September 1997

Features
They worked hard, overcame obstacles, bucked conventional wisdom, and touched our lives. Meet the most impressive, intriguing, and influential Texans of 1997.
Miscellany
Celebrity portraiture often requires that the subject be ready for anything. An imaginative photographer like Houston’s Pam Francis will conjure up unusual settings and costumes to best evoke her subject’s true nature, as when she lured oil tycoon Oscar Wyatt and his German shepherd to the roof of a building…
What respiratory ailment afflicted Jimmie Rodgers, prompting fans to shout “Spit ’er up and sing some more”?

Will you enjoy the smoke-roasted shrimp at Houston’s Moose Cafe? You can plank on it.
Reporter
Hot CDs Running on equal parts inspiration and gumption, Austin’s Damnations are the alternative to alternative country, going way back for tunes like “Copper Kettle,” forward for a romp through Lucinda Williams’ “Happy Woman Blues,” and their own way with impressively traditional-progressive originals. The mostly acoustic Live Set (Damnations), pressed…
The biggest economic news in Texas is the merging of the electric and natural-gas utility industries in anticipation of the coming deregulation of electricity. Huge deals are in the works: Houston Industries, the parent of Houston Lighting and Power, is acquiring Houston-based NorAm, the nation’s third-largest gas utility; and Texas…
Like sadistic teenagers who introduce fire ants into an otherwise docile ant farm, the producers of MTV’s voyeuristic soap opera The Real World make casting decisions based not on avoiding conflict but on encouraging it. This season’s stereotypes are a jock, a poet, a comely lesbian, a city girl, a…
I enrolled at the University of Texas in 1950 during a post-war period that produced many talented individuals. Harvey Schmidt, Tom Jones, Liz Smith, Robert Benton, Pat Hingle, Word Baker, Kathryn Grant (later Mrs. Bing Crosby), and I all graduated with degrees in drama. We did lots of dance concerts…
By trying to have it both ways in the coup against Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey hurt the Republican party—and himself.
The holiday season comes early for Asleep at the Wheel, who’ve just wrapped Merry Texas Christmas, Y’all (High Street/Windham Hill Records) at Austin’s Bismeaux studios. Highlights include Tish Hinojosa singing “Feliz Navidad” and Willie Nelson and Don Walser on “Silent Night.” Too homey for you? Wheel front man Ray Benson’s…
Columns

Willie Nelson and I have been friends for years, so why did I decide only now to make him a character in one of my mystery novels? The plot thickens.
Until recently, I couldn’t. Then I enrolled in language school in the charming Mexican town of Guanajuato, and two weeks later I was comfortably conversant in español.
Cash-poor PBS stations can’t seem to come up with innovative new ideas, so they ought to resurrect an innovative old one: Newsroom, the best local public- affairs program in Texas history.
For Texas’ Kuehne kids, excelling at golf is par for the course—and the least their father will accept.
Web

Scalloped Tarragon Potatoes 1 pound red potatoes, skins on, sliced very thin 2 tablespoons olive oil 2 teaspoons minced garlic 1 tablespoon fresh chopped tarragon Salt and white pepper to taste Toss all ingredients together. On a lightly greased sheet pan arrange potatoes in a spiral…