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RIP Billie Jo Spears
Country star Billie Jo Spears died of lung cancer at her home in Vidor on Wednesday at the age of 73. Billboard called Spears a “husky-voiced singer who became one of the most respected female artists...
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R.I.P. Big Tex
Big Tex passed away Friday after being burned alive. He was 60. He was preceded in death by his father, Jack Bridges. His tragic demise proved that “Texas tough” is not synonymous with “fire...
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People We’ll Miss
How much do we love Big Tex? Arguably, the sudden way in which the State Fair of Texas icon perished in a fire dealt a bigger emotional blow to Texans (and to Dallas) than the loss of Larry Hagman–at...
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Sharp Tressed Man
In late 1972 ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill were summoned to Johnny Winter’s Houston apartment. The Beaumont-raised Winter—whom Rolling Stone famously put on the map in 1968 by describing him as...
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Faded Royalty
During a lull in the conversation at the Dallas Petroleum Club, my lunch companion looked past me and nodded toward the corner of the room. “That’s Bunker and Herbert Hunt over there,” he said. “What...
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Fido Is Survived by His Water Bowl and Six Chew Toys
The first rule of the Internet is never trust the Internet. This is particularly true of Twitter. Case in point: this past Thursday San Antonio Express-News reporter John W. Gonzalez tweeted out the...
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People We’ll Miss 2015
According to the most recent figures, about 178,500 Texas residents die each year. That’s about 0.07 percent of our entire population, a little more than 1-in-140 people. So there’s a chance a Texan...
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RIP, Paul Ray
“It’s twine time! Ooh, ah, ooh, ah, ooh, ah!” Anybody who’s lived in Austin in the past 45 years and listened to KUT (now KUTX) on Saturday night knows what’s next. The snap of a snare drum, a snaky...
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President George H. W. Bush Dies at 94
George Herbert Walker Bush—Texan by choice, oilman by trade, and forty-first President of the United States by popular vote—died in Houston late Friday at the age of 94, the oldest living president in...
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How Herb Kelleher Made the World a Whole Lot Smaller
The boarding area at Love Field was packed, as it often was in the early morning in the late nineties. I was waiting for a Southwest Airlines flight to Houston, debating whether to fight my way toward...
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Al Reinert, Who Chronicled Houston’s Space Age in Magazines and Film, Passes...
Update, Tuesday, January 29, 2019: A memorial service for Reinert will be held Saturday, February 16, at 2 p.m. at the Wittliff Collections on the top floor of the library at Texas State in San Marcos....
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A Eulogy for Alan Peppard, the Arbiter of Dallas Society
What follows is a eulogy delivered by Texas Monthly Executive Editor Skip Hollandsworth upon the death of his longtime friend, Alan Peppard.When Alan Peppard was a kid growing up on Stefani Drive in...
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Remembering Don Graham, the Demanding Critic Who Helped Put Texas Literature...
If you don’t chortle or make a sneering comment about oxymorons when you hear the phrase “Texas literature,” you likely have Don Graham to thank. The longtime University of Texas English professor was...
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Farewell to the “Rambling Boy,” Lonn Taylor
“What is this word, ‘backstory’?” Lonn Taylor asked a few years back, while I was visiting his wife Dedie and him at their place in Fort Davis. The word clearly irritated him. “There’s the story, and...
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H. Ross Perot (1930-2019) Was a Larger-Than-Life Texan
H. Ross Perot died on Tuesday morning. The 89-year-old billionaire and former two-time presidential candidate had lived with leukemia since February.A Texarkana native, Perot lived most of his life in...
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The Last Boy Scout
Long before Texans had heard of “no pass, no play,” and before free trade was a major political issue, the diminutive Dallas billionaire H. Ross Perot entered my life as a super-patriot who believed...
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How Katherine Owens Transformed Dallas Theater
Dallas doesn’t always get the credit it deserves for its rich theatrical history. Today the city is flush with young actors, directors, and playwrights mounting exciting new projects and productions....
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Bunny Becker, 1940–2019: Saying Goodbye to a Grand Dame of Texas Wine
While many Texans are squeezing in their last summer vacations in August, those in the state’s wine industry are hard at work, putting in long hours to bring in the harvest. But although this year’s...
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Daniel Johnston Will Live on in Ways Few Artists Get To
There aren’t many people who wrote sadder songs than Daniel Johnston did. Or weirder songs. Or funnier ones.Johnston became famous in that Austin-in-the-early-nineties way that Richard Linklater, the...
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Remembering T. Boone Pickens, the “Aw-Shucks” Billionaire
When T. Boone Pickens graduated with a geology degree from Oklahoma State, in 1951, his father, Thomas Boone Pickens, told him that “a fool with a plan beats a genius with no plan every time. My...
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