Nate Blakeslee
Nate Blakeslee has been a senior editor at TEXAS MONTHLY since 2006. He is the author of Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town, a book based on a story he broke in 2000 about a police corruption scandal in the Texas panhandle. His original story, for The Texas Observer, was a finalist for a National Magazine Award, the magazine industry’s highest honor, and led to follow-up coverage in the national and international media. In 2001 Blakeslee was named a finalist for the Livingston Young Journalist Award, and in 2004 he won the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award for his drug war reporting in the Observer. Blakeslee’s reporting on Tulia eventually resulted in a major reorganization of the state’s drug enforcement bureaucracy and the exoneration of some three-dozen wrongfully convicted individuals. The book, which was supported by a Soros Justice Fellowship from the Open Society Institute, was featured on a number of year-end lists of best books and was named a Notable Book of 2005 by the New York Times. It won the J. Anthony Lukas book prize and the Texas Institute of Letters best book of nonfiction prize and was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for first non-fiction.
In 2007, while Blakeslee was a contributing writer for The Texas Observer, he broke the story of sexual misconduct at a Texas Youth Commission prison for juveniles in the west Texas town of Pyote. The events described in the award-winning story became a major scandal and led to the firing or resignation of virtually all of the agency’s top officials in Austin and the indictment of two former officials at the prison. Blakeslee was recognized by the Texas Legislature for his reporting on the story.
Blakeslee was born and raised in Arlington, Texas. He has a master’s degree in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, where his field of study was the civil rights movement. He lives in Austin with his wife, Karen Poff, and their two children.
Features
Primary Targets
Michael Quinn Sullivan is the most powerful (and feared) activist at the Capitol. So who is he?
Drawing Straws
The future is likely going to require us to move large amounts of water from wet but sparsely populated places (a.k.a. East Texas) to thirsty, booming cities. Good thing there’s a plan for that. There is a plan, right?
Home on the Range?
Texas Parks and Wildlife has embarked on an ambitious plan to restore the desert bighorn sheep population in Big Bend Ranch State Park. To accomplish this goal, the department has had to make hard choices about which animals live, which animals die, and what truly belongs in the Trans-Pecos.
Up in the Air
No state has defied the federal government’s environmental regulations more fiercely than Texas, and no governor has been more outspoken about the “job-killing” policies of the EPA than Rick Perry. But does that mean we can all breathe easy?
20 Sessions
A brief history of every Legislature we’ve ever covered.
The Best & Worst Legislators 2011
For the Eighty-second Legislature (our twentieth at the Capitol), everything old was new again: the state faced a budget deficit; the governor harbored presidential ambitions; the members of the Best list were hard to find; and the names on the Worst list picked themselves.
Night of the Living Ed
With public education facing an estimated $7 billion in cuts, the question on everyone’s mind is, Are Texas schools doomed? So we assembled a group of dinner guests (a superintendent, advocates on both sides, an education union rep, and the commissioner of the Texas Education Agency) to find out. Check, please?
The Great Terquasquicentennial Road Trip
Some people call it a quartoseptcentennial, or a septaquintaquinquecentennial (seriously), but you’d better save your breath. You’ll need it on this wide-ranging 6,000-mile voyage commemorating Texas’s 175th birthday. It starts in Glen Rose, ends in Austin, and stops along the way at 175 places that tell the story of the state, from the grassy field in La Porte where independence was won to the parking garage in Dallas where the Super Bowl was dreamed up; from the Austin dorm room where Dell Inc. was born to the college hall in Houston where Barbara Jordan learned to debate; from the hotel in San Antonio where Lydia Mendoza recorded “Mal Hombre” to the—well, you get the idea. And you’d better get started. The road awaits . . .
Power Company
As we head into the most critical legislative session in decades—maybe ever—the question is not just, Who are the people with the most clout at the Capitol? It’s also, What do they want?
Tea for Texas
It has more supporters here than anywhere else. It fueled the Republican landslide. It has its own caucus. But what is the tea party? And how will it use its power?
In Our Backyard
The faces—and voices—of eighteen Texans who are living the debate over illegal immigration.
Business as Usual
Who’s the toughest opponent for Republicans who want to crack down on illegal immigration? Other Republicans.
