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Richard West

Richard West's Profile Photo

Richard West was a Texas Monthly writer who joined the magazine in 1972, a few months before the inaugural issue in February 1973. He grew up in Highland Park and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. Before arriving at Texas Monthly, he served in the Army and as press secretary for Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes. A series he wrote for Texas Monthly won a National Magazine Award in 1979, and his story “Only the Strong Survive” won a Texas Institute of Letters award the following year. His book, Richard West’s Texas, published in 1982, chronicled his time living in and reporting on seven diverse areas of Texas. After leaving Texas Monthly at the end of 1980, West worked at New York Magazine, Newsweek, and D Magazine. He became a freelance travel writer in 1987 and worked in 52 countries over nearly twenty years.

West is an avid long-distance runner. He ran thirteen marathons when he was in his sixties, and he continues to jog regularly in his eighties. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.

88 Articles

Business|
March 31, 1975

Laredo: Fuel’s Paradise

Everybody in Laredo is being excessively kind to Tony Sanchez, Sr., these days, quite a change from several years ago when Sanchez took in ten to twelve thousand a year selling office supply furniture and trading oil and gas leases on the side to help make ends meet. Kindest of

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Arts & Entertainment|
April 30, 1974

Houston TV Ratings War

Fade in, interior six p.m. news set, long shot. As the picture comes closer, the familiar anchormen are relaxed and exchanging easy glances, preparing to bring you the latest news, sports, and weather. If you are standing close to the producer, you can hear the purr of his ulcer as

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Business|
April 30, 1974

The Avalon Drug Store

On a Saturday morning in January, 1971, three days before the inauguration of Governor Preston Smith and Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes, the then-Assistant US Attorney Theo Pinson strolled into Houston’s Avalon Drug Store after a toot on the town, a bit disheveled but still resplendent in his midnight blue tuxedo,

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Meanwhile, in Texas|
April 30, 1974

Low Talk

Ben Barnes’ decision to reenter politics is not a question of whether to, but of which party. Fort Worth attorney and Barnes’ closest friend Dee J. Kelly, says of the top vote-getter in Texas: “it is not a question of running again, but of which party to run in. He’s

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News & Politics|
April 30, 1974

NBC Moves Uptown

Now that the Skylab space project is finished, NBC has moved from its cubicle at the Nassau Motor Hotel across from NASA to new offices at 4615 Southwest Freeway. They are only ten minutes from their affiliate station, KPRC-TV, where they can use Channel 2’s nine projectors, eight videotape machines,

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News & Politics|
April 30, 1974

Dallas Radio Goes Public

Beginning at the end of May or early June, Dallasites will have a new and unique radio station. KERA-FM, 90.1 on the dial, will be the city’s first public radio outlet and will provide a welcome relief from the inane, shrill banter of jingles and jive from the top-40 jocks

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Books|
April 30, 1974

Texas Writers Recognized

Recently at a banquet at the Sheraton-Fort Worth, the Texas Institute of Letters announced its 1973 awards for literary excellence. Here are the winners:. . . The Carr P. Collins Award for the best nonfiction book: Lewis L. Gould for Progressives and Prohibitionists, Texas Democrats in the Wilson Era.. .

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News & Politics|
April 30, 1974

Folk Medicine for Fort Worth

True to its own particular, relaxed style of life, Fort Worth was a late participant in the city festival field. For years, Tyler has held its Rose Festival; San Antonio, its Fiesta; El Paso, its Charro Days, and Austin, its Aqua Festival. Houston and Dallas have long since become too

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Business|
April 30, 1974

Trolleys for Austin

Austin, a city of great natural beauty, with the Colorado River gliding by south of downtown and the pleasing congruence of hills and lakes flanking its west side, has a unique chance to beautify and humanize its central business district.Led by architect David Graeber, the East Sixth Conservation Society is

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Politics & Policy|
April 30, 1974

Connally Stumps Ohio

From former Dallas Times Herald reporter Tracey Smith comes this report of former governor John Connally on the banquet circuit in Bowling Green, Ohio. Smith is a Kiplinger Journalism Fellow at Ohio State University.Like other converts to a new faith, John B. Connally has become rabidly dogmatic in professing allegiance

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News & Politics|
April 30, 1974

Consumer Aid for Fort Worth

This month’s H. Rap Brown “Power to the People” award is shared by the Fort Worth Junior Bar and the Council of Jewish Women for making it possible, through donations, for Tarrant County to have one of Attorney General John Hill’s regional consumer protection offices.The funds will pay for office

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Travel & Outdoors|
March 31, 1974

Texas Monthly Reporter

JUSTICE IN EL PASO Southern California mystery writer Ross McDonald in his best book, The Goodby Look, has his world-weary private eye hero Lew Archer lament, “I have a secret passion for mercy . . . but justice is what keeps happening to people.” Richard Wheatley’s justice for filing

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News & Politics|
February 28, 1974

Texas Monthly Reporter

SCARIEST MOVIE EVER?Austin movie makers Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel have made what they hope is the classic horror thriller. Truly terrifying movies are rare indeed. The trick is not merely to shock by using music, gore, or weird beings, but to create an atmosphere of fear, a much harder

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Politics & Policy|
June 30, 1973

Inside The Lobby

These veterans of endless smoke-filled rooms and committee sessions do more to shape state government than most elected officials. They're not all bad, but they're not all good, either.

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Travel & Outdoors|
February 1, 1973

Pack Up, Weekend Wanderers

ONCE UPON A TIME VACATIONS were like Christmas. Vacation was the once-a-year, eagerly awaited catharsis, the big pay-off for 50 weeks of bringing in the bread. Trouble was that after two weeks on the road with the family, two dogs and grape jelly smeared on the windows, you returned home

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