Andrew Sansom
Andrew Sansom is the classic example of a person who wasn’t born in Texas but got here as fast as he could. And that’s lucky for the state. A Navy brat, he was born in Nevada and moved with his family to Brazoria County before he turned one. The Texas Tech graduate served as the executive director of Texas Parks and Wildlife, and he now heads up the River Systems Institute, at Texas State University. This month the award-winning conservationist writes about three endangered places in Texas (“Lands That I Love”). “I’ve traveled all over, and one of my favorite places is Matagorda Island,” he says. “That’s where I want my ashes to go.”
Leslie Baldwin
“It took living in Paris and New York to get me back to Texas,” says photography editor Leslie Baldwin. The Dallas native spent time in France as a nanny and later worked as the cover coordinator at Time in Manhattan before returning to her home state. Baldwin joined TEXAS MONTHLY in 2003, and she works on every editorial page that has photos, including tracking down images for this year’s Bum Steer Awards and coordinating three separate shoots for “Lands That I Love.” “I’m always juggling different stories: features, the Filter, Reporter, and columns,” she says. “Maybe that should be my title—the juggler.”
Darren Braun
Photograph by Allison V. Smith
If any artist has redefined the Bum Steers cover, it’s Dallas-based illustrator Darren Braun. In 2008 he lampooned former Texas A&M football coach Dennis Franchione; in 2007 he created the now iconic image of Vice President Dick Cheney holding a smoking shotgun. This year former congressman Tom DeLay gets the treatment after he boogied-down on the show Dancing With the Stars. “The Saturday Night Fever pose was perfect,” Braun says. “I wanted to ham it up and make it hilarious.”
