I'm so glad that now I know someone famous, and her husband.

Seriously, it'll be nice having Stacy and Kevin in the neighborhood. Lots of central texas prosecutorial types are glad to have them back in the neighborhood.

Besides, now I don't have to dial out of the area code for good advice.

Longview prosecutor takes post in Austin for attorney general's office

By JIMMY ISAAC
Longview News-Journal
Thursday, September 15, 2005

Stacee Brownlee is leaving the Gregg County District Attorney's office this week and moving to the state's capital city.

The Beaumont native is setting aside 15 years as a county prosecutor, including the past three years in Longview, to take a prosecutorial assistant's position in the criminal law enforcement division of the Texas Attorney General's office in Austin. Her husband, Kevin, who works at the AG's Medicaid fraud office in Tyler, will join her in Austin working in the cybercrimes division.

"I love prosecution. I can't imagine doing anything else," she said.

Brownlee considers the case of Natalie White as perhaps the most compelling of her Gregg County stint. White, 17, pleaded guilty to intoxication manslaughter in December in the death of 18-year-old Lauren Mackenzie Frazier in a collision on Loop 281 in Longview. White was sentenced to nine years in prison and is appealing that sentence.

"It was a tragedy from both sides," said Brownlee. "Of course, Lauren Frazier was killed in the prime of her life, and Natalie White was an out-of-control teenager who had everything in the world and destroyed it in one night."

The Brownlee family has two children, 4-year-old Colton and Beaux, 2, who has Down's syndrome.

Brownlee said the long hours of motherhood and career can take an emotional toll but her colleagues in the DA's office have helped out. Criminal investigator Mike Augustine sometimes picks up the boys when Brownlee is working late, and the county's probation office bought her a laptop computer to use when she's been in the hospital with Beaux � twice for surgeries and once for pneumonia.

"The support of your office is one of the most important things," she said, "and without the support of my friends and my husband, I couldn't do it."

Today will be Brownlee's last official day at the DA's office.

Everyone from Fort Bend County to San Antonio and across Texas wish these people the very best. Good luck to Stacy and Kevin in their new home!

Must have been a slow news day

Its nice to be back in Austin.