Texas Monthly April 2022

HOW ‘NEON MOON’ BECAME A TEXAS STANDARD In a divided culture, Texas musicians from a wide array of genres have discovered a song that can apparently unite us all: Brooks & Dunn’s 1992 country hit “Neon Moon.” Dan Solomon documents some of the artists, from Dallas-based group La Energía Norteña to El Paso indie rockers Cigarettes After Sex, who have released their own takes on the tune in recent years. THE TEXAS WINE INDUSTRY IS JUST GETTING STARTED. GRAPE FARMERS SAY THE END IS NEAR. The $13 billion Texas wine industry sources about 70 percent of its grapes from the High Plains. But grape growers in the area say that dicamba, a powerful herbicide used by row crop farmers, has been drifting from neighboring cotton fields onto their vineyards, damaging vines and posing…

During summers in high school and college, I worked as a gravedigger, longshoreman, pizza cook, roofer, and shipyard laborer. I thought that was a uniquely eclectic résumé—until I met Dan Solomon. A senior editor at Texas Monthly, Dan is a throwback to the days when journalists often skipped college. They learned their trade by practicing it and learned about the world by soaking up as many varied experiences as they could. After his graduation from high school, Dan moved to McAllen, where he had relatives, and signed up for courses at what is today the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. “I lasted about three weeks,” he says, before deciding that he could educate himself better and faster by reading widely and trying out different occupations. He worked at a music store…

“Yes, this is America, and Texas to boot. We have the God-given right to waste our time, money, and resources on any folly that strikes our fancy.” Don’t Like Blackouts? Insulate! Your article on the Texas power grid [“It Could Happen Again,” February 2022] gives an excellent account of supply-side failures but doesn’t mention that those failures would have mattered far less if electrically heated Texas buildings weren’t also poorly insulated (if insulated at all), drafty, and hence extremely demanding of heating. Not only do the electricity and gas supply systems need winterization, but the main sources of peak electricity demand—inefficient buildings—do too. This would also cut customers’ bills, winter and summer, for decades to come—and create durable local jobs and a healthier environment. Yet nearly all the policy discussion, like Russell Gold’s…

In May of this year Woody Dinstel sat down at his desk in Houston to write a letter. First he looked at the watch. It was a gold Hamilton Masterpiece, slim and heavy. On the back was engraved WOODY DINSTEL UPON RETIREMENT FEBRUARY 1, 1978, EXXON. ¶ He was writing to Dr. Tom Barrow, the senior vice president of Exxon Corporation in New York, the highest-ranking geologist in the company and a hero to the older generation of explorationists, an emblem of the best in the company. Dinstel had once made a presentation to Barrow in England and had been very impressed; he thought perhaps Barrow might remember him. ¶ The letter was an appeal for help, for Dinstel was having some serious problems with the company. It had been…

It was 1978 and Texas Monthly editor Bill Broyles wanted an article about Exxon. The oil and gas behemoth had not yet moved its corporate headquarters to Texas but was still one of the largest employers in the state, and for the previous few years, it had been either the most- or second-most profitable company in the country (second only to General Motors). Exxon was the ultimate Texas success story, and Broyles had a personal connection to it: He grew up in Baytown, which, with its giant refinery, was practically a company town. Broyles was also the son of an engineer who had worked at Humble Oil, which became Exxon USA. Broyles had recently hired a writer, a Louisiana native named Nicholas Lemann, away from a Washington, D.C., magazine where he…

That’s the Gordon Davis motto. He understands that hard work and grit get the job done. As a Texas Tech faculty member in the 1980s, Davis expected the best from his students. As a coach, he led the charge with the university’s first national championship in meat judging - that team is now a dynasty. As an entrepreneur, he grew his business, iCEV, into a national leader in providing online curricula and content for classrooms around the world. At Texas Tech, excellence has a new name. The Davis College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources. The Davis College has been re-named in honor of Gordon and Joyce Davis, whose $44 million gift is the largest in Texas Tech history and one of the largest in the country. Their gift will benefit the people…