Texas Monthly Reporter
Richard West was a Texas Monthly writer who joined the magazine in 1972, a few months before the inaugural issue in February 1973. He grew up in Highland Park and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. Before arriving at Texas Monthly, he served in the Army and as press secretary for Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes. A series he wrote for Texas Monthly won a National Magazine Award in 1979, and his story “Only the Strong Survive” won a Texas Institute of Letters award the following year. His book, Richard West’s Texas, published in 1982, chronicled his time living in and reporting on seven diverse areas of Texas. After leaving Texas Monthly at the end of 1980, West worked at New York Magazine, Newsweek, and D Magazine. He became a freelance travel writer in 1987 and worked in 52 countries over nearly twenty years.
West is an avid long-distance runner. He ran thirteen marathons when he was in his sixties, and he continues to jog regularly in his eighties. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.
By Richard West
By Richard West
By Richard West
By Richard West
By Richard West
By Richard West
Everybody in Laredo is being excessively kind to Tony Sanchez, Sr., these days, quite a change from several years ago when Sanchez took in ten to twelve thousand a year selling office supply furniture and trading oil and gas leases on the side to help make ends meet. Kindest of
By Richard West
By Richard West
Last year’s disreputable moments, lowest jinks, outrageous events, and preposterous personalities.
By Richard West
By Richard West
By Richard West
By Richard West
By Richard West
By Richard West
Owning a pickup is not, in itself, enough.
By Richard West
By Richard West
By Richard West
By Richard West
Fade in, interior six p.m. news set, long shot. As the picture comes closer, the familiar anchormen are relaxed and exchanging easy glances, preparing to bring you the latest news, sports, and weather. If you are standing close to the producer, you can hear the purr of his ulcer as
By Richard West
There it is, right there on the plate. Just where is that?
By Richard West
On a Saturday morning in January, 1971, three days before the inauguration of Governor Preston Smith and Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes, the then-Assistant US Attorney Theo Pinson strolled into Houston’s Avalon Drug Store after a toot on the town, a bit disheveled but still resplendent in his midnight blue tuxedo,
By Richard West
Ben Barnes’ decision to reenter politics is not a question of whether to, but of which party. Fort Worth attorney and Barnes’ closest friend Dee J. Kelly, says of the top vote-getter in Texas: “it is not a question of running again, but of which party to run in. He’s
By Richard West
Now that the Skylab space project is finished, NBC has moved from its cubicle at the Nassau Motor Hotel across from NASA to new offices at 4615 Southwest Freeway. They are only ten minutes from their affiliate station, KPRC-TV, where they can use Channel 2’s nine projectors, eight videotape machines,
By Richard West
Beginning at the end of May or early June, Dallasites will have a new and unique radio station. KERA-FM, 90.1 on the dial, will be the city’s first public radio outlet and will provide a welcome relief from the inane, shrill banter of jingles and jive from the top-40 jocks
By Richard West
Recently at a banquet at the Sheraton-Fort Worth, the Texas Institute of Letters announced its 1973 awards for literary excellence. Here are the winners:. . . The Carr P. Collins Award for the best nonfiction book: Lewis L. Gould for Progressives and Prohibitionists, Texas Democrats in the Wilson Era.. .
By Richard West
True to its own particular, relaxed style of life, Fort Worth was a late participant in the city festival field. For years, Tyler has held its Rose Festival; San Antonio, its Fiesta; El Paso, its Charro Days, and Austin, its Aqua Festival. Houston and Dallas have long since become too
By Richard West
Austin, a city of great natural beauty, with the Colorado River gliding by south of downtown and the pleasing congruence of hills and lakes flanking its west side, has a unique chance to beautify and humanize its central business district.Led by architect David Graeber, the East Sixth Conservation Society is
By Richard West
From former Dallas Times Herald reporter Tracey Smith comes this report of former governor John Connally on the banquet circuit in Bowling Green, Ohio. Smith is a Kiplinger Journalism Fellow at Ohio State University.Like other converts to a new faith, John B. Connally has become rabidly dogmatic in professing allegiance
By Richard West
This month’s H. Rap Brown “Power to the People” award is shared by the Fort Worth Junior Bar and the Council of Jewish Women for making it possible, through donations, for Tarrant County to have one of Attorney General John Hill’s regional consumer protection offices.The funds will pay for office
By Richard West
JUSTICE IN EL PASO Southern California mystery writer Ross McDonald in his best book, The Goodby Look, has his world-weary private eye hero Lew Archer lament, “I have a secret passion for mercy . . . but justice is what keeps happening to people.” Richard Wheatley’s justice for filing
By Richard West
SCARIEST MOVIE EVER?Austin movie makers Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel have made what they hope is the classic horror thriller. Truly terrifying movies are rare indeed. The trick is not merely to shock by using music, gore, or weird beings, but to create an atmosphere of fear, a much harder
By Richard West
We give appropriate recognition to all the people and events that have put us in the state we’re in.
By Richard West
Our travel guide, in search of the perfect taco, wanders along the 1248 mile border between Texas and Mexico. He wines, dines, and occasionally sightsees.
By Richard West
These veterans of endless smoke-filled rooms and committee sessions do more to shape state government than most elected officials. They're not all bad, but they're not all good, either.
By Richard West
Try one of these extended weekend trips. You'll know you've left home.
By Richard West and Griffin Smith Jr.
Over the Sierras to Topolobampo and back by the headiest of Mexican railroads.
By Richard West
Bikes have changed. Here’s how.
By Richard West
ONCE UPON A TIME VACATIONS were like Christmas. Vacation was the once-a-year, eagerly awaited catharsis, the big pay-off for 50 weeks of bringing in the bread. Trouble was that after two weeks on the road with the family, two dogs and grape jelly smeared on the windows, you returned home
By Richard West