September 2009 Cover

Photograph by Lionel Deluy.

September 2009

Table of Contents

Features

And you would be too if you were an itinerant Rollerblader with a passion for pirates who’d reinvented the game of college football, brought joy to Lubbock, beaten UT, and narrowly missed a shot at a national champi- onship. And what you’d be thinking is, “Gangway!”

From Luling’s Watermelon Thump Queen to Gilmer’s Queen Yam, small-town Texas is full of festival royalty, and pretty is the head that wears the crown.

A slide show of images featuring our state’s royalty, from the Poteet Strawberry Festival Queen to Sweetwater’s Miss Snake Charmer.

The future of Texas depends on how well we are able to educate kids who can’t speak English. Has an elementary school in El Paso figured out the best way to do it?

Is it the crispiness? The crunchiness? The saltiness? Thankfully, a small cadre of researchers in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Texas A&M has spent much of the past thirty years munching on this question.

Columns

Behind the Lines

An open letter to the lucky new chair of the most dysfunctional agency in Texas, the State Board of Education.

Paul Burka reads “Lowe and Behold.”

Letter From San Angelo

Everyone was shocked when San Angelo’s hugely popular mayor suddenly left town with his gay lover. Everyone, that is, except the citizens of San Angelo.

Letter From Galveston

A year has passed since Hurricane Ike slammed into Galveston, but my hometown is still reeling from a storm without end.

Sarah Bird

It was the breast of times, it was the worst of times.

Sarah Bird reads “Mammary Dearest.”

Reporter

The Horse’s Mouth

The Working Life

Dawn Cockrell, midwife.

The Texanist

Will hiring a yard guy make me soft?

Will hiring a lawn service to do my mowing make me soft?

The Manual

How to dove hunt.

The experts from the Dallas Gun Club and World Wide Blast and Cast teach Andrea Valdez how to hunt dove.

Street Smarts

Take a virtual tour of the Thunderbird Hotel in Marfa.

Take a virtual tour of Maiya’s in Marfa.

Hollywood, TX

How Mike Judge got his groove back.

Texas Monthly Talks

Tanya Tucker on life on the road and her new album.

Book Review

Author Interview

Music Review

Artist Interview

At 73, the Brownsville native has had a recording renaissance.

The Filter

Pat’s Pick

Fort Worth

The Filter: Dining

Miscellany

Editor’s Letter

Editor Jake Silverstein introduces the September 2009 issue. 

Roar of the Crowd

Sam Gwynne, David Strohl and Karen Olsson.

Web Exclusives

The photographer talks about her new book and life on skates.

She’s the girl who wears cowboy boots under her poufy white taffeta dress every weekend as she rides in some other town’s parade.

One Lebanese student’s experience in Austin, Texas.

I avoid saying the word “diet” like the plague. I try to be careful about what I eat and what I do because I know my six-year-old daughter is watching me. She’s listening.

Colum McCann’s new novel revolves around Philippe Petit’s high-wire walk between the Twin Towers in 1974.

Daniel Miller, the president of the Texas Nationalist Movement, is a proud secessionist. And the tea parties were just the beginning for this true believer.

From the cowgirls racing around barrels to the cowboys hanging on for their lives atop bucking bulls, there’s nothing quite as exciting as watching the rodeo at the Fort Worth Stockyards.

The original dirty dancer, Patrick Swayze, died Monday at the age of 57.

Despite its status as a public health emergency, is the swine flu just another flu?

Multimedia

Editor Jake Silverstein introduces the September 2009 issue. 

The experts from the Dallas Gun Club and World Wide Blast and Cast teach Andrea Valdez how to hunt dove.

Will hiring a lawn service to do my mowing make me soft?

A slide show of images featuring our state’s royalty, from the Poteet Strawberry Festival Queen to Sweetwater’s Miss Snake Charmer.

Paul Burka reads “Lowe and Behold.”

Take a virtual tour of the Thunderbird Hotel in Marfa.

Take a virtual tour of Maiya’s in Marfa.

Take a virtual tour of Maiya’s in Marfa.

Sarah Bird reads “Mammary Dearest.”

Recipes

Recipe from Ellerbe Fine Foods, Fort Worth.

Recipe From Chef David Bull’s Interactive Cookbook, Bull’s Eye On Food

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