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A detailed study of education on the frontier, in one small spot it Southwest Texas which covers a 60-year period. The subject is the school in particular.
"Every community needs a nature center just like it needs a school, church, and library. Nature centers teach environmental values. This book is a practical and usable guide to establishing and operating a nature center from authors who did it themselves and who studied dozens of other nature centers across the country. It is full of useful information, and a must read for anyone interested in nature centers."--John Flicker, President, National Audubon Society"The authors' love of nature and their labor of love in establishing the Cibolo Nature Center come through loud and clear. . . . They offer a wealth of wisdom based on their own experiences in a clear, readable style. They also present significant information on where help is available."--Michael Riska, Executive Director, Delaware Nature SocietyPreserving wild land as a community nature center can be a powerful antidote to the stresses of modern living. This practical handbook is designed to inspire, inform, and enable readers to create a local nature center, or help an existing nature center grow and prosper. It will be an essential resource for nature center pioneers, as well as volunteers, board members, donors, government officials, or new members who want to educate themselves about the operation and potential of a nature center in their community.Brent Evans and Carolyn Chipman-Evans give step-by-step instructions for creating and maintaining a nature center. They cover topics such as starting from scratch; gathering support; organizing the organization; building community; handling costs, budgets, and funding; managing land without managing to ruin it; and planning. Photographs, line drawings, and boxes with helpful tips amplify the entire book.
The Rio Grande makes a large bend into Mexico and forms the "boot heel" of Texas that is the Big Bend. Big Bend National Park nestles inside this meander, and its history is as much a part of Mexico as it is of Texas. The remote border location is historically replete with rich cultural diversity, including nomadic bands of Native Americans, Spanish explorers, Mexican and Anglo farmers, ranchers, miners, military men, and entrepreneurs. In the 1930s, a handful of people saw the Big Bend's majestic ruggedness as a place where all Americans could touch the Creator in nature and appreciate the alien qualities that both test and console the human spirit. This remote frontier still draws the souls of those seeking wide-open vistas and crystal-clear night skies.
This collection of writings and images by the legendary Big Bend photographer offers adventure, history, personal musings, and natural beauty. Photographer-naturalist Peter Koch first visited Big Bend National Park in February, 1945, on assignment to take promotional pictures for the National Park Service. He planned to spend a couple of weeks, and ended up staying for the rest of his life. Koch’s magnificent photographs and documentary films introduced the park to people across the United States and remain an invaluable visual record of the first four decades of Big Bend National Park. In this book, Koch’s daughter June Cooper Price draws on her father’s photographs, newspaper columns, and journal entries, as well as short pieces by other family members, to present his vision and many experiences of the Big Bend. The adventure begins with a six-day photographic trip through Santa Elena Canyon on a raft made from agave flower stalks. Koch also describes hiking on mountain trails and driving the scenic loop around Fort Davis; “wax smuggling” and other ways of making a living on the Mexican border; ranching in the Big Bend; collaborating with botanist Barton Warnock; and the history and beauty of Presidio County, the Rio Grande, and the Chihuahuan Desert.
Miles evokes Indian, Mexican and Anglo traditions that converge in this area in this collection of tales. They cover supernatural phenomena such as the Marfa lights and water witching, murders, feuds, and lost treasures.
The Texas of vast open spaces inhabited by independent, self-reliant men and women may be more of a dream than a reality for the state’s largely urban population, but it still exists in the Big Bend. One of the most sparsely settled areas of the United States, the Big Bend attracts people who are willing to forego many modern conveniences for a lifestyle that proclaims “don’t fence me in.” Marcia Hatfield Daudistel and Bill Wright believe that the character traits exemplified by folks in the Big Bend—including self-sufficiency, friendliness, and neighborliness—go back to the founding of the state. In this book, they introduce us to several dozen Big Bend residents—old and young, long-settled and recently arrived, racially diverse—who show us what it means to be an authentic Texan. Interviewing people in Marathon, Big Bend National Park, Terlingua, Redford, Presidio, Alpine, Marfa, Valentine, Balmorhea, Limpia Crossing, and Fort Davis, Daudistel and Wright discover the reasons why residents of the Big Bend make this remote area of Texas their permanent home. In talking to ranchers and writers, entrepreneurs and artists, people living off the grid and urban refugees, they find a common willingness to overcome difficulties through individual skill and initiative. As one interviewee remarks, you have to have a lot of “try” in you to make a life in the Big Bend. Bill Wright’s photographs of the people and landscapes are a perfect complement to the stories of these authentic Texans. Together, these voices and images offer the most complete, contemporary portrait of the Texas Big Bend.

Big Bend

United States. National Park Service. Division of Publications

Published: 1983

Total Pages: 132


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