History Lesson 
Personal Best
Favorite moments in the 30 years of Texas Monthly.
AN ANNIVERSARY JUST WOULDN'T be an anniversary without a dose of nostalgia. So on the occasion of our thirtieth, we've decided to take a trip down memory lane with those who've shaped the words and images of this magazine throughout the years (dates indicate term of service to the magazine, title reflects current or last position held). Read on as current and former writers, editors, and art directors share some of their favorite moments:
Favorite Covers
Sybil Raney
1974-1979, Art Director
As the first design director of Texas Monthly, I experienced the exciting challenge of charting new territory for editorial design in Texas. Back in the days before computers, stylists, modeling agencies, and magazine photographers and illustrators in Texas, I was faced with the task every month of how to stage a cover shot with a big idea and a little budget, using photographers and artists who had never done work before for a magazine. In looking back at all the covers I did, I think the earliest turning point for the magazine in terms of sales and awareness was the Redneck cover (August 1974). It was a daring concept for the 1970's, editorially as well as graphically. Back then I didn't have a budget for models, so I would have to cajole people into modeling, and this was one of my toughest sells. Close to deadline and not having found the right "neck" among my usual suspects of staff, family, and friends, I hit the streets, as I did many times for my models. I finally found "the neck" in the paint department at Kmart. He was a long-time salesman there and worked on his off-time painting houses—hence his red neck. I told him I'd like for him to be on the cover of Texas Monthly—but I only wanted to photograph the back of his neck. Amazingly, he agreed. Before he could change his mind, I ran to the pay phone, called the photographer, and told him to get ready. I bought some blush and a white T-shirt as I was leaving Kmart and met the paint salesman at the photographer's house. I enhanced his already red neck with the blush, he put on the white T-shirt, and we got a great cover shot. When it came out on the newsstands, people grabbed it off the shelves! I know because I actually went to stores that month and watched people in check-out lines pick up the magazine. They looked at the cover and then picked it up. They thumbed through it, glanced at the layouts, photographs, illustrations, and headlines—and then bought it! I knew I'd done my job when they took it off the newsstand in the first place because of the cover. From then on there was no stopping us, artists and writers together, as we marched through all the Texas icons, dissecting them with loving glee for the purpose of better understanding ourselves and all of Texas too.
D. J. Stout
1987-1999, Art Director
Of all the covers I created during my thirteen years as Texas Monthly's art director, the July 1992 cover of Ann Richards on a motorcycle is my all-time favorite. I have a vivid memory of looking at the printer's proof of that cover and thinking to myself that it was the perfect cover for that particular moment in Texas. I couldn't wait for it to get printed and circulated across the state.
I have always admired the classic Esquire covers of the '60s created by George Lois for the brilliant editor Harold Hayes. Lois was an advertising man who wasn't even officially on the Esquire staff. Hayes gave him the creative freedom to create what were often controversial and vital cover ideas that became legendary because they had a strong point of view and they were timely. Sometimes Lois would create a cover idea that didn't even have a written piece to go with it. Those covers were usually based on something that was going on at that very moment in America, and that's why they would resonate so strongly with the audience. The "White Hot Mama" Texas Monthly cover featuring then Governor Ann Richards on a Harley Davidson "Hog" was the closest I ever came to that ideal.
I remember being in the editorial meeting when we began to discuss the cover story. I had noticed a short story in the local newspaper where Ann Richards had been quoted saying that for her 60th birthday she wanted to learn how to ride a Harley. The Harley Davidson Company had heard the statement as well and sent her a custom Harley as a gift. When we started talking about how Ann was really "riding high" in her popularity and how she was this feisty, unapologetic Texas character, the vision of her riding the motorcycle came to me all of a sudden, and I blurted out the headline, "Red Hot Mama," which we altered to "White Hot Mama" to go with her trademark white hairdo. At the time, Ann Richards was at the height of her popularity. She had been selected to chair the National Democratic Convention, and there was speculation that she was in a position to take a run for the presidency. The subhead for our cover story was "Ann Richards is Riding High. Can She Be the First Woman President?" Time would prove how wrong we were with the premise of that story, but the cover itself has lived on to become an all-time favorite and a Texas Monthly icon.
