Out near Longview: Small district defense of CSCOPE and good lesson plans

The nasty kerfuffle over a Texas lesson-planning aide, a comprehensive program called CSCOPE, may have evaded your radar.

Heck, most people in Texas aren’t even aware of this money-wasting teapot tempest.

CSCOPE Parent Portal logo for a Texas school district. Click to see one way Grand Prairie ISD gives parents access to what’s going on in classrooms.

But the state’s attorney general (campaigning for U.S. Senate, hoping to please the Tea Party Commissars) makes threatening gestures towards CSCOPE from time to time, our leading Black Shirt member of the State Senate pushes bills to gut the lesson planning tools, and Texas’s education overseeing ministry, the Texas Education Agency, is conducting a three-month “review” of CSCOPE to make sure it’s politically correct and properly condemning of Islam, Catholicism, Mormonism, Hinduism, agnosticism and atheism (if any can be found).  CSCOPE critics hope that the review will delay updating materials just long enough that school districts across the state will abandon it in favor of . . . um, well, kids can learn if they got books . . . er, um, well — “they shouldn’t be learning about Islam at all” (never mind the state standards that require that course unit).

Out of the east, near Longview, three brave school district officials from two school districts put up their hands to ask why the CSCOPE critics are standing naked.  It’s not much, but it’s about the toughest defense of CSCOPE put up by school officials — and of course, they risk investigation by the Attorney General Abbott merely by speaking out, according to CSCOPE critic harpies.

Dear Reader, you can learn a lot from this opposite-editorial page article in the Longview News-Journal (I’ve added links for your convenience):

CSCOPE and Carthage ISD

Posted: Friday, April 19, 2013 5:46 pm

It is sometimes mindboggling how some controversies begin. Certainly, the wildfire that has swept across Texas concerning the CSCOPE curriculum has our heads spinning. Misinformation has spread rampantly and the truth backed by factual information has been difficult to get out in front of the folks that are taking small excerpts and lessons out of context. In some cases, the CSCOPE curriculum has been attacked with reckless, unsubstantiated accusations.

The shame is that CSCOPE should be a success story of how 870 public school districts, average enrollment of 2000 students, working together with the twenty Education Service Centers (ESCs) created a 21st century curriculum based on the state mandated Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). Prior to selecting this curriculum for CISD, an extensive investigation was conducted to assure that it was a good fit for our district.

CSCOPE curriculum/lesson plans were created by master “Texas” teachers, not a textbook company, not a testing company, and not a private, for-profit vendor. Multiple resources, including digital resources, were integrated into the curriculum, with suggested lessons that proved to be extremely beneficial to less experienced teachers. The framework allowed districts and staff to integrate localized lessons within the scope and sequence of the system. Approximately 50% of the charter schools (i.e. KIPP Academy, UT Charter School, Bannockburn Christian Academy and the Texas School for the Deaf) also use CSCOPE. Private schools, such as Catholic Diocese of Austin, Wichita Christian, Hyde Park Baptist and Cornerstone Christian Academy use CSCOPE.

What is my point? CSCOPE and our ESCs have been accused of promoting non-Christian and unpatriotic values based on a couple of lessons that were taken out of context, the targeted lessons were based on state standards created and approved by the State Board of Education. Due to several districts refusing to purchase another “new” curriculum, the creators of this “new curriculum” began a mass media blitz misrepresenting two lessons that addressed the state required curriculum standards.

Districts are mandated to teach the major religions of the worlds and the beliefs of those religions. Districts are mandated to teach heroism and terrorism. CSCOPE curriculum units have designed lessons that explore these standards, allowing students to investigate, compare/contrast, and analyze perspectives based on cultural influences. Example, the Boston Tea Party was perceived as an act of heroism from an American’s point of view; however, patriots of England considered this an act of terrorism. Islam, one of the major religions of the world, believes their God is the only God. These are the two excerpts taken out of context of the instructional units that have resulted in mass social media messages from those wanting to sell “their curriculum”, accusing the writers of CSCOPE and the ESCs of treason and promoting the Islam religion! Recently, a superintendent received threatening emails because the district was using CSCOPE.

Carthage ISD was not one of the first districts to embrace the curriculum; however, the revised state standards and new state assessment system demanded a new curriculum. CSCOPE offers a well-designed curriculum framework that is vertically aligned to the state standards (NOT the Federal Core Standards as inaccurately reported), the state assessment system and 21st century life-long learning goals.

CSCOPE insures the appropriate skills are taught in specific grades using multiple resources. The instructional focus is college and career readiness at all levels. School districts have the flexibility of using the curriculum as a sole source or as an alignment framework – CSCOPE lessons/units optional. Skills such as spelling, cursive handwriting, and math facts are found aligned in CSCOPE. Teachers have the flexibility to adjust the amount of time spent practicing these skills.

CSCOPE is a learning curve for classroom instruction. It is not driven by one textbook or worksheets. It embraces multiple resources, integration of technology and higher order thinking skills.

Similar to purchased curriculum there are mistakes within the lessons, those are reported and corrected. An internal system exists where teachers are asked for input on any element of CSCOPE. It is a proprietary curriculum and shares the same protection as other vendors’ products one must purchase to access the content. Districts sign affidavits, comparable to those required by the state for STAAR testing, to protect the integrity of the system, not unlike copyright laws. The cost is based on the enrollment of the district.

Parents can view the content of a lesson at a parent meeting; however, giving parents free access to the lesson plans and tests would destroy the validity of the assessments and negatively impact the intent of the instructional lessons.

The attack against the supporters and users of CSCOPE may well become the first step toward the state assuming total control of all curriculum and lesson plans for all districts. A bill has been filed to begin this process. That would be another attack on local control by the state.

Article by:

Glenn Hambrick, Ed.D., Superintendent, Carthage ISD

Donna Porter, Ed.D., Asst. Superintendent, Carthage ISD

Mary Ann Whitaker, M.Ed., Superintendent, Hudson ISD

More: 

Longview is under the green star, map from Sperling’s BestPlaces

• More unintentional humor from Texas conservatives: Can’t read charts on economic systems (timpanogos. wordpress.com)
• Does Texas’ school curriculum sell America short? (khou.com)
• Education Official: There’s a ‘leftist bent’ to some CSCOPE lessons (mywesttexas.com)
• Letter to citizens: Alpine, Marfa, Fort Davis superintendents address CSCOPE concerns, rumors (alpinedailyplanet.typepad.com)
• CSCOPE chart Glenn Beck doesn’t want you to see (timpanogos.wordpress.com)
• Does Texas’s CSCOPE curriculum sell America short? (kens5.com)
• CSCOPE questions answered (timesrecordnews.com)
• Texas: CSCOPE tests students on Islamic sharia (creepingsharia.wordpress.com)
• KXAN TV News, Austin – 2009 investigative news story on CSCOPE, and how it improves math performance
• (Humor? You decide) CSCOPE recommended social studies materials from ETA Hand2Mind, the authorized CSCOPE vendor
• Head of CSCOPE review want’s “traditional roles” of women taught in Texas schools (TFN Insider)
• Heck, if you just ask their opinion, they’ll accuse you of being a witch!

