Senate Finance Chair Holds Sway over Funding
(WorldNews Mexico)

The car tire blew. The 1948 Ford sedan rolled off the highway from Columbus, throwing the 16-year-old driver nearly to his death. For eight years, he lay comatose in the Deming house where Sen. John Arthur Smith - today, arguably the most powerful man in the New Mexico Legislature - grew up. James `Jimmy` Franklin Smith was a star athlete and John Arthur´s big brother. The accident on March 30, 1952, shattered his cerebral cortex, the part of the brain that´s responsible for thinking and language. The family poured all its earnings from a small liquor store into paying for around-the-clock nursing care. John Arthur Smith, the youngest, was 11 when it happened. Smith recalls his reaction,...