D.J.'s favorite Texas Monthly moment:
When I was interviewing for the art director position in 1987, I was told over and over again that Texas Monthly was "a writer's' magazine." Thirteen years later Texas Monthly marked its twenty-fifth anniversary with a major celebration of its photography. Of all the great moments that I experienced during my tenure as Texas Monthly's art director, the twenty-fifth anniversary stands out the most.
Obviously Texas Monthly has built its reputation as one of the best regional magazines in the country by maintaining a high level of literary quality, and I have nothing but the highest respect for the writing talent that has been featured within its pages over the years. On the other hand Texas Monthly has distinguished itself from other run-of-the-mill regional publications, and most national publications, by being a showcase of original and meaningful photography and illustration.
For the twenty-fifth anniversary I convinced Texas Monthly to celebrate its rich photographic heritage in a variety of ways. We created a special issue of the publication that featured one hundred of the magazine's most memorable photographs and the stories behind them. We also published a beautiful coffee table book and mounted an exhibition of the photographs that traveled to museums and galleries all over Texas and then to New York and Los Angeles.
The opening of the exhibition at the LBJ Library was attended by a massive crowd. Lucy Johnson told me that she had never seen that big of a crowd at the LBJ Library. The speakers at the opening ceremony were Publisher Mike Levy, Editor Greg Curtis, photographer Keith Carter, First Lady Laura Bush, and myself. When it was my turn to speak I was so overwhelmed by the size of the crowd and by the enormity of that special moment that I got all choked up and forgot to thank about half the people I had written down in my notes. It was and always will be the highlight of my career at Texas Monthly.
Scott Dadich
2000-present, Art Director
My favorite cover is the February 1994 issue featuring Joaquin Jackson, the former Texas Ranger. If there was ever a cover that exemplified everything the concept of Texas and more importantly, Texas Monthly, this would be it. Joaquin is the ultimate Texas man/character, and Dan Winters' elegant and proud depiction of him is really breathtaking. I remember the first time I saw this cover—I was struck. I stared at it for hours wondering about that place and that man. The type is clean and classic. Basically, it's the perfect cover—intrigue, drama, lore, perception v. reality, and one larger than life character—all rolled up into one.
Favorite Stories
Jim Atkinson
1980-present, Writer-at-Large
Here's what comes to mind for me. Back in April or May of 1983, I published "The 89 Greatest Texas Bars," a sodden exploration of the state's bar culture. It was a big hit. Then in July 2001 I published "Sober," a chronicle of my (successful) battle with alcoholism during the early nineties. It's not often that you get that kind of life-story arc over 20 years or so in a single magazine with a single writer. So those would be my first two.
Third, a story I did in May 1987 entitled "Coots" comes to mind because it was fun—and, I'm told, funny—and it did chapter-and-verse on a Texas type: the old coot.
The fourth and fifth stories I'd suggest are crime stories I wrote in the late eighties, when I was writing about crime (and hanging out in bars). Both were ahead of their time and described a trend before it had truly emerged and become part of conventional wisdom. The first was "The Desperate Search for Christie Meeks" (June 1985), which turns out to have been prescient by a decade or two, since it chronicled the search for a missing little girl up here in Dallas and all attendant crises, characters, etc., that we've become so familiar with since the disappearance of Elizabeth Smart. The second of them was "The War Zone" (November 1988), which I've been told was one of the best and most succinct descriptions of the crack epidemic in depressed inner city neighborhoods (in this case, South Dallas) written during the crack era of the late eighties.
Gary Cartwright
1973-present, Senior Editor
"Who Was Jack Ruby?" (November 1975). I knew Ruby in Dallas and was around him a lot during the days just before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. For me, this was a story that personified Dallas in the late fifties and early sixties and shed light on one of the signal events of the twentieth century. Later, in light of new revelations, I changed my mind about some of my conclusions in the story—for example, I'm now convinced that Ruby knew Oswald and was involved with the New Orleans Mob that may have ordered the killing of the president. Nevertheless, this remains one of my best stories.
My Library
