Joe Wisnoski is joining the Moak, Casey, and Associates consulting firm after 28 years in state government. He was most recently deputy associate commissioner of the Texas Education Agency and is generally recognized as a wizard on school finance and education statistics. Former state legislator Steve Carriker is the new executive director of the Texas Association of Community Development Corporations. He's a veteran of both chambers; most recently, he'd been COO of the Corporation for the Development of Community Health Centers. Kurt Meacham is leaving the Pink Building to try his hand at Democratic political consulting. Meacham, most recently with Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, will do research for the Texas Progress Council and other groups. Luis Gonzalez, after four years as an analyst with the House Appropriations Committee, is joining Santos Alliances, a lobby firm just cross the street from the Capitol. Joel Romo joined the American Heart Association and will be their new state director of public advocacy in Austin. He had been chief of staff to Rep. Vilma Luna, D-Corpus Christi. Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds signed up with the U.S. Department of Education as regional representative for Texas and the four U.S. states adjacent to it. She worked on legislative issues for then-Gov. George W. Bush and has most recently been at the University of Texas Institute for Public School Initiatives. Appointments: Gov. Rick Perry named Ida Clement Steen to the Texas A&M University System board of regents. She's a former teacher and a current bank director and lives in San Antonio. Perry picked Greg Wilkinson of Dallas to the board of regents for the Texas State University System. He's the CEO of Hill & Wilkinson, Ltd.
  The Texas superintendent of the year is Susan Simpson of White Settlement ISD. She got the prize form the Texas Association of School Boards/Texas Association of School Administrators. 

Ed Strayhorn, husband of Texas Comptroller and gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn, had some kind of "incident" or seizure while on a hunting trip with friends in South Texas this morning and is under observation at Valley Baptist Hospital in Harlingen. A spokesman for the family says he's in good spirits, laughing, and "wants to get out of here."    

Charles Soechting says he won't seek another term as chairman of the Texas Democratic Party. In a note to members of the State Democratic Executive Committee and an interview, he said he wants to spend more time practicing law and raising kids. He also said "you could make book" on him seeking elective office in the future. Soechting, a Hays County lawyer, was chairman of the county party before he followed Molly Beth Malcolm into the state chairmanship. He said he'll have served three years when his term ends and that he doesn't want to do two more years when that time comes. The election is in June, and two names are floating around at the moment as possible candidates: Boyd Richie, an attorney in Graham, in North Texas, and Dennis Teal, a chiropractor from Livingston, in East Texas. Soechting says he doesn't intend to back a particular candidate, but doesn't completely rule it out. The party got a reboot this fall when a small group that includes Dallas lawyer Fred Baron and consultant Matt Angle unveiled a reorganization plan for the Democrats tied to a badly needed infusion of cash. Soechting says his departure wasn't a condition of that, but says it gave him a higher comfort level about leaving next year.