(Current, Fall Semester 2011)
EDUCATION
Ph.D.,
M.A., History, The
B.A., Economics,
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Texas A&M-Commerce
(formerly
Ph.D. Fellow,
Economic Forecasting Consultant,
1991-1992: Provided consultation
for
Contel of Texas, Inc., February
1980-December 1990: Held several
positions as a business manager and executive. Among duties and responsibilities: supervision of economic growth forecasts
driving a $45 million annual budget for roughly 200 publicly regulated
telephone exchanges; the preparation and presentation of annual economic
reports and various special reports to Division, Region, and Corporate staffs;
conception and coordination of programs for territorial acquisitions, service
improvement, and community development
BOOKS
The New Frontier: A Contemporary History
of
Chapter in Kenneth L. Untiedt,
ed., Inside the Classroom (and Out): How We Learn through Folklore: “Seeing Red over Varsity Blues.”
Sam Houston State University: An
Institutional Memory, 1879-2004, foreword by
Dan Rather; afterword by President James F. Gaertner.
The Human Tradition in Texas.
Co-edited with Jesus F.
de la Teja.
Foreword in
Edgar Rye, The Quirt & the Spur:
Vanishing Shadows of the
Pigskin
Pulpit: A Social History of
A
RESEARCH IN PROGRESS
Monograph: The End of Texceptionalism: An American
History.
This intellectual history seeks to explore the nature of Texas
history and raise it to a conscious level capable of penetrating minds that
have disregarded it and firing the imaginations of those who might expand their
views of the past by assimilating it.
Its multidisciplinary approach draws from the fields of cultural
geography, literature and film, and art and architecture as well as from
history. Before Texas can become a functional component in any broader
historiography, the simplistic notion that the state is somehow exceptional in
the American experience must be extirpated absolutely and without
qualification. Only then can a new
metanarrative capable of informing the twenty-first-century Texan mind begin to
take on the kind of shape and context that will allow scholars working in
relevant fields to appreciate the state’s history in all its
complexities. The projected completion date is Spring
2012.
JOURNAL ARTICLES
& OTHER PUBLISHED WORKS
“What’s the Matter with
Texas? The Great
Enigma of the Lone Star State in the American West.”
“Three R’s
and the Hickory Stick on the Texas Frontier.”
“Under Autumn
Skies: Gary Gaines,” chapter in The Human Tradition in Texas,
“Coahuila y Texas,” (encyclopedia entry) The United States and Mexico at War:
Nineteenth-Century Expansionism and Conflict, Donald S. Frazier, et. al.
“Resurrecting the
Western Hero: The Case of James A. Brock.”
“Rewriting the
Wild West for a New History.” Journal of the West, 34, no. 4 (Oct. 1995): 54-60.
“(Gun)Smoke
Gets in Your Eyes: A Revisionist Look at ‘Violent’
“Remembering the Big 33,”
Sound Historian: The Oral History Journal of
“Life on Government Hill:
book,
70 (1994): 113-125.
Contributor to Resource Manual, Norton, et. al., A People & a Nation, 4th
ed.
CIVIC ACTIVITIES
Produced op-ed and variety articles; Houston
Chronicle; Huntsville Item; Port
Arthur News; Wichita Falls
Times-Record; Commerce Journal.
Speeches to civic groups (such as Lions,
Rotary, and Kiwanis Clubs and Westerners Corrals).
Featured speaker at American Cotton Museum,
Greenville, Texas, and lecture series at TCU, Fort Worth; Rosenburg
Library, Galveston; Austin College,
Sherman.
Phi Alpha Theta speaker at Texas A&M,
Texas Tech, Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston, and UH-Downtown.
TCU, Ben Procter Scholarship, Committee member
BOOK REVIEWS
Gene Preuss, To Get a
Better School System, West Texas
Historical Association Yearbook, vol. 86, 2010,
193-4.
Pekka Hämäläinen,
The Comanche Empire (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2008. Pp. vii + 500, maps,
illustrations, notes, bibliography, index). The Journal of Military History, April 2009 (vol. 73, no. 2),
646-7.
Howard J. Erlichman,
Camino del Norte: How a Series of
Watering Holes, Fords, and Dirt Trails Evolved into Interstate 35 in Texas
(College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2006) New Mexico Historical Review, Fall 2008.
