Ted Delisi has officially split with Hillco Partners and is operating as Delisi Communications. Among other things, that gets him out of a firm that lobbies the Texas Department of Transportation, where his spousal unit, Deirdre Delisi, chairs the board. Also: Heather Vasek, who had been with the Texas Association for Home Care, left to join Delisi's firm. They'll do some politics, some PR and some lobbying.
Mary Miksa is retiring from the Texas Association of Business at the end of the year; she's been at TAB for 18 years and said in an email to friends that she's lived through more than 900 Monday morning staff meetings.
After nearly 20 years in the Texas House (with Reps. Jerry Yost, Gary Walker, and Mike Krusee), Laurie McAnally is moving to the Texas Department of Transportation. She'll be working for Bill Meadows, the Fort Worth insurance executive recently appointed to the Transportation Commission.
R.A. "Jake" Dyer of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is the latest victim of shrinkage in the news business in Texas and elsewhere in the U.S. Dyer is one of 150 people being laid off by that paper and the only one in what will now be a two-reporter Austin Bureau.
Gov. Rick Perry appointed:
• George Deshotels of Matagorda and Robert Jones of Corpus Christi to the Texas Coastal Coordination Council. Deshotels is a Matagorda County Commissioner; Jones is pastor of the Messianic Fellowship Church and host of a morning radio show.
• Alfred Chavira of Jacksonville, Julie Dowell of Bullard, Thomas Gann of Lufkin, and David King of Nacogdoches to the Angelina and Neches River Authority Board. Chavira is a contractor, Dowell is a retired police officer, and the two of them are being reappointed. Gann is president of Gann Medford Real Estate and King is director of human resources for Foretravel.
• Nancy Porter of Sugar Land, John Steinmetz of Lubbock, and Mary Ward of Granbury to the Brazos River Authority Board. Porter is director of communications for Fort Bend ISD. Steinmetz is market president of Security Bank. And Ward is regional president of Southwest Securities FSB.
• Jerry Daniel, a Truscott rancher and real estate investor; Clay County Commissioner Wilson Scaling II of Henrietta; Clyde Siebman of Pottsboro, an attorney; and veterinarian, farmer and rancher Cliff Skiles Jr. of Hereford to the Red River Authority Board. Skiles is being reappointed; everyone else is new.
• Dr. Kirk Aquilla Calhoun of Tyler to the State Health Services Council. He's the president of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler.
Sued: Former congressional candidate Gene Christensen, who lost to U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall in the GOP primary earlier this year. In the lawsuit, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott accuses Christensen of using money from his nonprofit charity to fund his political race and the Green Light racing team, a NASCAR outfit. They'll go to court next month.
