The Apprentice
Carrying on the legacy of the legendary musician Steve Jordan isn’t easy, especially when you’re only 22 years old and blind. But Juanito Castillo is too busy reinventing the conjunto accordion to care.
Katy Vine joined the editorial department of Texas Monthly in 1997 and became a staff writer in 2002. As a general assignment reporter, she has written dozens of features on a range of topics, including rocket scientist Franklin Chang Díaz, hip-hop legend Bun B, barbecue pitmasters, cult leader Warren Jeffs, refugees in Amarillo, the moon landing, a three-person family circus, chess prodigies, a woman who kidnapped the Kilgore Rangerettes director and her daughter, an accountant who embezzled $17 million from a fruitcake company, and a con man who crashed cars, yachts, and planes for insurance money. Her stories have been anthologized in Best American Sports Writing and Best Food Writing. Her feature story about a West Texas sting operation was the inspiration for the 2012 television series The Client List.
Carrying on the legacy of the legendary musician Steve Jordan isn’t easy, especially when you’re only 22 years old and blind. But Juanito Castillo is too busy reinventing the conjunto accordion to care.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Huey P. Meaux, one of the most successful and significant record producers in Texas history, died last weekend at age 82. He leaves a legacy marked by brilliant songs and some very bad decisions.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Our quiz shouldn’t be hard, so long as you’ve been paying attention. You have been paying attention, right?
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Can new research predict which soldiers will suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder—and which won’t?
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Susan Hyde’s children were constantly in and out of the hospital with one illness or another. But were they the ones who were sick?
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made history as the first humans to set foot on the surface of the moon. Forty years later, the researchers, astronauts, engineers, scientists, and NASA officials who made the voyage possible remember the day the Eagle landed.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Bob Hudgins, director of the Texas Film Commission, talks to Katy Vine about the “Waco” controversy, tax incentives, and how to get your movie made in Texas.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Location: The Frio, outside LeakeyWhat You’ll Need: Inner tube, groceriesI was promised no mosquitoes. The little buggers had just started to attack back home in Austin, and as I smacked my first one of the season against the wall (making a mess but impressing my husband and
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
For Steve Kemble, having as good a time as humanly possible as often as humanly possible is very serious business.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
After 118 years, Lubbock finally appears ready to allow liquor stores inside the city limits—unless a shutter salesman and a handful of Baptists can turn back the clock.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
The full-time pre-K bill seems like a slam dunk. The price tag: $300 million.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Ninety-four percent of Texas high school students receive abstinence-only education. More than half of these teens are losing their virginity. So what do the majority of Texans really want their kids to know about sex?
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
So Raising Sand, the collaborative album between Robert Plant and Alison Kraus, produced by Fort Worth native T Bone Burnett, cleaned house with five trophies at Sunday night’s Grammys. Was anyone besides me not surprised? I guess it could have been a disaster, with all the egos involved, but anything
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
The El Paso City Council may override the mayor’s veto to create a debate on the current U.S. drug policies. In these interviews, the mayor, council members, and others explain their views.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
The reason so many Texans testified in favor of strong language supporting evolution in the TEKS is because they’re having to play defense and they’re losing.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Find out by taking our quiz.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Texas receives more federal funding for abstinence education than any other state. But is teaching kids not to have sex the same as sex education?
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Dave Hickey on being an art critic.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
The future according to third-graders.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
What Samir Patel learned in five years of not winning the national spelling bee (other than the root words of “eremacausis”).
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
The CEO of Blue Bell gives us the scoop.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
How Dirk Fowler became the state’s latest, greatest poster artist.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
A pro at helping cons.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Sixth Street and Lamar Boulevard, Austin.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Martha Josey on the basics of barrel racing.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
At the Giddings State School, violent teenagers come to terms with their horrific crimes—and learn how to avoid committing them again—through role-playing exercises in a jailhouse version of group therapy. This is what your tax dollars are paying for? Well, it works. For a while, at least.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Will the upscale shoppers of Plano really buy what Wal-Mart is selling?