Honk if you don’t get the joke

In Texas, Christian-themed bumper stickers outnumber all others by a huge number.

Some of the non-Christians have a better sense of humor, or at least a willingness to pun:

“Ankh if you love Isis” bumper sticker in Texas. Photo by Ed Darrell

Of course, in order to get the homophone pun, and the joke, one needs to know a bit about world history and ancient Egyptian religions.  One faces the danger that people in the parking lot at the local Sam’s Club won’t know world history, won’t get the joke, and may take offense.

It’s a form of a test, to see who paid attention in world history and has a sense of humor, and who didn’t pay attention in world history.

I knew a librarian once, a good Christian woman, who hated those “Honk if you love Jesus” bumper stickers.  She said that she once sat on a crowded freeway and counted more than 25 of the things on cars that passed.  No one honked, however, and she feared that meant  people didn’t love Jesus.  Unintentional blasphemy by silence — only in Texas.

Honk if you don’t get the joke.  We’ll find a remedial world history class for you.

More:

• Bumper Stickers (first50.wordpress.com)
• Adam Carolla Mocks ‘Coexist’ Bumper Stickers, Says Terrorists ‘Hate Our Culture’ (breitbart.com)
• Bumper Sticker Wisdom (bodytheologyblog.wordpress.com)

Some Texans were unhappy to learn “Don’t Mess With Texas” was an anti-litter slogan; some Texans take their bumper stickers way too seriously. Texas Public Radio image

Remembering Lindheimer’s muhly grass from last year’s garden

It’s spring.  The grasses are sprouting.

Texas is a good place for grasses.

Lindheimer’s muhly grass, Dallas, Texas, January 2013. Photo by Ed Darrell; horticultural adventures by Kathryn Knowles

Spring sunlight is spectacular on the new flowers; winter sunlight, in the afternoon, shows a different kind of spectacular.

Lindheimer’s muhly grass, Muhlenbergia lindheimeri, shows beauty from soon after it sprouts until long after it’s gone dormant.  A garden is a year-around project, and joy.

History lives in those grasses, too.  You can find some at the Native Plant Society of Texas’s website, and its description of Lindheimer’s muhly.

This seems pretty dumb now, but many years ago when I first heard about so many grasses called “muley,” I was puzzled about that name. I’d heard of muley cattle such as polled Herefords, but not hornless grass! Needless to say, as soon as I looked up Lindheimer muhly, I could see it is in a genus named after a Mr. Muhlenberg.

Gotthilf Hunrich Ernst Muhlenberg lived from 1753 to 1815. He was born into a prominent Pennsylvania family, and his father and brothers were influential patriots during the Revolutionary War. Because of his family’s involvement in the Revolution, Muhlenberg was on the British hit list.

While he was hiding out in a rural area away from Philadelphia during the Revolution, Muhlenberg became interested in botany. Through his extensive collections, Muhlenberg made major contributions to botany, and many plants have been named in his honor. For example, among our local flora are several species of muhly grass (Muhlenbergia) and Chinquapin oak (Quercus muhlenbergii).

Lindheimer muhly was named in honor of Ferdinand Lindheimer, the “Father of Texas Botany.” Many other plants native to the Texas Hill Country also bear the name “Lindheimer” or “Lindheimer’s.” Most of these plants were first collected by Lindheimer, who settled on the banks of the Comal River in New Braunfels in 1845.

Another entry in the Blackland Prairie Almanac, perhaps.

More:

• Pine Muhly (4gardengirls.wordpress.com)
• Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) (myfloridameadow.wordpress.com)
• Native Plant Database (University of Texas) entry on Lindheimer’s muhly
• Good heavens! They’re planting it in Florida
• David Rolston has a different, maybe more expansive view on the grass, in Dallas
• This Muhlenberg guy was the brother to John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, after whom the Kentucky county was named; neither is in the Texas history TEKS, though the story of Peter Muhlenberg’s recruiting soldiers for the Continental Army from the pulpit is legendary, and should be part of every student’s understanding of the American Revolution
• Yeah, the Muhlenberg County that John Prine sings about

Texas no stranger to massive explosions and disasters

April 16 marked the 66th anniversary of the massive explosions of fertilizer on ships in the harbor of  Texas City, Texas — 576 people died in that 1947 disaster.

Last month marked the 76th anniversary of the massive natural gas explosion that destroyed the school in New London, Texas, killing about 300 people.

A few minutes ago, a disaster/rescue official in West, Texas, said he fears as many as 100 dead in the explosion of the fertilizer plant there, earlier this evening.  Another fertilizer tank may explode, and the town is being evacuated.

New London, Texas, school after the March 18, 1937, natural gas explosion that killed about 300 people.

View of Texas City from Galveston, across the bay, after the explosion of the French ship SS Grandchamp, April 16, 1947. Photo from International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1259. 576 people died in that series of explosions.

The fertilizer tank that exploded contained several hundred times the amount of the same explosive used to destroy the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

How can any town ever prepare for that?

More:

• BREAKING: City Of West, Texas Evacuating After Fertilizer Plant Explosion (kake.com)
• Explosion hits fertilizer plant north of Waco, Texas (cnn.com)
• Several injured in Texas fertilizer plant explosion (ctvnews.ca)
• A Fertilizer Plant Just Exploded Near Waco, Texas (theatlanticwire.com)
• Texas Fertilizer plant Explosion 100 injured (Video) (guardianlv.com)
• Explosion at Texas fertilizer plant (bbc.co.uk)
• Front page of NY Times on April 17, 1947, featuring Texas City disaster (Tip of the old scrub brush to @richarddeitsch, and @timothypmurphy)

Historic images, encore: Quanah Parker, Last Chief of the Comanches

Glenn Frankel at the University of Texas wrote a book about the John Ford movie, “The Searchers.” It’s release, and stories about it, should remind us of the history of Quanah Parker, the last great, chief of the Comanches.  “The Searchers” was loosely based on a true story, the kidnapping of Cynthia Ann Parker, by Comanches, and her subsequent life with the tribe, and her recapture by white relatives.  She had married in the tribe — Quanah Parker was her son.

