Rep. Mike "Tuffy" Hamilton, R-Mauriceville, will chair the House Natural Resources Committee, taking over for Robert Puente, D-San Antonio. Puente resigned; Hamilton was vice chairman.

House Speaker Tom Craddick also named Frank Corte, R-San Antonio, to the Bexar Metropolitan Water District Oversight Committee. That was another Puente post.

Sen. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth, will chair the Senate's Select Committee on Economic Development, which will do interim reviews of the state's eco devo programs. Brimer's up for reelection this year; he was named to head the panel by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

Former state Rep. Paul Sadler, D-Henderson, is the new executive director of the Wind Coalition, a trade group of wind power producers and wind energy promoters. Sadler left the Texas House in 2003, after 12 years there.

John Pritchett is the new political director for Attorney General Greg Abbott's campaign. He was most recently at Austin-based Public Strategies Inc. and before that for Olson & Shuvalov, a political consulting firm. And he's worked on a mess of campaigns.

Stephen Bonner is leaving his state lobbying gig with Texas Instruments for a job with that same company heading public affairs in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Bonner, who was once a staffer working in the basement of the Pink Building, will be based in Brussels. Gray Mayes will take over his duties at TI.

Christine DeLoma is ditching her press pass to become the Texas Cable Association's new director of communications. She's been at the Lone Star Report for three years.

ONEOK has a new Texas lobbyist; Grant Ruckel is joing that company after five years as a Texas House staffer. He'll replace Rick Grundman, who moved into a different post with ONEOK's Texas Gas Service.

Deaths: Louie Welch, a five-term former mayor of Houston, from lung cancer. He was 89... Former Rep. Ralph Ray Wallace III, who left the Texas House in 1992 after 15 years in office, of unknown causes. He was 58.