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
How the fire to end all fires obliterated Ringgold—and how residents of the tiny North Texas town are putting their lives back together.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
The prison affected me personally. I grew up parking cars at the prison rodeo. I had a stepfather who was a prison guard.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
For going on five years, my admiration has grown for the weekly paper in the tiny Panhandle town of Miami (above). The New York Times it ain’t, but it tells me everything I could ever want to know about local births and deaths, windblown mail, bad potholes, and good yards.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
As mythical creatures go, Bigfoot is right up there with the Loch Ness Monster and the Abominable Snowman. But in Jefferson, the search for the hairy, hulking beast with the, er, big feet is big business—and deadly serious.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Bobbi Jo and Jennifer were young, in love, and on the road, with the wind at their backs and a happy future ahead of them. All that stood in their way was a dead body back in Mineral Wells.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
A one-on-one with Brooklyn Pope reveals her to be—off the court, at least—a fairly typical fifteen-year-old girl. But when the game clock starts, she’s the future of women’s basketball. Maybe basketball, period.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
From humble Oak Cliff roots did a hip intellectual giant grow. In this oral history, friends and fans remember the late Grover Lewis, one of the great magazine writers of our day.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Meet the 22-year-old hooker who, with her fellow “massage therapists,” scandalized Odessa
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
For several months, TV shrink Dr. Phil McGraw has been picking apart— in full view of his national audience—the life choices made by residents of the Central Texas town of Elgin, who are apparently too fat, too horny, and too domestically violent for their own good. The diagnoses have not
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Brandon Hughey didn't ask to be a celebrity. All the San Angeloborn soldier wanted was to avoid fighting what he considered an unjust war. So he fled to Canadaand now the private's every move is public.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Restaurant mogul Tilman Fertitta means to redevelop Galveston into what some say will be a Gulf Coast version of Atlantic City. No wonder he's making waves.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
What was your first act like? I did my first act the night of my high school graduation. I was embarking on a profession where you had to be entertaining and charming, and I wasn’t equipped to take it all in. I couldn’t take compliments. I was negative. I read
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Greatest Hits On June 27 the line to get in the Kimbell Art Museum, in Fort Worth, will probably resemble more closely that of a megaplex theater, and for good reason. It’s the opening day of the summer blockbuster exhibit, “Caravaggio to Dali: One Hundred Masterpieces from the Wadsworth Atheneum
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
A poker queen shows her hand.
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
Last December, when the Second City comedy troupe held a 24-hour show in Chicago just before its forty-fourth anniversary, two actors battled head-to-head in a BILL COSBY impersonation contest. And next year comedian Kenan Thompson—who did a killer impersonation of the Cos on Saturday Night Live—will be playing the lead
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
You may think you can “just watch” the TEJANO CONJUNTO FESTIVAL from the pavilion at Rosedale Park, but once the music starts up and the audience members begin to pair off and rotate on the floor like a giant whirlpool, you’ll probably feel compelled to do likewise. This year, from
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
It was more than a decade ago that merchants and members of the San Antonio Neighborhood Commercial Revitalization Program for the area called Southtown—which encompasses the King William Historic District, the Blue Star Arts Complex, and the 1800’s Lavaca neighborhood—proposed that galleries in the area open their doors to the
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
COURIER SERVICES Thirty-three-year-old Jim Courier, who was ranked the number one tennis player in the world in 1992, will host the Grand-SlamJam tennis exibition in Austin April 29 and 30. Proceeds from the event will be donated to the Hope Foundation, a cancer research organization.I read that you’re a musician.If
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
"While I was in Hollywood, I wrote for Eddie Arnold and Ernest Tubb and Roy Rogers and Tex Ritter—everybody you can think of."
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
"I used to think, 'I can't perform in front of these people!' And then last night I did a show for more than 13,000."
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
ROOT CAUSE Modern music would likely sound very different if not for song collectors. Consider John A. Lomax. In the early 1900’s, the American granddaddy of field recorders trekked 200,000 miles around the U.S. to document folk music, ignoring the advice of his University of Texas professors who said that
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
A MUSE, ME Fernande Olivier must have been a heck of a girl. At least Picasso seems to have thought so between the spring and fall of 1909, when his imagination was so captured by her that he produced more than sixty heads, busts, and half- and full-length cubist representations
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.
WHAT, THIS OLD THING? Some women think about killing out of jealousy or love. Others for a Judith Leiber handbag. To fans of Leiber’s work, “handbag” is a dirty word; they prefer “minaudière.” They’ll speak breathlessly of the tiny sparkling jewels or the shapes: the asparagus, the springer spaniel, the
Katy Vine has been a staff writer since 2002.