Back in June 2008 I posted this:

Quanah Parker, a Kwahadi Comanche chief; full-length, standing in front of tent.
Photographed by Lanney. Public Domain photo.
National Archives, “Pictures of Indians in the United States”

Photographs of Native Americans reside among the publicly and internet available materials of the National Archives. Images can be ordered in sets of slides, or as individual prints, though many are available in quality high enough for PowerPoint works and use on classroom materials. Many of the photos are 19th century.

Quanah Parker stands as one of the larger Native Americans in Texas history. This photo puts a face to a reputation in Texas history textbooks. Texas teachers may want to be certain to get a copy of the photo. His life story includes so many episodes that seem to come out of a Native American version of Idylls of the King that a fiction writer could not include them all, were they not real.

• Quanah’s mother was part of the famous Parker family that helped settle West Texas in the 1830s. Cynthia Ann Parker was captured in 1836 when Comanches attacked Fort Parker, near present-day Groesbeck, Texas, in Limestone County. (See Fort Parker State Park.) Given a new name, Nadua (found one), she assimilated completely with the Nocona band of Comanches, and eventually married the Comanche warrior Noconie (also known as Peta Nocona). Quanah was their first child, born in 1852.
• Nadua was captured by a Texas party led by Lawrence Sullivan “Sul” Ross in 1860, in the Battle of Pease River. Noconie, Quanah, and most of the Nocona men were off hunting at the time, and the fact of Nadua’s capture was not realized for some time. Nadua asked to return to the Comanches and her husband, but she was not allowed to do so. When her youngest daughter, who had been captured with her, died of an infection, Nadua stopped eating, and died a few weeks later.
• Sul Ross was a character in his own right. At the time he participated in the raid that recaptured Cynthia Parker, he was a student at Baylor University (“What do I do on summer breaks? I fight Indians.”) At the outbreak of the Civil War, Ross enlisted in the Confederate Army as a private. Over 135 battles and skirmishes he rose to the rank of Brigadier General, the ninth youngest in the Confederate Army. A successful rancher and businessman back in Texas after the war, he won election as governor in 1887, served two very successful terms (he resolved the Jaybird-Woodpecker War in Fort Bend County, and had to call a special session of the legislature to deal with a budget surplus), refused to run for a third term, and was named president of Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College (Texas A&M) within a few days of stepping down as governor. Ross’s leadership of the college is legendary — students put pennies near a statue of Ross in a traditional plea to pass final exams, among many other traditions. After his death, Texas created Sul Ross State University, in Alpine, Texas, in his honor.
• Quanah Parker’s father, Noconie, died a short time after his mother’s capture. He left the Nocona band, joined the Destanyuka band under Chief Wild Horse, but eventually founded his own band with warriors from other groups, the Quahadi (“antelope eaters”) (also known as Kwahadi). The Quahadi band grew to be one of the largest and most notorious, always with Quanah leading them. The Quahadis refused to sign the 1867 Medicine Lodge Treaties, and so avoided immediate internment to a reservation. However, dwindling food supplies and increasing opposition forced Quanah to retire to a reservation in 1875, in what is now southwestern Oklahoma. This was the last Comanche band to come to the reservation.
• Quanah was appointed Chief of all the Comanches.
• Through investments, Quanah became rich — probably the richest Native American of his time.
• Quanah hunted with President Theodore Roosevelt.
  

  Quanah in European-American business attire. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

• Rejecting monogamy and Christianity, Quanah founded the Native American Church movement, which regards the use of peyote as a sacrament. Quanah had been given peyote by a Ute medicine man while recovering from wounds he’d suffered in battle with U.S. troops. Among his famous teachings: The White Man goes into his church and talks about Jesus. The Indian goes into his Tipi and talks with Jesus.
• Photo at right: Quanah Parker in his later life, in his business attire. Photo thought to be in public domain.
• Bill Neeley wrote of Quanah Parker: “Not only did Quanah pass within the span of a single lifetime from a Stone Age warrior to a statesman in the age of the Industrial Revolution, but he never lost a battle to the white man and he also accepted the challenge and responsibility of leading the whole Comanche tribe on the difficult road toward their new existence.”
• Quanah Parker died on February 23, 1911. He is buried at Fort Sill Cemetery, Oklahoma, next to his mother and sister.

Quanah Parker’s epitaph reads:

Resting Here Until Day Breaks
And Shadows Fall and Darkness Disappears is
Quanah Parker Last Chief of the Comanches
Born 1852
Died Feb. 23, 1911

Other Resources:

• Photos of Quanah Parker at the Portal to Texas History
• Annual Quanah Parker Reunion in Oklahoma
• Lone Star Net entry on Quanah Parker
• Texan Cultures at the University of Texas-San Antonio
• Famous Texans.com entry
• History of the Red River War, 1874, at Texas Beyond History (University of Texas at Austin)

Resources new in 2013:

• February Statesman Selects: THE SEARCHERS (bookpeopleblog.wordpress.com)
• “That’ll Be The Day”: Unpacking The Searchers (eleventhstack.wordpress.com)
• State history group begins annual meeting in Fort Worth (star-telegram.com)
• Comanche tribe starts work on hotel for casino (star-telegram.com)
• Quanah Advances To Area Round (myhighplains.com) (No, this isn’t really relevant to Quanah Parker, other than showing that modern Texas honors the name.)

Forgotten disasters in U.S. schools: The New London, Texas, gas explosion

Most high school history students don’t know about it.  Most high school history students in Texas don’t know about it.

New London School, New London, Texas, before the 1937 disaster. Photo from the New London Museum

I wonder, sometimes, how many Texans remember at all.

I wonder, too, if there are lessons to be learned from the New London tragedy, while the nation debates what to do to prevent recurrences of school shootings.

The deadliest disaster ever to hit a public school in the U.S. struck on March 18, 1937, when a natural gas explosion destroyed the new school building at New London, Texas, killing about 300 people — 76 years ago today.

The remains of the London School after the explosion of March 18, 1937. Wikipedia photo

Noise from the blast alerted the town, and many people in the oilfields for many miles.  Telephone and telegraph communication got word out.  Oil companies dismissed their employees, with their tools, to assist with rescue and recovery efforts.  Notably, 20-year-old Walter Cronkite came town to report the news for a wire service.

