John Spong

John Spong remembers his father, Will, an Episcopal priest, seminary professor, and grief counselor who helped people work through difficult times in their lives and left a lasting impact after his death.

On Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and an oral history of the “outlaw country” movement that coalesced in Austin as a reaction to the polished “countrypolitan gloss” in Nashville, led by RCA executive Chet Atkins:

“Liquor by the drink had finally become legal in Texas, which prompted the folkies to migrate from coffeehouses to bars, turning their music into something you drank to. Songwriters moved to town, like Michael Murphey, a good-looking Dallas kid who’d written for performers such as the Monkees and Kenny Rogers in L.A. He was soon joined by Jerry Jeff Walker, a folkie from New York who’d had a radio hit when the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band covered his song ‘Mr. Bojangles.’ In March, Willie played a three-day country festival outside town, the Dripping Springs Reunion, that would grow into his Fourth of July Picnics. Then he too moved to Austin and started building an audience that didn’t look like or care about any Nashville ideal. By the time the scene started to wind down, in 1976, Willie and Austin were known worldwide.”

Bobby Jackson has received much recognition for engaging students in the classroom, including an award for “Texas history of the year.” A look at one very popular history teacher’s classroom:

“He starts challenging kids’ expectations the first day of school. ‘We do a brainstorming activity where I put the kids on a timer and ask them to give their perceptions of a Texan. Then we talk about stereotypes, myths, and legends. I tell them that a lot of our stories could or could not be true. The kids need to know there’s more to every story.’ Then he stays as personal, passionate, and interactive as he can. He has his students write letters to Stephen F. Austin applying to be among the first three hundred colonists. He reenacts Gonzales, Goliad, and San Jacinto in his classroom. “I portray a survivor of the Battle of San Jacinto, Stephen Franklin Sparks, who lived and died in Rockport. He was sixteen when he fought for Ben Milam, and he ended up being the second-to-last survivor of the Texas Revolution to pass away. And he was just about their age when he did all this.” When he gets to the 1919 hurricane, he plays interviews with aging eyewitnesses that he recorded as part of his master’s thesis at Corpus Christi State. He also tells the students his own family’s hurricane stories, all while dressed in a two-piece, striped bathing suit and straw boater that look like an outfit Buster Keaton would have worn to the beach.”

She grew up listening to her dad talk about his days in the Army. She knew she wanted to be a soldier too. She spent nearly two decades serving her country with a quiet determination. On September 11, 2001, she went to her office at the Pentagon. “Major John Thurman, who had been sitting two desks down from Karen, lay on the floor and called out to see if anyone else was alive. Only Karen and Bill Ruth answered back. Thurman put his head as close to the floor as he could without burning his face, forced in a deep breath, and stood. He moved some file cabinets to make a path to Karen and then another to pull Ruth to them.” #Sept11

From booze-guzzling, skirt-chasing, check-kiting Congressman to American hero in—you guessed it—twelve steps.