Texas Country Legacy

She didn’t bargain on love The Texas Wildcatter’s Baby by Cathy Gillen Thacker Wildcatter Ginger Rollins and environmental cowboy Rand McCabe are on opposite sides when it comes to the Texas land they both love. But now that Ginger’s pregnant, they have only one option. Rand is all for getting married. Too bad the independent Ginger sees their union as a nonnegotiable deal. How long can he keep his feelings—and their baby—a secret? The Cowboy’s Surprise Baby by Ali Olson Amy McNeal has two reasons to return to Spring Valley, Texas. One is her brother’s wedding. The other is to set things straight with a handsome cowboy. Jack Stuart has never forgiven Amy for walking out on him years ago. Yet while their lives are worlds apart, they still just fit together. Now Jack must show Amy that she belongs in Spring Valley with him. But life can be full of surprises… Previously published as The Texas Wildcatter’s Baby and The Cowboy’s Surprise Baby

His second-chance Christmas The Cowboy’s Christmas Surprise by Marie Ferrarella Since the first grade, Holly Johnson has known that Ramon Rodriguez is the only man for her. But the carefree, determinedly single Texas cowboy with the killer smile doesn’t have a clue. Until they share a dance and a kiss, and Ray finally sees his best friend for the woman she is. Now that he realizes what he’s been missing, Ray plans to make up for lost time… A Texas Soldier’s Christmas by Cathy Gillen Thacker As tempting as it is for nurse Nora Caldwell to fall into the finely sculpted arms—again—of United States army lieutenant Zane Lockhart, she’s got her baby boy to think of now. Zane’s dedication has meant saying goodbye to Nora far too often. He can’t blame her for doubting that he’s finally ready to put her and Liam first. Can the Christmas gift of a lifetime convince her? USA TODAY Bestselling Author Marie Ferrarella Previously published as The Cowboy’s Christmas Surprise and A Texas Soldier’s Christmas

Dreaming of a Lone Star Christmas A Texas Holiday Miracle by Linda Warren Becoming guardian of her half sister has been rewarding for Lacey Carroll. But raising a six-year-old has its challenges. Lacey longs to bring holiday wonder back into the child’s life, which isn’t going to be easy with a grinch like Gabe Garrison next door. After losing his son, Gabe shut out the world. Will Lacey’s unique brand of healing magic make this a season of second chances—for all of them? The Texas Christmas Gift by Cathy Gillen Thacker With Christmas only a few weeks away, single father Derek McCabe is determined that real estate agent Eve Loughlin find a house for him and his young daughter. But being with Eve makes him aware of everything else he’s missing in life. Eve is all business, but there’s no denying the attraction between them. Can Derek get past that cool exterior and make her his own Christmas Eve? Previously published as A Texas Holiday Miracle and The Texas Christmas Gift

For as long as he can remember, Rawley Cooper has loved Faith Leigh. But the cruelty of his childhood haunts him and he knows he’s undeserving of Faith. When she comes to him on the night of her nineteenth birthday, they both give into temptation. But the searing kiss reaffirms what he’s always known: he can’t have a lifetime of her in his arms. To protect his heart, he packs his things and heads west. Faith has always adored the boy her parents took in and raised. But she’s not certain she can ever forgive him for riding out of her life just when she needed him the most. When an urgent telegram forces him to return six years later, Rawley discovers Faith is now a woman to be reckoned with. As old feelings are stirred back to life and new passions take hold, they both must confront secrets from their past or risk losing a legacy of love.