Investigation determined that a leak in a newly-installed tap into the waste gas pipe coming from nearby oil fields probably allowed natural gas to accumulate under the building.  A spark from a sander started a fire in gas-filled air, and that in turn exploded the cavern under the school.  School officials approved the tap to the waste gas line to save money.  Natural gas is odorless.  One result of the disaster was a Texas law requiring all utility natural gas to be odorized with ethyl mercaptan.

Though the Great Depression still gripped the nation, wealth flowed in New London from oil extraction from the nearby oil fields.  The  school district completed construction on a new building in 1939, just two years later — with a pink granite memorial cenotaph in front.

Today, disasters produce a wealth of litigation, tort suits trying to get money to make the injured whole, and to sting those at fault to change to prevent later disasters.  In 1937 official work cut off such lawsuits.

Three days after the explosion, inquiries were held to determine the cause of the disaster. The state of Texas and the Bureau of Mines sent experts to the scene. Hearings were conducted. From these investigations, researchers learned that until January 18, 1937, the school had received its gas from the United Gas Company. To save gas expenses of $300 a month, plumbers, with the knowledge and approval of the school board and superintendent, had tapped a residue gas line of Parade Gasoline Company. School officials saw nothing wrong because the use of “green” or “wet” gas was a frequent money-saving practice for homes, schools, and churches in the oilfield. The researchers concluded that gas had escaped from a faulty connection and accumulated beneath the building. Green gas has no smell; no one knew it was accumulating beneath the building, although on other days there had been evidence of leaking gas. No school officials were found liable.

These findings brought a hostile reaction from many parents. More than seventy lawsuits were filed for damages. Few cases came to trial, however, and those that did were dismissed by district judge Robert T. Brown for lack of evidence. Public pressure forced the resignation of the superintendent, who had lost a son in the explosion. The most important result of the disaster was the passage of a state odorization law, which required that distinctive malodorants be mixed in all gas for commercial and industrial use so that people could be warned by the smell. The thirty surviving seniors at New London finished their year in temporary buildings while a new school was built on nearly the same site. The builders focused primarily on safety and secondarily on their desire to inspire students to a higher education. A cenotaph of Texas pink granite, designed by Donald S. Nelson, architect, and Herring Coe, sculptor, was erected in front of the new school in 1939.  (Texas Handbook of History, Online, from the Texas State Historical Association)

Of about 500 students, more than 50% of them died.  Once the new school and memorial were built, and the law passed requiring utilities to odorize natural gas so leaks could be detected earlier, survivors and rescuers rather shut down telling the history.  A 1977 reunion of survivors was the first in 40 years.

New London School shortly after the March 18, 1937, explosion. Photo from the New London Museum.

Because of that healing silence, the story slipped from the pages of most history books.

Trinity Mother Frances Hospital treated the victims; a 2012 film from the hospital offers one of the best short histories of the events available today.

New London, and the New London Museum, work to remember the dead and honor them.  Work continues on a film about the disaster, perhaps for release in 2013:

Now, more than 75 years later, the London Museum, across the highway from where the original school was destroyed, keeps alive the memory of much of a generation who died on that terrible day.

This video was produced by Michael Brown Productions of Arlington, TX as a prelude to a feature documentary on the explosion and its aftermath which is planned for
the spring of 2013.  . . .

www.newlondonschool.org/museum

What are the lessons of the New London Disaster?  We learned to remember safety, when dealing with natural gas.  A solution was found to alert people to the presence of otherwise-odorless, explosive gases, a solution now required by law throughout the U.S.  Natural gas explosions decreased in number, and in damages and deaths.  Wealthy schools districts, cutting corners, can create unintended, even disastrous and deadly consequences.  Quick rebuilding covers the wounds, but does not heal them.

Remembering history takes work; history not remembered through the work of witnesses, victims and survivors, is quickly forgotten — to the detriment of history, and to the pain of the witnesses, victims and survivors.

New, New London School and granite cenotaph memorial to the victims of the 1937 explosion. Photo from Texas Bob Travels.

More:

• Houston Public Radio, KUHF-FM profiled New London Mayor Mollie Ward in 2008; she was a survivor of the explosion
• One of the worst school disasters in American history… (karengausblog.wordpress.com)
• New London’s schools are now a part of the West Rusk County Consolidated ISD; the district keeps a memory page, but sadly,  it has not been updated since 2012
• The Longview News-Journal, “With each New London memorial, explosion survivors grow fewer”
• In the Abilene Reporter-News, consulting engineer Steve Parks marks the date with a reminder of the costs of cutting corners
• The 2013 memorial gathering, reported by KLTV Channel 7, in East Texas

Houston’s KHOU-TV produced a short feature on the explosion in 2007:

Hog wild in Texas: Ranchers, guns, and science working against environmental disaster

Unusual?  No, this is really a typical marriage of agriculture, government agencies, science and hunters, working on problems of wildlife management, feral hogs in this case.

Notes from Texas Parks & Wildlife:

Feral hogs are running wild across Texas, at great cost to farmers, ranchers, and native wildlife. Hunters are helping, but science may prove critical to controlling the invasion on a broader scale. For more information on feral hogs and feral hog control, visit: http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/…

When it comes to feral hogs, every Texan turns environmentalist.

More:    

Sign for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department headquarters – Wikipedia image

• Central Texas city trying to cope with feral hogs (reporternews.com)
• Feral hogs cause havoc in neighborhood (wtvr.com)
• Central Texas city trying to cope with feral hogs (star-telegram.com)
• Some Texas landowners profiting from feral hog invasion (southeastfarmpress.com)
• Beaumont cemetery gets state help against hogs (star-telegram.com)
• CNBNEW Hunting and Fishing: Hunters Permitted to take Feral Hogs (gloucestercitynews.net)
• Pennsylvania boar hunting ban nears approval (triblive.com)
• Beaumont cemetery gets state help against hogs (kfdm.com)

Anybody got photos of Texas’s Big Lake with, you know, water in it?

Contrary to popular rural and redneck legend, Caddo Lake is not Texas’s only natural* lake.  There’s also Big Lake, near the town of Big Lake.

Problem being, of course, that Big Lake’s water sources these days generally don’t flow.  So Big Lake is often dry.

Which produces a further problem for site like Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:  If Big Lake is really a lake, why are there no photos of the lake with water in it?

A comment at AustinBassFishing.com got me thinking about this again, no photos of Big Lake as a Lake.  In the previous post here, we featured a photo of Big Lake Playa, sans water.  I searched the internet at the time and found no photos showing water in the lake.  My authority on Big Lake, Brad Wachsmann, swore that he had recently seen water in the thing (“recent” being “in the last decade or so”).