Sutherland, The Robertsons, The Sutherlands, and the Making
of
Gary Clayton Anderson, The Conquest of
Harris III, Charles H., Louis R. Sadler, The
Pace, Robert, and
Donald S. Frazier, Frontier
DeArment, Robert K., Bravo of the Brazos: John Larn of
James L. Haley, Sam Houston (
John Miller Morris, A Private in the Texas Rangers, A. T. Miller of
Company B, Frontier Battalion (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2001); Southwestern
Historical Quarterly, January 2003
David LaVere, Contrary Neighbors: Southern Plains and Removed
Indians in Indian Territory (
Light T. Cummins,
Jim Dent, The Junction Boys (New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999); Sound Historian: The Oral History
Journal of Texas (1999)
Hal K. Rothman, ed., Reopening the American West (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1998); Journal of the West (October 1999)
Patrick Dearen, Crossing Rio
Harwood Hinton, ed., Afoot and Alone (Austin: The Book Club of Texas, 1996);
Gerald Saxon, Transitions: A Centennial History of the
Coy F. Cross
Robert Wooster, ed., Recollections of
James O. Breeden, ed., A Long Ride in
CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION
San Jacinto Symposium, April 16, 2011; “The San Jacinto
Disconnect and the Fracturing of Our Usable Past.”
Texas State Historical Association, March 3, 2011; roundtable:
“Texas Exceptionalism.”
Western Historical Association, October 15, 2010; “No Texas, No West: How
‘Texceptionalism’ Ruined the Concept of Place.”
Joint
Meeting, East Texas Historical Association & West Texas Historical
Association, February 25, 2010; “The State of Texas History & Its Future:
A Panel Discussion.”
Athens
Institute for Education & Research (Athens, Greece), December 29, 2009;
“’Whither Texas?’ Looking
for a Usable Past in the Shadow of the Acropolis.”
West Texas Historical Association, April 3,
2009; keynote banquet speaker, “The End of Texceptionalism.”
Texas State Historical Association, March
6, 2008; commentator: “The Texas Rangers: A Revisionist Review.”
East Texas Historical Association, February
14, 2008; roundtable: “Texas: South, West, or Texceptional?”
Texas State Historical
Association, March 4, 2006; “Conceiving a Texan West.”
Texas State Historical Association, June
17, 2004; roundtable: “The Western Experience in
Texas State Historical Association, March
9, 2002; commentator: “Officers and Chaplains in the Frontier
Army.”
East Texas Historical Association, February
23, 2002; chair/commentator: “Poor Farms, Oil Wells, and Airfields:
Changes Come to
American Studies Association of
Western History
Association, San Antonio, October 14, 2000; “Texas in the Western
Experience.”
East Texas Historical Association,
Texas Folklore Society,
West Texas Historical Association,
Southwest Social Science Association,
East Texas Historical Association,
Texas State Historical Association,
West Texas Historical Association,
East Texas Historical Association,
West Texas Historical Association,
Texas State Historical Association,
West Texas Historical Association, Canyon,
Texas State Historical Association,
West Texas Historical Association,
Mosaic of Texas Culture,
West Texas Historical Association,
Western Historical Association,
Southwest Social Science Association,
Western History Association,
Southwest Social Science Association,
GRANTS & AWARDS
Distinguished
Alumni, Austin College, 2010
William
E. Jary, Jr. Award, Tarrant County Historical
Commission
Sam
Member, Texas Institute of Letters, 2007
Fellow, East Texas Historical Association, 2007
Sam
Texas A&M University-Commerce, Applied Faculty Research Grant,
1997-1998
Rupert N. Richardson Award for “Best Book” in
Grant, National Endowment for the
Humanities to support publication of A
Texas Frontier
Contributing essayist in Journal of the West, “Best Issue,” 1995
First Prize, “Best Graduate
Paper,” Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference,
First Prize, “Best Paper Overall ,” Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference,
First Prize, “Best Paper, American
History,” Southwest Social Science Association, 61st Annual
Meeting,
“Special Award,” E. C.
Barksdale National Essay Competition,
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
Book Review Editor,
Editorial Board, Sound Historian: The Oral History Journal of Texas, 1997-present
Program
Chair for Spring 2006 meeting
President,
2002-2003
Vice
President, 2001-2002
Second
Vice-President, 2000-2001
Resolutions
Committee, chairman, 2000-2001
Endowment
Committee, 2000-2001
Board
of Directors,, 1997-2000
Membership
Committee, 1996-present
Program
Committee, 1997, 1999
H-Texas (internet group), Advisory Board,
1997-present
National History Day Director,
N.E.H. Grant Advisor,
Manuscript Referee: Texas A&M Press, University of
Nebraska Press, University of Oklahoma Press, University of Texas Press, and
Texas Tech University Press; Pearson Longman Press
UNIVERSITY SERVICE
Organized Research & Sponsored Programs Committee
President’s Committee on Academic
Culture
President’s Committee on FM 980
Development
Athletic Council
Visitors’/
Advisor, Sigma
Tau Gamma Fraternity (ΣΤΓ)
PROFESSIONAL
ASSOCIATIONS Present & Past
Western Historical Association
Western Writers of
Southern Historical Association
Phi Alpha Theta National Honor Society of
Historians