The Bandera Gunfighters Face a Succession Crisis
The key to a convincing death is to be strategic about it, although the Bandera Gunfighters can’t resist some comedic or dramatic flourishes. “Die big, die wide,” one of them tells me.On a gloom...
He Was One of the Texas GOP’s Biggest Donors. Where Did He Go?
These were once the months of Farris Wilks, the time when the far-right billionaire’s fortune would shape Texas GOP primaries. Since 2015, when Wilks, his brother, and their wives made a record-brea...
Thirty Years Ago, Spoon’s First Album Changed My Life
Spoon is from Texas, but its music never felt Texan to me. Front man Britt Daniel was born in Galveston, grew up in Temple, and launched Spoon in 1993 in Austin, where it has remained—spiritually, i...
Remember the Forgotten Missions of Texas
For decades, each Sunday at daybreak Samuel Trujillo carried his paralyzed father, José, from their home to the doors of the Socorro Mission, about twenty minutes southeast of downtown El Paso. The e...
How Mary Kay Built a Billion-Dollar Empire
If you lived in Dallas in the eighties, as I did, Mary Kay Ash, founder of the eponymous Mary Kay cosmetics company, seemed to be everywhere all at once, promoting her business and herself. Ash telegr...