his motorcycle and
climbing the catwalks of domed field house at Texas Tech.
After the divorce, they returned to the Metroplex where they
lived together during his high school years.

Within 18 grueling months of selling newspapers and
servicing a janitorial route, he recalls, the two of them
had worked themselves out of debt.

"When I tell you I'm fiscally conservative," Darren Yancy, a
Burleson insurance broker and venture capital broker who was
originally trained as an investment banker at the University
of Texas' Arlington campus, "it means I'm a tightwad."

He addressed a small Friday night gathering of voters in a
meeting room of a hotel on I-35 in Waco.

Graduating just in time for the 1987 stock market crash,
"the first real crash since 1929," he declared, Mr. Yancy
went to work selling Mazdas. He bettered his sales career
after four years to sell fire detection equipment, then
traded up to home security systems at Brinks where he helped
the national sales manager upgrade the program from a $99
startup fee to a $279 initial deal with more bells and
whistles attached.

When Brinks decided to promote him and demanded he relocate
his wife and family after leading the sales program as a
national top liner, he responded to a better offer from
Nationwide Insurance writing trucking liability, life and
casualty policies.

He has headed his own insurance and real estate brokerage
now for 16 years and branched out into researching the
market for alternative energy and biofuel programs,
desalinization plants to meet future demands for drinking
water, and a need for new and better ways of feeding our
transportation systems, industrial plants and homes to
achieve true energy independence.

His research into venture capital opportunities has opened
his eyes to many new biofuels above and beyond the solar and
wind power solutions. For instance, he claims, ocean-based
wind power turbines can generate enough horsepower to turn
electrical turbines and desalinate seawater simultaneously.

As a state senator, "I'd like to be there and be active
attracting venture capital."

He ticks off his qualifications as a social conservative.

Life begins in the womb.

Eminent domain policies as practiced in Texas are "a little
loosey goosey" to suit him. While he's not anti-growth, he
wants to see people properly compensated when utilities or
semi-public economic development corporations condemn
property. He has had several go-rounds with a pipeline
company that cut across his Burleson back yard in the middle
of the natural gas boom and located a valve station there.
That was when the second outfit came along with a similar
condemnation proceeding.

"I've got more money in my place now than I could ever sell
it for. I'm stuck," he said ruefully. State government
should become more active in protecting the rights of
property owners faced with similar circumstances, according
to Mr. Yancy.

Nullification of certain Federal mandates would restore the
guarantees of states rights in the 10th Amendment; the
retention of the peoples' individual rights under the
guarantee of the 9th Amendment that "The enumeration in the
Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to
deny or disparage others retained by the people;" and a
strict construction of the Second Amendment's guarantee that
the right of the people to keep and bear arms "shall not be
infringed."

How is something like that accomplished?

There has to be a resolution passed by two-thirds of both
houses of the legislature, then ratified by the voters. It
takes an exercise of the political will. Being a yes man
won't get the job done.

"If anyone thinks they're going to tell me that as a
freshman Senator I should take a back seat, I'm going to
tell them to have a nice day and go on about my business."

He does not believe in the evidence of global warming
because the polarity of the planet has been reversed more
than 300 times and the planet survived. Renewable energy
projects will eventually augment coal, natural gas and
nuclear projects. In fact, he claims his research shows,
modern researchers have found a way to bring a nuclear plant
on-line in less than half the present 15 years of start-up
time and have found new ways to dispose of the waste.

"Biofuels will soon be a two or three trillion dollar
industry."

What are biofuels? "To discuss that would be to divulge
trade secrets and I'm not going to get into that."

United Nations biodiversity treaties can be stopped at the
state line if legislators and voters team together to
nullify the new laws.

Cap and trade taxation is just another Value Added Taxation
sales tax scheme in disguise. "All cap and trade is, it's a
way to make you pay extra for what you use and curtail the
amount you do use."

Value Added Taxation? "That's just a poor man's tax.
That's all it is."

He favors equitable property taxation in which the appraisal
districts must adhere to a realistic cap of no more than a
certain percentage of appreciation in any single year.

Five percent? "I think that's too much."

The state water plan and water districting schemes so
lovingly prepared by Senator Averitt are a shaky
proposition. "I'm not sure I want to sign off on it."

Responding to questions from TEA Party members who object to
a new user fee of about $1,000 to drill a well on one's own
property - a provision of the new water district in which
McLennan County property owners have been placed - he said,
"I'm not for taxing the living daylights out of people."

Part of his mission to Waco involves fence mending.

He assured local residents that he would keep an office open
in Waco to hear their concerns and communicate with voters
on a daily basis.

"We have to improve McLennan County's image," he said of
current dust-ups between State Republican Party officials,
candidates and County Republican chairmen in the ten
counties of District 22 over the disputed candidacy of Mr.
Averitt, who has announced he does not wish to be re-elected
due to health concerns in spite of a draft Averitt movement.

Because of the state constitution, "There's no way McLennan
County will get carved up in redistricting the state Senate
district."

The 17th Congressional District is another matter, he
declared. Federal constitutional requirements are quite
different than those of the Texas state constitution.

Finally, he is in no mood to tolerate such inexplicable
devlopments as Possum Kingdom's hydroelectric dam being
taken off-line due to a lack of maintenance funding by the
Brazos River Authority.

"There is no other hydroelectric project nationwide that has
been taken off-line."

He applauded State Representative Doc Anderson's success in
guaranteeing $1.5 billion in DOT funds to improve and
maintain area roads.

How about education?

Mr. Yancy said "They're teaching to a test, thinking
everyone is going to go to college. We all know that 7 out
of 10 people aren't going to go to college." He called for
an expansion of "secondary level" education in vocational
and occupational industrial areas similar to the programs
found in the Texas State Technical College system.

His impression of present day educational practices.

Astonished, he said, "My kids say, 'Dad, help us with our
homework,' but they don't have any books!"

No books?

TEA Party members began an instant hubbub about the
unfeasibility of expecting every home to have a computer for
kids to use and the general unavailability of library
computer resources.