2 dead as chartered bus with Texas school athletes crashes

DELL CITY, Texas (AP) - Texas Department of Public Safety authorities say two people are dead after a head-on crash involving a pickup truck and a chartered bus carrying 34 coaches and athletes from seven El Paso high schools returning home from a regional track meet in Lubbock.

El Paso Independent School District officials identified one of the victims as a coach, 48-year-old Arcadio Duran Jr., from Irvin High School. Seventeen others aboard the bus were hospitalized with injuries considered not life threatening.

Troopers said the other person killed was the driver of the pickup truck, 51-year-old Gary Lawson, of Hobbs, New Mexico.

The collision occurred early Sunday on U.S. Highway 62/180 in Hudspeth County, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) east of El Paso.