Winner, Coral Horton Tullis Memorial Prize, Texas State Historical Association, 2014 During the early 1970s, the nation’s turbulence was keenly reflected in Austin’s kaleidoscopic cultural movements, particularly in the city’s progressive country music scene. Capturing a pivotal chapter in American social history, Progressive Country maps the conflicted iconography of “the Texan” during the ’70s and its impact on the cultural politics of subsequent decades. This richly textured tour spans the notion of the “cosmic cowboy,” the intellectual history of University of Texas folklore and historiography programs, and the complicated political history of late-twentieth-century Texas. Jason Mellard analyzes the complex relationship between Anglo-Texan masculinity and regional and national identities, drawing on cultural studies, American studies, and political science to trace the implications and representations of the multi-faceted personas that shaped the face of powerful social justice movements. From the death of Lyndon Johnson to Willie Nelson’s picnics, from the United Farm Workers’ marches on Austin to the spectacle of Texas Chic on the streets of New York City, Texas mattered in these years not simply as a place, but as a repository of longstanding American myths and symbols at a historic moment in which that mythology was being deeply contested. Delivering a fresh take on the meaning and power of “the Texan” and its repercussions for American history, this detail-rich exploration reframes the implications of a populist moment that continues to inspire progressive change.

A city dweller’s vacant lot . . . A rancher's back forty . . . A hiker's favorite park . . . When the places that we love are threatened, we can be stirred to action. In Texas, people of all stripes and backgrounds have fought hard to safeguard the places they hold dear. To find and preserve these stories of courage and perseverance, the Conservation History Association of Texas launched the Texas Legacy Project in 1998, traveling thousands of miles to conduct hundreds of interviews with people from all over the state. These remarkable oral histories now reside in an incomparable online and physical archive of video, audio, text, and other materials that record these extraordinary efforts by veteran conservationists and ordinary citizens to preserve the natural legacy of Texas. This book holds stories from more than sixty people who represent a variety of causes, communities, and walks of life—from a West Texas grocer fighting nuclear waste to an Austin lobbyist pressing for green energy. Each speaks from the heart in personal reminiscences and first-hand accounts of battles fought for land and wildlife, for public health, and for a voice in media and politics. These impassioned accounts remind us of the importance of protecting and conserving the natural resources in our own backyards . . . wherever they may be. Records of the archive are available at the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. Five dollars of the cost of this book goes to environmentally friendly materials and processes.

Terry G. Jordan has traveled the back roads and hidden trails of rural Texas in search of small country graveyards.

“The convertors would spew it out,” employee Arturo Hernandez recalled, referring to molten metal. “You’d see the ground, the dirt, catch on fire. . . . If you slip, you’d be like a little pat of butter, melting away.” Hernandez was describing work at ASARCO El Paso, a smelter and onetime economic powerhouse situated in the city’s heart just a few yards north of the Mexican border. For more than a century the smelter produced vast quantities of copper—along with millions of tons of toxins. During six of those years, the smelter also burned highly toxic industrial waste under the guise of processing copper, with dire consequences for worker and community health. Copper Stain is a history of environmental injustice, corporate malfeasance, political treachery, and a community fighting for its life. The book gives voice to nearly one hundred Mexican Americans directly affected by these events. Their frank and often heartrending stories, published here for the first time, evoke the grim reality of laboring under giant machines and lava-spewing furnaces while turning mountains of rock into copper ingots, all in service to an employer largely indifferent to workers’ welfare. With horror and humor, anger, courage, and sorrow, the authors and their interviewees reveal how ASARCO subjected its employees and an unsuspecting public to pollution, diseases, and early death—with little in the way of compensation. Elaine Hampton and Cynthia C. Ontiveros weave this eloquent testimony into a cautionary tale of toxic exposure, community activism, and a corporate employer’s dubious relationship with ethics—set against the political tug-of-war between industry’s demands and government’s obligation to protect the health of its people and the environment.

Where more poignantly than in a small country graveyard can a traveler fathom the flow of history and tradition? During the past twenty years, Terry G. Jordan has traveled the back roads and hidden trails of rural Texas in search of such cemeteries. With camera in hand, he has visited more than one thousand cemeteries created and maintained by the Anglo-American, black, Indian, Mexican, and German settlers of Texas. His discoveries of sculptured stones and mounds, hex signs and epitaphs, intricate landscapes and unusual decorations represent a previously unstudied and unappreciated wealth of Texas folk art and tradition. Texas Graveyards not only marks the distinct ethnic and racial traditions in burial practices but also preserves a Texas legacy endangered by changing customs, rural depopulation, vandalism, and the erosion of time.