1991

Brand Name

Long forgotten, Western artist Till Goodan’s bucking broncs and stalwart cowboys are bringing big money and sparking a revival.

“I Have Made Their Lives Miserable”

Young girls who want to win an Olympic gymnastics medal have to pay the price, and Bela Karolyi makes sure that they don’t get off cheap.

Paper Trail

Why isn’t the Texas state archives trying harder to recover rare historical papers?

Uncandid Camera

What a puff piece! 60 Minutes, which has eviscerated many a victim over the years, gave Ann Richards the royal treatment in its October 27 profile. When interviewer Morley Safer wasn’t rewriting history (blaming Clayton Williams’ rape gaffe for the unraveling of his campaign, when in fact Claytie maintained a

John the Baptist, Spain, 1954

Photograph by George Krause

Food for Thought

I had high expectations when I subscribed to Texas Monthly to use in a reception area of our company. I was very disappointed when I saw the “What a Dish!” cover [TM, October 1991]. If I had wanted to put a half-naked, sleazy female in my reception area, I would

Santa Speaks

Every day is Christmas for Claus clone Carl Anderson.

Hard Rock Cachet

Urban climbers have all the ups and downs of cityscapes in their grasp.

S. A. Split

The Cisneroses aren’t the only ones in the Alamo City fighting over their divorce.

Down Mexico Way

“Mexico Mike” Nelson writes the book on seeing Mexico by automobile.

Plains Poll

For the Bush administration, Lubbock is still the hub of popular opinion.

Nervous Wrecks

A breakdown in state tow truck regulation leaves motorists stranded.

Down in Del Valle

In an affluent suburb of Monterrey, young Mexican professionals hunger for prestige and try to live like Americans.

Light My Fire

After struggling to give up smoking, I have come to a compromise: Never smoke more than one cigarette—at a time.

Murder in the Melting Pot

Some Vietnamese immigrants live the American dream. But for the family of Vu Dinh Chung, the dream turned into a fatal nightmare.

Golden Oldies

Seven legendary Texas musicians who won’t ever let the music stop.

Bear With Me

Black bears have returned to Big Bend National Park, and our author is determined to find one.

A Round Per Second

Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any pumpkins; they would have shown vividly the violence these guns could do. But we didn’t let that slight disappointment stop us. At a remote rifle range, we blasted away. Or, to be precise, I blasted away, as my two friends, a law enforcement officer and

Then and Now

Two San Antonio shows examine how Texas artists interpret the state’s past and present.

The Three Kingdoms of Kathy Whitmire

Her critics used to say that Houston’s mayor was a great administrator but a bad politician. Now, on the eve of her toughest race, her critics are saying just the opposite.

The War for Thee University

Pray for Baylor. The Baptists are calling each other flat-earthers and liberal parasites, and the school they call Jerusalem on the Brazos is caught in the middle.

Dirty Deal

Texas politics has seen its share of backroom deals, but for sheer brazenness, it’s hard to top the recent play by nineteen Democratic senators that effectively repealed the brand-new Senate redistricting plan and substituted their own creation—a nifty feat, considering that the Legislature was not in session at the time.

Fishing Cabin on the Pedernales River

Austinite Rebecca McEntee’s nostalgic view of a Hill Country retreat appears in Texas on a Roll–Images of Texas by Texas Photographers (Thomasson-Grant, $50), a project of the state’s three chapters of the American Society of Magazine Photographers. Members were asked to submit the best of their work. Some 160 photographers

A Select Few

“The Texas 100” [TM, September 1991] refers to my attitude about George Bush and Dresser Industries. Dresser is a fine company with an excellent leader, Jack Murphy. We enjoy extensive business and personal relationships with that company; in fact, on my trip to Iraq we retrieved the Dresser employees and

Bona Fide Nuts

Dallas’ Bonehead Club revels in a well-deserved reputation for contrariness.

Biting Remarks

New guides to Houston and Metroplex eateries hash it out.

Bummin’ Around

The most satisfying part of being a Houston Oilers fan isn’t their record this season or quarterback Warren Moon’s command of the run-and-shoot offense or the way the home crowds get so worked up that they threaten to blow the roof off the Astrodome. No, it’s that distinctive drawl on

Candle Power

Troubles disappear when they’re seen in the proper light.

Water Rites

Trans-Pecos ranchers grapple with El Paso over the West’s most valuable resource.

Fab Three

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, heroes of hippiedom, are alive and well and living in Paris.

Plains Song

When Lubbock-born songwriter Butch Hancock steps onstage, West Texas haunts his music.

Not Those Fort Worth Basses

Writer Rick Bass’s ornery, individualistic family has spent a generation explaining exactly who they are not.

Dan Rather Is a Good Ol’ Boy

But he’d rather not leave CBS to return to Texas, at least not yet.

Playing It Safe

Can you avoid criminal violence?

Blood in the Streets

Blood in the Streets. Houstonians and homicide detectives struggle to cope with a deadly crime wave.

Texas Breaks Away

The ceremony was to honor the four-score living Texans who had participated in the Revolution. They were all quite old, of course. It had been 75 years since 1992, when Texas had become a breakaway republic and, like Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, and the Ukraine in Soviet Russia, sought independence from a

Billy and Lyndon

Lyndon Johnson understood all too well the advantages of being Billy Graham’s buddy.

Double Visions

Melissa Miller’s latest paintings are a dark departure from her past; a Rauschenberg retrospective examines his youthful eye.

The Eye of the Bull

All I wanted to do was photograph the running of the bulls. I never intended to risk my life.

Benny and the Boys

Sure, they were gangsters, but they were our gangsters.

Conflict of Interest

Firefighter at the End of the Day

Paris-based Sebastião Salgado was among the international corps of photographers who converged on Kuwait last February to document the oil-field inferno that the retreating Iraqis left behind. On assignment for the New York Times Magazine, Salgado also captured the crushing weariness of the firefighters, many of whom worked for Texas

Unsung Hero

Austin’s Kevin Schwantz is one of the world’s most famous and highest-paid athletes, and no one in Texas knows who he is.

Born Again

Like Houston, the Galleria was hit hard by the bust. Now savvy marketing and a face lift have brought back its glamour.

Guard Duty

Let’er Rip!

Brown’s formula for success guarantees a happy ending.

Le Rave On

Where else but Texas would a rocker go to record Buddy Holly?

Club Hubbub

A private club’s prolonged turf war of the sexes leaves everyone teed off.

S.A. Print Wars Revisited

It seems like only yesterday that media czar and San Antonio Express-News owner Rupert Murdoch rallied his troops in Texas’ most heated daily newspaper war with the battle cry “Bury the bastards.”