So, sorta good news:  A few photos of Big Lake, with water, plopped onto the internet since our last search.  Here are a couple from Panaramio:

Water in Big Lake, near the city of Big Lake, Texas, laps at the State Highway 137 passing nearby. This photo comes from 2004, by doning.

Photo of water in Big Lake from June 2005. Photo by evansjohnc.  This photo appears to be about midway along the intersection of the lake with State Highway 137.

Big Lake in its dry phase, from looking north from the southern end of State Highway 137′s transection of the lake. Photo by cwoods.

Non-historic marker for Big Lake, also along State Highway 137, looking west. Photo by cwoods. Photo taken during Big Lake’s dry humor phase.

Now:  Can we track down the rumors of other natural lakes in Texas?  Sabine Lake?  Green Lake?  Natural Dam Lake?

And, Dear Reader, can you find good photos of Big Lake with, you know, water in it?

_____________

* Is Caddo Lake a natural lake?  Originally, the lake seems to have been formed by an enormous blowdown of trees, probably during a hurricane, well over 400 years ago.  In that sense, it was a natural lake when European explorers first found it, and during all of Texas’s “six flags” historic periods.  Or, what is known as the Great Raft, a log jam, dammed up the Red River near the confluence of the Big Cypress Bayou, in about 1799.  By 1800, Caddo Lake was wet all year-round, and deep enough for shallow boat navigation.  In 1835, Capt. Henry Shreve blew up enough of the logjam that steamboat traffic could get past (the guy after whom Shreveport, Louisiana, is named).  After the Civil War, locals tried to expand boat traffic by completely removing the logjam.  Instead of making traffic easier, this removal led shrinking water levels in the lake, and it destroyed navigation farther up the Red River.  Several efforts to restore higher water levels achieved some success by about 1915.  When oil was discovered under the swamp, pressures came from oil companies to make drilling easier — travel in the mud was difficult.  After the invention of the Hughes drill bit (by Howard Hughes‘s father, the founder of Hughes Tool Co.) to allow drilling through water and mud into oil-bearing rock, a dam was built near where the logjam had been, to raise the level of what is known today as Caddo Lake.  What is seen today is a human-enhanced version of the Caddo Lake known by the Caddo Tribe.  This is all preface to the current Texas water wars.

More:

• The oil rig used for Santa Rita #1, the rig that caused the pollution that killed Big Lake, is on the campus of the University of Texas.
• Caddo Lake could be vital water source in the future (ktbs.com)
• Budget cuts bad for state parks (mysanantonio.com)
• Invasive plant moving into other East Texas lakes (kfdm.com)
• Invasive plant moving into other East Texas lakes (mysanantonio.com)
• Legislature must stop pinching Texas parks’ future (star-telegram.com)
• Lakehills ‘a ghost town’: Medina Lake residents fear fish kill imminent (kens5.com)
• Did Two Day Rain-Even Help Lake Levels? (dfw.cbslocal.com)

What’s in a name? A Texas town by any other name . . . (redux)

. . . would still be a Texas town.

(This is an encore post of a piece that is five years old, and borrowed from a kid who has since graduated from Texas schools on gone on to Princeton; see bottom for additional, updated information.)

But Texas towns have some of the best names of towns in the U.S. Plus, there are a lot of Texas towns, plus 254 Texas counties.

Freckles Cassie at Political Teen Tidbits has a great list:

Need to be cheered up?

Happy, Texas 79042
Pep, Texas 79353
Smiley, Texas 78159
Paradise, Texas 76073
Rainbow, Texas 76077
Sweet Home, Texas 77987
Comfort, Texas 78013
Friendship, Texas 76530

• Click thumbnail map above for a larger map of Texas with many cities named, from Tripinfo.com.

Go see the entire list — and maybe add a few of your favorites in the comments. An ambitious geography teacher could make a couple of great exercises out of those lists. “What’s the shortest distance one would have to drive to visit Paris, Italy, Athens and Santa Fe? How many could you visit in the shortest time?”

Texas counties, all 254 of ‘em, from Geography.com

More, and updated information:

• Geology.com has some great maps of Texas, by county, showing rivers, etc.
• 50 Sure Signs That Texas Is Actually Utopia (buzzfeed.com)
• 5 Reasons California Businesses Should Not Move to Texas (blogs.sfweekly.com)
• Wednesday Wanderer: Texas Wildflowers of Johnson County (handofbelapeck.typepad.com)
• Adaptations of the Australian (!!) song “I’ve Been Everywhere” written by Geoff Mack include U.S. versions (Hank Snow, Johnny Cash and Lynn Anderson, Asleep at the Wheel), and a Texas version by Brian Burns, whose video might be made into some sort of Texas geography exercise . . .

Hey! Geography teachers, especially Texas geography teachers

News from the Texas Alliance for Geography Education — read the whole newsletter, I’ve copied it all without cutting:

TAGE Blast for 4 January 2013
http://www.geo.txstate.edu/tage/

Overview

• New Teacher Resources
• How to Track a Bill
• Upcoming Workshops and TAGE Events
• Webinar Series on Southeast Asia
• TAGE Awarded Two New Grants

*********************************************
To read more, visit http://www.geo.txstate.edu/tage/

New Teacher Resources

Thanks to generous support from the National Geographic Education Foundation, TAGE has created new resources for geography teachers. A huge thank you to Dr. Brock Brown, Dr. Jeff Lash, Linda Hammon, and our Teacher Consultants for their help with creating these resources. Visit our new Teacher Materials page at  http://www.geo.txstate.edu/tage/resources/teacher-materials.html, for videos, podcasts, new eoc sample questions, teaching handbooks, and lesson plans.

83rd Texas Legislature – How to Track a Bill

You can create a personal bill list and receive e-mail notification as the status changes on bills you chose to watch.

Visit http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/MnuMyTLO.aspx and create a log-in.

After you have logged-in, you can either choose Bill Lists or Alerts, and add the bill to track. For example, “HB 85” and click Add Bill.

Read more about HB 85 in the December newsletter.

TAGE will continue to track education legislation, and work in support of geographic education in Texas.