Near/Far
Despite rampant fears to the contrary, the bloody drug violence in Mexico hasn’t spilled over into Texas—but that doesn’t mean it’s not transforming life all along the border.
Alex Jones Is About To Explode
Does the country’s most popular conspiracy talk radio host really believe that 9/11 was an inside job? That global warming is a plot cooked up by the World Bank? That an elite cabal wants to kill most of the people on the planet (including you)? Two million listeners think so—and they’re hanging on his every word.
The Bucket List
Driving the River Road, in far West Texas; having a drink at the Mansion on Turtle Creek, in Dallas; fishing for bass in Caddo Lake; eating a chicken-fried steak in Strawn; searching for a lightning whelk along the coast; and 58 other things that all Texans must do before they die.
Dream of a Common Language. Sueño de un Idioma Común.
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?
The 50 Greatest Hamburgers In Texas
On our first-ever quest for the state’s best burgers, we covered more than 12,000 miles, ate at more than 250 restaurants, and gained, collectively, more than 40 pounds. Our dauntless determination (and fearless fat intake) was rewarded with a list of 50 transcendent burgers—and you’ll never guess which one ended up on top. Check out our Best Burger section.
An Isolated Incident
After his son died of a drug overdose in his fraternity house at SMU, Tom Stiles began asking questions that campus authorities preferred not to answer. Two years later, he is still learning the truth about what happened—and why.
The Reluctant Prosecutor
After Randy Reynolds sat on his hands as the Texas Youth Commission scandal exploded, everyone wanted the district attorney of Ward, Reeves, and Loving counties bounced from his job. Everyone, that is, except the people of Ward, Reeves, and Loving counties.
Everyone’s Poop
Sewerage is the cornerstone of civilization, the sine qua non of urban life, and the best possible window into how we live, what we eat, and who we are.
The Elephant in the Room
Does Ron Paul's opposition to the Iraq war make him a traitor to his party and his country? Or the only real Republican in the presidential race?
Sins of Commission
There are plenty of people to blame for the latest shock-inducing juvenile corrections scandal, beginning with the so-called reformers who didn’t heed the lessons of the last one.
Family Values
It may surprise you to learn that gay couples in Texas are more likely to have children than those in most other states, or that San Antonio is a gay parenting mecca, with a higher percentage of gay households with children than any other U.S. city. So why are gay parents in such a state of legal limbo here? And why won’t the Legislature get government off their backs?
King Of the Christocrats
By preaching that the Founding Fathers opposed the separation of church and state, David Barton has become the darling of evangelicals everywhere—and one of the most powerful Texas Republicans you’ve never heard of.
Columns | Miscellany
Fracked Into a Corner?
Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have given us a natural gas boom—and a whole lot of questions.
The Swan Song of Ron
This year’s Republican primary will most likely be Ron Paul’s final run for office. And to the surprise of a political establishment that long ago wrote him off, he’s going out on a high note.
The Convert
After a sudden pang of conscience, former Bryan Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson became a pro-life activist and a star on the conservative talk show circuit. But is she telling the truth?
Risky Business
State representative Allen Fletcher is the chairman of a House subcommittee on white-collar crime. So how did his very own company get tangled up in a white-collar-crime investigation?
Will to Power
After the Texas Youth Commission imploded last year, one of the state’s fiercest advocates for criminal justice reform was tapped to help rebuild. Inside his yet-to-be-completed slog.
Reporter
Bobby Jones, 60
The War on Thugs
Five years after the Tulia fiasco put the state’s amateurish, irresponsible drug task forces in the national spotlight, more than half of them have been dissolved. That’s a good start.
Bust Town
It's been two years since Tulia's tainted drug busts first came to light. Do you really want to know how little has changed there?
Web Exclusives
Other Shoe Drops—But Not On Allen Fletcher
Tomball state representative Allen Fletcher is on his way to a second term. His former business associate may be on his way to the federal penitentiary.
Revolutionary Kind
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.
Overexposure?
The Dallas Police Department’s posting of photos in its “indecency” section on its Web site is probably constitutional—the fact that prostitution cases are also listed means that gay men as a class are not being singled out—but is it responsible?
FACEBOOK
RSS
TUMBLR
TM
Read Later