Samantha Ketcham Headed to Runoff in Yell Leader Election
UPDATED: After recalculating the vote, it has been determined that Ketcham is out of the race and the school will not have its first female yell leader.
A native of Houston and a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, Sonia Smith is a writer-at-large for Texas Monthly. She cut her teeth reporting on crime on the bayou for the Baton Rouge Advocate. She has also written for Slate, The New York Times Magazine, Roads & Kingdoms, and the Kyiv Post, and was a finalist for the 2008 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists for her reporting on sexual abuse at the Louisiana School for the Deaf. Her Texas Monthly profile of leading climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe was included in the anthology The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2017.
UPDATED: After recalculating the vote, it has been determined that Ketcham is out of the race and the school will not have its first female yell leader.
By Sonia Smith
Photos of five Texas news stories that captured the nation's attention this month.
By Ariel Min and Sonia Smith
Texas is set to execute George Rivas, who killed an Irving police officer on Christmas Eve 2000 after a legendary jail bust.
By Sonia Smith
Two stories explore what is happening in East Texas as more and more towns vote to sell alcohol.
By Sonia Smith
Authorities arrested Carmel Foster, the owner of Tyler's Queen Divas Hair Salon, for allegedly performing a procedure to enhance the butts and breasts of some clients.
By Sonia Smith
Landowners who vehemently oppose TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline took to the streets and the courts to protest the project.
By Sonia Smith
Rising beef prices make cattle rustling incredibly lucrative, with animals fetching up to $1,000 per head at sale barns.
By Sonia Smith
The Wall Street Journal’s Nathan Koppel writes about San Antonio's new court, designed to handle animal cases.
By Sonia Smith
The Lower Colorado River Authority approved a new water management plan Wednesday, giving it more tools to deal with extreme drought.
By Sonia Smith
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Fisher v. Texas, a case that could limit or eliminate using race as a college admissions factor.
By Sonia Smith
On February 20, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth.
By Sonia Smith
The state's highest court denied Mike Leach's appeal of his wrongful termination lawsuit against Texas Tech.
By Sonia Smith
Bill O'Reilly called Willie Nelson a “creep” on Fox and Friends Thursday morning for glamorizing drug use.
By Sonia Smith
The newest Texas primary date, which will "probably" be held on May 29, affects more than congressional races.
By Sonia Smith
Houston Mayor Annise Parker suggested making the city's crime lab independent and adding a Innocence Project representative to the board overseeing it.
By Sonia Smith
After an angry Laredo transplant uploaded a hateful YouTube video blasting the city, Jack Strunk, a former Laredoan, posted his own video defending the border town. Now, he's being given the keys to the city.
By Sonia Smith
If the congressman can pick up enough votes in Maine's Washington County, which delayed its vote due to inclement weather, he might end up winning the state.
By Sonia Smith
Curious about the reading habits of Austin-based NPR correspondent John Burnett? Read on.
By Sonia Smith
Three weeks to the day after Perry ended his presidential campaign, he tried to reclaim some of the spotlight with a speech to a packed room at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
By Sonia Smith
Rick Perry marked Ronald Reagan's 101st birthday by speaking to a group of Republicans in Round Rock Monday night.
By Sonia Smith
Aerial photos of the YFZ Ranch outside Eldorado show strange constructions underway at the polygamist compound.
By Sonia Smith
Don't let the recent rains fool you: ninety percent of Texas remains in a drought.
By Sonia Smith
Recipes from the innovative chefs at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, including Delightful Tuna Nachos and Frosted Shredded Wheat Surprise.
By Sonia Smith
The zoo enlisted the endangered Indonesian pig to predict whether the city would have an early spring or six more weeks of winter.
By Sonia Smith
Paparazzi snapped photos of the very fit Lakewood Church pastor paddleboarding during a family vacation in Hawaii.
By Sonia Smith
Kenneth Hickman says TDCJ's facial hair ban violates his First Amendment rights.
By Sonia Smith
The National Archives released recordings from Air Force One made in the hours after JFK's assassination in Dallas.
By Sonia Smith
The Dallas-based foundation faced swift criticism after news broke that it had cut off donations to Planned Parenthood.
By Sonia Smith
And it will affect the steak-loving citizens of the state, as beef prices could jump up to ten percent this year.
By Sonia Smith
The Texas Tech professor and climate change evangelist has received hundreds of vicious emails since Newt Gingrich pulled her chapter from his book.
By Sonia Smith
The Washington Post spoke to former Paul staffers who say the congressman was heavily involved with the company that produced the articles, some of which contained racist passages.
By Sonia Smith
JR, a seven-year-old Texas Longhorn with 109-inch horns, calls North Queensland, Australia, home.
By Sonia Smith
This time, Armie Hammer, who played the Winklevii twins in The Social Network, was (allegedly) busted with "special" sweets.
By Sonia Smith
A new poll finds that only forty percent of Texans approve of the governor's performance, and pundits continue examining the political effects of his failed campaign.
By Sonia Smith
The imprisoned polygamist leader continues to spread his apocalyptic message, spending tens of thousands of dollars on large ads in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Tennessean.
By Sonia Smith
Abilene police arrested a man who attacked a fourteen-week-old puppy.
By Sonia Smith
The drought threatening the state's whooping crane population highlights the importance of current conservation efforts in Wisconsin.
By Sonia Smith
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the district court in San Antonio needs to go back to the drawing board and draft up a new set of redistricting maps.
By Sonia Smith
Other presidential hopefuls from Texas have gracefully exited the stage when their time was over.
By Sonia Smith
Six burros and their handlers marched up Lavaca Street to the Capitol, a furry showing of opposition to TPWD's feral burro-eradication program.
By Sonia Smith
The Internet burbled with reaction to the end of Texas governor Rick Perry's bid for the GOP presidential nomination.
By Sonia Smith
At a press conference in South Carolina, the governor officially announced that he is ending his presidential campaign and endorsed Newt Ginrich.
By Sonia Smith
The film 8 Murders a Day focuses on El Paso's sister city, which has seen 10,000 drug war-related murders since 2007.
By Sonia Smith
A three-judge panel in D.C. federal court began hearing arguments on Texas redistricting Tuesday.
By Sonia Smith
A group of evangelicals endorse Rick Santorum, Rick Perry defends the corpse desecrating-Marines, and the governor (and his hair) seem visibly shaken in South Carolina.
By Sonia Smith
A video certain to make your heart melt: A dog with no front legs gets a handcrafted set of wheels to help her scoot around.
By Sonia Smith
Rick Perry (inadvertently?) revises his list of the three federal agencies he would kill as President.
By Sonia Smith
Flags, footballs, and fighter jets all flicker across the screen in the governor's latest campaign ad.
By Sonia Smith
Explosive allegations against the doctor include hiring a stripper to be his companion and knowingly giving a woman herpes.
By Sonia Smith
The governor's "vulture capitalism" remark causes a major South Carolinian donor to close his checkbook.
By Sonia Smith