Now that the Houston Astros have Randy Johnson, can they afford to sign him to a long-term contract? His first two starts in the Astrodome boosted attendance by 20,000 fans a night. At an average ticket price of $10, that means his economic impact was $200,000, plus an additional $30,000
Hello, good buy.
Auditing the IRS.
At Texas’ top industrial design firm, the old style-versus-substance debate is a nonstarter: Why choose when you can have both?
Once more than a million acres, the Matador Ranch is today a fraction of that size. How it got from there to here is the story of Texas ranching.
No matter who’s in charge, the King Ranch still rules: It’s number one on our list of the state’s top twenty spreads.
For the first time in its history, the world-famous King Ranch is being run by someone other than a descendant of its founder. Can the mythic institution survive a changing of the guard?
The Austinites who founded the Collegestudent.Com Web site say the idea came to them as brilliant ones often do: over a beer. “We were griping about how hard it was to find housing, especially in the heat,” says Eben Miller, who at the time was a student at the University
Up with Dell, down with Union Pacific: We rate these and other Texas stocks.
Things get woolly for the state’s mohair producers.
Inside Tex Moncrief’s IRS mess.
The man who runs Continental Airlines is a rough-and-tumble Navy ex who talks more like a maintenance man than a corporate chief-but Gordon Bethune knows what he’s doing, and he gets results.
A Dallas company’s virtual child care.
The billionaire Basses had a vision—and money, of course. Now, thanks to their efforts, Fort Worth has the hottest downtown in Texas.
The best Texas CEOs.
After what seemed like a lifetime as the nation’s first daughter, Luci Baines Johnson has finally come of age.
Red McCombs, still on the sidelines
The verdict is in: Oprah loves Texas—and Texas loves Oprah. The queen of daytime talk swept into the Panhandle, turned the tide of public opinion, and had courtroom watchers asking, Where’s the beef?
To be a truly major player in the ad game, GSD&M needed a car account. When Mazda’s came up for review, the brash Austinites sprang into action.
The feud between billionaire Harold Simmons and his daughters is worthy of Shakespeare.
The Panhandle goes hog wild.
Why are small-town Texas newspapers thriving? Because unlike big-city dailies, they know their readers, and they give them what they want.
“I love lists,” says Ann Castle, who got into the listmaking business last year when the online magazine Slate asked her for a roundup of the nation’s biggest givers. “Because of the Slate list, lots of people have contacted me about doing this in their state,” she says, though she
He hasn’t been able to find his father’s killer, but Austinite David Wheeler’s computer programs are catching lots of other crooks.
All over Texas, smart shoppers are bidding on everything from antiques to airplanes. Join them before the best buys are going, going, gone.
They give to the neediest Texans.
From the Altshulers to the Zales, the state’s top philanthropists support a range of causes but have at least one thing in common: their selflessness.
A year after she was forced to file for bankruptcy, Houston’s Ninfa Laurenzo is cooking up a way to save her popular restaurant chain.
With increasing frequency, radio stations in Texas are changing hands—and aggressive Texas entrepreneurs are finally making waves.
The plane truth about airline surcharges.
Up on federal drug charges for the second time in fifteen years, the impresario of Antone’s nightclub in Austin may finally have to face the music.
Still plugged in.
Man equals myth.
The name of the gamer.
Once, before fast-food franchises and ecotourists took over Alpine, the Gallego family’s Mexican restaurant survived and thrived. Today, the kitchen is closed.
No one will admit we’re in the middle of one, even as the economy surges. How come? Because the last time we had it this good, bragging only hastened the arrival of another four-letter word: “bust.”
EDS, the company Ross Perot imbued with his own conservative image, is designing Internet sites for magazines like Elle. What a tangled Web we weave.
Boone Pickens no longer wears a tie. Herein lies a tale.
A little-known financial institution could be the future of the war on poverty in Texas.
Investors are bullish about Houston’s AIM Management Company, whose mutual funds have been on target for two decades.
In the eighties Tilman Fertitta’s seafood restaurants earned him millions while his hard-nosed business tactics earned him enemies. But these days the Galveston native is winning new respect in his hometown by standing up to the most powerful family on the Island.
Now that both its building and its mission have been renovated, Houston’s Contemporary Arts Museum is ready to win back the public and reestablish its eminence.
Whether playing for the luckless Houston Astros, running the world-champion New York Yankees, or confronting racism, Bob Watson has always stepped up to the plate.
The Texas Observer could be on its last legs (again).
In the youth-oriented world of Web page designers, calling someone young is really saying something—but these guys are young. Before any of them is old enough to drink, in fact, the cyberwunderkinder who run two-year-old Zero Factor Interactive (ZFI) have garnered an impressive roster of clients, including Who bassist John
Houston has every reason to be proud of the Alley Theatre: After fifty years in the business, it has national clout and a Tony award. Still, not everyone is pleased with its direction.
It started as a hippie sandwich shop in Austin. Now, more than two decades later, Schlotzsky’s is finally kicking the competition in the buns.
A Fort Worth filmmaker makes history on the Internet.
Sowing the seeds of the hemp craze.
In Texas the ultimate arbiter of good taste has always been Neiman Marcus, the Dallas-based department store that marks its ninetieth birthday next year.
