Dan Winters
Is it possible to be a true celebrity and not have had your picture taken by Dan Winters? Consider the list of stars he has photographed: Bono and Meryl and Willie and Gwyneth and, of course, Barack. So what about Ted (Nugent)? Even the cover shoot at the Motor City Madman’s ranch, near Waco, went off without a hitch. “He is as sharp as a tack,” Winters says. “I told him that I saw him perform at Cal Jam II, in 1977, when I was fifteen. He immediately corrected me and said, ‘It was 1978.’ ”
Patricia Kilday Hart
It has been two decades since writer-at-large Patricia Kilday Hart started following lawmakers for Texas Monthly’s biennial Best and Worst Legislators. What’s changed during that time? “The Lege has become more serious—more about work and less about parties,” says the longtime Austin resident, who reports on the Senate while senior executive editor Paul Burka covers the House. The technology is also different: Deliberations now appear on TV, and committee debates are archived online. “I rarely see a lobbyist in the gallery anymore,” Hart says. “The new unofficial gathering place is the Capitol cafeteria. Now that the session is over, I’m going to miss the chicken salad.”
Douglas Brinkley
There’s no question that Douglas Brinkley gets around. The famed historian lives in Austin, teaches full-time in Houston, and considers the Badlands of North Dakota to be his “second home.” That last fact helps explain the motivation behind his new biography about Teddy Roosevelt, called The Wilderness Warrior, which is excerpted here. As for Brinkley’s commute to Rice University, where he’s a tenured professor, he has one simple request: “Don’t tell the state troopers that I can drive down Texas Highway 71 with my eyes closed.”