Upcoming Workshops

January 26, Region 4, 6th Annual Social Studies Conference, 8:30-3:30 pm, http://www.esc4.net/default.aspx?name=ss.events
February 7-8, Huntsville, Geography Conference: Bridging World Geography, http://www.escweb.net/tx_esc_06/catalog/calendar.aspx?date=2/1/2013
April 6, San Marcos, The Geography of Southeast Asia, more information coming soon on the TAGE website

June 11-13, San Marcos, Social Studies Supervisors Summer Institute: Teaching Geography Concepts, more information coming soon on the TAGE website

Webinar Series on Southeast Asia

Did you know that Southeast Asia has a population over 600 milion? This culturally diverse region encompasses a pivotal position in the world economy. Join Dr. Frederick Day in exploring various geographic issues related to Southeast Asia in TAGE’s new, free webinar series featuring this interesting and diverse region.

February 5th, 4:15-4:45: Physical Geography of Southeast Asia

February 12th, 4:15-4:45: Economic Development in Southeast Asia

February 26th, 4:15-4:45: Environmental Degradation in Southeast Asia

TAGE Awarded Two New Grants
TAGE is pleased to announce that we have recently received two grants to create a World Geography curricula unit focusing on Southeast Asia. Grants have been awarded by the National Geographic Education Foundation and a second grant by Humanities Texas. TAGE will create an online teaching unit complemented by videos and professional development webinars. Keep an eye on our calendar to learn more about the new and exciting opportunities related to teaching geography and Southeast Asia in the coming months.

2013 Grosvenor Teacher Fellow program – Deadline January 8th
National Geographic Education Programs and Lindblad Expeditions are pleased to announce the 2013 Grosvenor Teacher Fellow program. This professional development opportunity is named in honor of Gilbert M. Grosvenor, Chairman Emeritus National Geographic Society and Education Foundation. The program is designed to give current K-12 classroom teachers and informal educators from the 50 U.S. states, Canada, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico the opportunity to extend Grosvenor’s legacy of excellence in geographic education. Selected educators will travel aboard the ship National Geographic Explorer in June, July or August 2013 to Norway, Arctic Svalbard, Iceland, Greenland or the Canadian High Arctic. While aboard, Fellows will share the importance of geo-literacy with fellow travelers, develop activities to bring back to their classrooms, and have an adventure of a lifetime. Prior to the expedition, all 2013 Grosvenor Teacher Fellows will travel to Washington, D.C. on April 25-28th with all expenses covered to participate in a pre-trip workshop sponsored by Google, National Geographic, and Lindblad Expeditions. Check out the Grosvenor Teacher Fellow Program application, which is now live on our website:
http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/program/grosvenor-teacher-fellow/?ar_a=1.

Worried about the World and U.S. History STAAR™ Exams?
Refresh your content knowledge of World and U.S. History … in 15 Minutes!

15 Minute History is a FREE podcast—with supplementary resources and primary documents—about World and U.S. History. 15 Minute History is a collaboration between Hemispheres, the international outreach consortium at the University of Texas at Austin, and Not Even Past, an outreach project of the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin.

Featuring the minds and talent of the award-winning faculty and graduate students of the University of Texas at Austin, the topic of each episode is drawn directly from the World History and U.S. History TEKS, and contains background information and a quick primer on the subject.

Each episode is accompanied by primary documents to analyze with your students, and suggested resources for further reading and research. In just 15 minutes, you can refresh your knowledge of World and U.S. History—for FREE!

Children’s Map Competition Opportunity – Deadline February 15
Entries in the U.S. are not due until February 15, but it might be a good holiday-time project for classrooms to get started on. All of the instructions for participation can be accessed in this post from the NG Education blog.

NGS: New AP Human Geography Portal
National Geographic Education has created a portal on the NatGeoEd.org website for AP Human Geography teachers to visit for teaching and learning resources, including classroom activities, videos, maps, background reading material, and more. The new portal organizes content from National Geographic Education by each of the major topics taught in the AP Human Geography course. The collection will grow over time as new content aligning to the course topics is published online.

Click here to view: AP Human Geography Portal

If you teach social studies in Texas, you really ought to subscribe to this newsletter.

Texas Alliance for Geographic Education
Department of Geography
Texas State University
601 University Drive
San Marcos, TX 78666
http://www.geo.txstate.edu/tage/

 

Texas Statehood, December 29, 1845 – 167 years ago

U.S. and Texas flags at the Texas Capitol – photo: jmtimages

167 years ago today: Rub your pet armadillo’s belly, slaughter the fatted longhorn, crank up the barbecue pit with the mesquite wood, put Willie Nelson and Bob Wills on the mp3 player, put the “Giant” DVD on the television, and raise your glass of Big Red, Dr. Pepper, or Lone Star Beer (or Pearl, or Shiner Bock, or Llano Wine).

U.S. Flag Code rules urge flying the U.S. flag on the anniversary of a state’s joining the Union — even as much as that will frost the tiny band of desperate Texas secessionists.  (Will the secessionists fly the Texas flag at half-staff?)

Texas was admitted to the union of the United States of America on December 29, 1845.

President Polk’s Authorization to Affix the Great Seal to Texas Statehood documents – Texas Memorial Museum, University of Texas at Austin

The text of Polk’s message:

I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of State to affix the Seal of the United States to an authenticated copy of “an act to extend the laws of the United States over the State of Texas and for other purposes” approved Dec. 29, 1845 dated this day, and signed by me and for so doing this shall be his warrant.

James K. Polk
Washington, Dec. 29, 1845

Great Seal of the United States of America, affixed to the Texas Statehood Proclamation – image from State Archives Division, Texas State Library

Resources:

• “Annexation – Celebrating 150 years of statehood,” at Humanities Interactive, Texas Council for the Humanities Resource Center (this page is difficult to find if you just go to the Humanities Interactive ste — bookmark it!)
• Teachers Guide from Humanities Interactive
• “Celebrating 150 Years of Texas Statehood,” essay by James L. Haley
• Texas Annexation map activity (with map of U.S. – may be used by classes outside of Texas, too)
• Texas Treasures – Statehood, Texas State Library and Archives Commission
• Texas Statehood Flag, Gallery of the Republic
• Daughters of the Republic of Texas site, with this reminder: Texas Statehood Day [February 19, 1846] (Texas wouldn’t take “yes” for an answer then, either.)
  “The legal entry of Texas into the Union was 29 December 1845, but the decade-old Republic of Texas did not formally transfer the authority to the new State of Texas until 19 February 1846.The Texans had until the end of the year in 1845 to accept the annexation as one of the states of the United States of America. They waited until 29 December 1845 to accept the terms, independent to the end. The formal transfer of authority from the Republic of Texas took place 19 February 1846 at the log capitol in Austin with President Anson Jones presiding. On this day we celebrate the end of the Republic of Texas.”
• Texas Honor Days (days to fly the Texas flag), Daughters of the Republic of Texas
• Stamp honoring 100 years of Texas Statehood (Arago site)

More:

• Iowa Statehood, December 28, 1846 – Iowans, fly your flags today (timpanogos.wordpress.com)
• White House Petition To Let Texas Secede Reaches Goal (dfw.cbslocal.com)
• Priceless documents from Texas’ early days survive a hurricane and a fire (star-telegram.com)
• Texas’ Independence (stuartwilde.com)
• One more time: No, Texas cannot secede; no, Texas can’t split itself (2012 edition) (timpanogos.wordpress.com)
• Secession petitions grow but without legal weight (mysanantonio.com)
• Can Texas Secede from The Union? (cgpgrey.com)

Teacher video: No, Texas can’t secede

Another video from super teacher CGPGrey, right up our Texas alley, on the issue of Texas secession:

Minor error:  No provision I can find in any Texas Constitution to allow Texas to split.  Language to allow a territory to split into as many as five states was pretty standard for new U.S. territories organized during the 19th century; but that didn’t carry over to the Texas Constitution approved by Congress, not in a unilateral way.  One needs to recall that when Texas entered the Union, it carried with it lands that eventually became parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma and Wyoming — which was part of the scruff with Mexico, which led to the U.S.-Mexico war of 1846 to 1848.

Still a teacher from another state demonstrates a much clearer conception of Texas history and state and federal law than some of the nutcases in Texas.  That so many Texans hold so many false perceptions of law and Texas history is an indictment of Texas education, and Texas’s governor and legislature.

You also should check out:

• “One more time: No, Texas cannot secede; no, Texas can’t split itself (2012 edition)“
• “Texas secessionists ecstatic, over what they don’t know“

And, while we’re thinking about it, did you ever comment on the Digital Aristotle concept, which first introduced this blog to Mr. Grey?

• “Can videos make you teacher of the year?“

More:

• Can Texas Secede from The Union? (cgpgrey.com)
• The other, erroneous view: Fact check: Texas has both the legal and moral right to secede from a corrupt union (sgtreport.com)
• Texas conservatives want to secede, be more like Russia (allianceforanidiotfreeamerica.wordpress.com)

Texas Democratic Party response to talk of secession

Texas Democratic Party Tweeted this out last night, the official response of the party to talk of secession:

Texas Democratic Party visual response to talk of Texas seceding

(Unfortunately, I fear the play on words may be lost on many Tea Party and Texas Nationalist comrades.)

One more time: No, Texas cannot secede; no, Texas can’t split itself (2012 edition)

Someone in Texas, I swear, sells do-it-yourself-at-home lobotomy kits.  Worse, about 50,000 Texans buy the kits every year, and give themselves a self-lobotomy.  Then, when something happens in national politics or something else that doesn’t please them, having put an ice pick through that part of the brain that carries reason and self-control, and scrambled it, they start spouting nonsense about “Texas ought to secede.”

If Texas seceded from the U.S., would it be trespassing on Mexico?

This issue heated up last just after President Barack Obama took office and stopped the national slide into recession; Texans got ticked off that Obama hadn’t let them slip down the bung hole, and the Tea Party was born to push and make sure no one stopped such a slide in the future.  Rick Perry, our peripatetic occasional governor and head coyote persecutor, threw gasoline on the fire.  I posted this explanation back then.

Comes the 2012 election, Democrats and other supporters of Obama rise up and re-elect him.  One of the previously mentioned fools found a feature President Obama’s team added to the White House website, whereby anyone can start a petition on a subject; Obama being the fair-minded man these fools claim he is not, Obama and his team said they’d answer any petition that got more than 25,000 signatures.  Several people started petitions asking for secession.

Think about that for a moment.  They’re appealing to President Obama to let the secede, because they don’t like Obama’s reelection.  Compounding the irony, they’re using a citizen-feedback system designed by Obama’s team.

But then the pro-secession, anti-Obama people threw all sense to the wind.  This process is almost outside official channels.  While Congress will accept petitions, there’s no guarantee that these petitions will go to Congress — only that the Obama White House will answer the petition in some form.

More than a few of the signers are convinced that if they hit the magic number of 25,000 signatures, the action becomes semi-0fficial and will get real consideration.  Here’s news:  You might get a letter from President Obama.  Won’t that please them no end?

Gov. Perry already disowned the current round of zaniness.  It interferes with the zaniness in the run-up to the bi-annual Texas State Legislature meeting, for which “prefiling” of bills started this week.  Even and perhaps especially political zanies can handle only so much zaniness at one time — they’ve hit their zenith of zaniness for 2012.

But the bloggers and Facebookers still jump up and down.  Now, Dear Reader, you are a person of some intelligence:  You don’t think evolution is “from the pit of Hell,” you vaccinate your children and get an annual flu shot, you haven’t been abducted by alien spaceships recently, you worry that your home insurance will continue to climb until we act as a nation to stop air pollution that causes climate change, you understand Hawaii has been a state since 1960 and so a man born there after that, or at any time after annexation in 1898, is a U.S. citizen eligible to be U.S. president, and you don’t fear the UN is going to come take your golf course away (especially since golf-loving Barack Obama is our president); so I warn you, those yahoos who forgot entirely about the Civil War and think they might get a chance to secede from the U.S. and NASCAR just by putting their name on an internet petition, are not going to believe you, nor will they grant any credence to the facts outlined below, as to just why Texas cannot and will not secede.

But, here’s the explanation, anyway:

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Rick Perry put his foot into something during one of the Astro-turf “tea parties” on April 15 [2009].  Someone asked him about whether Texas should secede from the United States, as a protest against high taxes, or something.

The answer to the question is “No, secession is not legal.  Did you sleep through all of your U.S. history courses?  Remember the Civil War?”

Alas, Perry didn’t say that.

Instead, Perry said it’s not in the offing this week, but ‘Washington had better watch out.’

He qualified his statement by saying the U.S. is a “great union,” but he said Texans are thinking about seceding, and he trotted out a hoary old Texas tale that Texas had reserved that right in the treaty that ceded Texas lands to the U.S. in the switch from being an independent republic after winning independence from Mexico, to statehood in the U.S.

So, rational people want to know:  Does Perry know what he’s talking about?

No, he doesn’t.  Bud Kennedy, columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (still one of America’s great newspapers despite the efforts of its corporate owners to whittle it down), noted the error and checked with Gov. Perry’s history instructors at Texas A&M and his old high school, both of which said that Perry didn’t get the tale from them.  (Score one for Texas history teachers; rethink the idea about letting people run for state office without having to pass the high school exit history exam.)

A&M professor Walter L. Buenger is a fifth-generation Texan and author of a textbook on Texas’ last secession attempt. (The federal occupation lasted eight years after the Civil War.)

“It was a mistake then, and it’s an even bigger mistake now,” Buenger said by phone from College Station, where he has taught almost since Perry was an Aggie yell leader.

“And you can put this in the paper: To even bring it up shows a profound lack of patriotism,” Buenger said.

The 1845 joint merger agreement with Congress didn’t give Texas an option clause. The idea of leaving “was settled long ago,” he said.

“This is simple rabble-rousing and political posturing,” he said. “That’s all it is.  . . .  Our governor is now identifying himself with the far-right lunatic fringe.”

Three false beliefs about Texas history keep bubbling up, and need to be debunked every time.  The first is that Texas had a right to secede; the second is that Texas can divide itself into five states; and the third is that the Texas flag gets special rights over all other state flags in the nation.

Under Abraham Lincoln’s view the Union is almost sacred, and once a state joins it, the union expands to welcome that state, but never can the state get out.  Lincoln’s view prevailed in the Civil War, and in re-admittance of the 11 Confederate states after the war.

The second idea also died with Texas’s readmission.  The original enabling act (not treaty) said Texas could be divided, but under the Constitution’s powers delegated to Congress on statehood, the admission of Texas probably vitiated that clause.  In any case, the readmission legislation left it out.  Texas will remain the Lone Star State, and not become a Five Star Federation. (We dealt with this issue in an earlier post you probably should click over to see.)

Texas’s flag also gets no special treatment.  I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard Texans explain to Boy Scouts that the Texas flag — and only the Texas flag — may fly at the same level as the U.S. flag on adjacent flag poles.  Under the flag code, any flag may fly at the same level; the requirement is that the U.S. flag be on its own right.

Gov. Perry is behind Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in polling of a head-to-head contest between the two to see who will be the Republican nominee for governor in 2010 — Hutchison is gunning to unseat Perry.  He was trying to throw some red meat to far-right conservative partisans who, he hopes, will stick by him in that primary election.

Alas, he came off throwing out half-baked ideas instead.  It’s going to be a long, nasty election campaign.  [Yeah, those two paragraphs are dated; they are here as historical footnote.]

_____________

Update [2009]: A commenter named Bill Brock (the Bill Brock?) found the New York Times article from 1921 detailing John Nance Garner’s proposal to split Texas into five.  Nice find!

Another update: How much fuss should be made over the occasional wild hare move for some state to secede?  Probably not much.  A few years ago Alaska actually got a referendum on the ballot to study secession.  The drive to secede got nowhere, of course.  I was tracking it at the time to see whether anyone cared.  To the best of my knowledge, the New York Times never mentioned the controversy in Alaska, and the Washington Post gave it barely three paragraphs at the bottom of an inside page.

Texas has a slightly grandiose view of itself. TM Daily Post image

More and Related Information:

• Texas Secede! mis-explains the law, processes, and generally fogs up the issues
• Texas secession petition hits mark for a response – The Hill
• No, there’s nothing that says they can’t:  Did 15,000 Oklahomans sign the petition asking for Texas Secession?  Don’t know.
• Perry: Texas Will Not Secede From US (houston.cbslocal.com)
• White House to respond after 80,000 sign petition for Texas to secede from United States (news.nationalpost.com)
• Rick Perry Reassures The Nation That Texas Will Not Be Seceding (mediaite.com)
• Want to re-fight the Civil War? Some Obama opponents seek to secede (tv.msnbc.com)
• Some N.C. residents signing petition to secede from the U.S. (charlotteobserver.com)
• Texas Secession? A Very Serious Blog
• What if Texas were to secede?  TM Daily Post
• Also at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:  “Can Texas split itself into five states?  Is West Virginia Legal?” September 15, 2008
• Be sure to see Jason Stanford’s writings on Texas Secession at Behind Frenemy Lines:  “ICYMI, I engage in name-calling on secession,” “Update: We get hate mail!” and “Should we take secession talk seriously?“
• Update November 17, 2012:  Yeah, the grotesque ignorance of secession advocates is just too easy a target, a cheap laugh, almost like watching an old woman crash with a walker down a long stairway; still:  “Civics Fail: Alabama Secessionist Petition Originator Blames Obama for State Law.”  Seems the guy who started the Alabama petition is ticked off about the government shutting down his topless carwash.  Yeah, he didn’t realize it was Alabama who shut him down.

Big Tex, RIP (1953-2012)

We took a few hours at the State Fair of Texas a few days ago.

Today comes the sad news that Big Tex, the symbol of the Fair, burned to his metal bones.

Big Tex at 60, earlier this week, catching sun on a good Fair day.

It was more of an unposed photo, as Kathryn and James read about the landscaping and the use of large, unsculpted Oklahoma stone in the garden at his feet.

Kathryn and James admiring the rockscaping at Big Tex’s garden, October 16, 2012

Big Tex looked fine — if we’d thought his 60 years showed at all, I’d have worked to get the focus just right, and get more of Tex in the photo.

Later that evening I thought the Dracula lighting might show a bit of his years.  Maybe it was just the lighting, though.  It had been a long day, and it was less than a week before the end of his 2012 run.

Dracula lighting at night highlighted craggy old Tex’s age, perhaps.

Tex had always been a popular stop, one place everyone knew.  The family safety plan always included Big Tex.  “Where do I go if we get separated.”  “We’ll meet at Big Tex.”  Heck, even after the advent of cell phones, Big Tex was a popular meet-up-after-the-fair-day location.

They say your arteries, veins and nerves get worn after a good life.  Big Tex had some electronics in him, and electrical motors, to operate his jaw and to allow an announcer (in a booth on the ground) to play the Voice of Big Tex, offering a Texas “Howdy, Folks!” to people coming in to the Fair for the first, or 100th time.  One of those pieces of wire seems to have crossed another one this morning, some time after 8:00 a.m., just as the Fair opened for it’s last Friday of 2012 (the Fair closes Sunday).

There was a spark.  And then, he was gone.

Big Tex on fire, photo by John McKibbin via DallasNews.com

More:

• Fire destroys Big Tex statue at State Fair of Texas (thescoopblog.dallasnews.com)
• Big Tex Burned Down Today at the State Fair (blogs.dallasobserver.com)
• Blaze destroys 52ft Texas cowboy (bbc.co.uk)
• State fair’s Big Tex burns up in fire (amarillo.com)
• Big Tex destroyed in fire at State Fair of Texas; no injuries (kens5.com)