Click here to download the entire Summer 2007 issue in PDF format.

Note from the tech guy:  Many apologies for the long delay in getting the Spring issue of the Candle online for your downloading pleasure.  It's been a series of misfortunes and missteps that have prevented getting it to you in a timely manner, and it's certainly not going to be the norm.  The table of contents, etc., to follow but the file is here now, finally.  Enjoy!  ~tj



Download the entire Spring 2007 Desert Candle in PDF format

Download the entire Desert Candle, Winter 2007, issue in PDF format.

    A Letter From Marfa by Tom Shuford is now available from the Desert Mountain Institute for $25 per copy.  Please call (432) 729-3500 to order.

    FAR WEST TEXAS is a vast land, a harsh land, inhabited by folks who live in a historical and   cultural  time-warp. 
    Nomadic hunters, gatherers and various Indian tribes lived here for thousands of years, leaving rock and cave art, potshards and history.
    Much of this land was a part of Mexico until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in 1848. Mexican traditions in music,food, and language remain a major presence in the Trans-Pecos region today. 
    Farmers, candelilla wax makers, hay balers, trappers, cow punchers, goat herders, miners and freighters survived in the desert mountain area most of whose ancestors were from Mexico,  some fleeing oppression and blood shed, seeking a better world.
    European pioneers began to settle the region in the late 1800s, bringing different world views, cultures and languages. With them came accelerated commerce and banking. Some Anglo and Afro Americans - who had lost everything in the Civil War - came in hopes of building new lives. All sought a better world.
    Visible transformation in the region came soon after with the infusion of capital brought by the railroad out of San Antonio.
    The meshing of cultures works in the Big Bend today on the strength of mutual respect for family, hard work and the spirit of survival. To those of us who live in Far West Texas today, it is a better world. 
    The Desert Candle seeks to preserve the cultures, legends and history of Far West Texas. In this issue, Lonn Taylor writes of the little known Jumano tribe, revealing evidence of their lives. Kelly Fenstermaker writes of her experience at a workshop on ancient secrets for survival in the desert. Bill Leftwich gives insight into people who may have gotten a new start north of the Rio Bravo with a short story set in Mexico at the time of Revolution. 
    We learn and see more of the region inJoe Nick Patoski’s newly published book, Big Bend National Park, presenting many of the wonders and the challenges of this land. Jim Glendinning tells of that timeless building material – adobe; Tom White recounts a surprising discovery in the river that joins and divides two countries; James Tierney gives an overview of the art and history of more recent art at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa; and Clay Reynolds guides the traveler around the Far West Texas Loop featuring photographs by Todd Jagger. 
    History now in the making includes Public Radio (KRTS-93.5 FM), serving the Big Bend and installed just this year.  Star-studded movies filmed here this summer add interest and glamour to our chronicles.  Andrew Stuart interviews filmmakers and crew members of There Will Be Blood by Paramount Pictures. 

Kay Taylor Burnett
Desert Candle Editor and Publisher

3 Kay Taylor Burnett    Introduction
4 Clay Reynolds    Far West Texas Loop (Todd Jagger Photography)
6 Bill Leftwich    La Montura
8 Kelly Fenstermaker     Secrets of the Desert
11 Jim Glendinning     Adobe Building in the Big Bend
12 Ruth Grisson    The Poetry of Birding
13 Tom White    Christos en el Rio
14 Dennie Miller    FOLKS OF FAR WEST TEXAS
16 Bob Miles    Bull branded MURDER
17 James Tierney    Chinati Open House
19 Daileen    Rather Sweet Cooking
20 Lonn Taylor    Don Juan Sabeata - Jumano Diplomat
22 TRANS PECOS EVENTS, CALENDAR and QUIZ
25 Andrew Stuart  FILM:“There Will Be Blood”
27 KRTS-93.5 FM – MARFA PUBLIC RADIO
28 Dennie Miller    Celebrations in Far West Texas
33 Joe Nick Patoski    Excerpts: Big Bend National Park    (Laurence Parent Photographs)
43 QUIZ ANSWERS

Download the entire Desert Candle: Fall 2006 PDF  (36MB)

Download the entire Summer 2006 issue in PDF format

     The theme of this guest-edited issue of Desert Candleis “a sense of place” — our instinct to bond with land, history, culture and family. The “why” of our longing for such deep attachments always eludes a full accounting. Even so, the impact ofthese intimate attachments on identity — on who we most deeply feel ourselves to be — often powers the personal stories we yearn to tell and love to hear.     
      Catherine Rainwater deftly recounts anthropologist Kay Sutherland’s intense personal and professional connection to the mysterious ancient rock art preserved at Hueco Tanks Historical State Park.  Kay herself felt something of the Jornada Mogollon peoples’ sense of place commemorated in this art from a lost world we can now only imagine. 
     Like the innkeeper’s son in Stephen Crane’s The Blue Hotel who believes in a still farther legendary “out west,” as a teenager Don Graham imagined an exciting Far West Texas quite different from his cotton-defined Carrollton home-town. No matter how familiar a place is to us, however, it can retain a mysteriousness that continues to stir our imagination. As Andrew Stuart discloses, such is the case with the peculiar name of the Chisos Mountains. Dan Flores knows firsthand about the inexplicable mysteriousness of an attachment to a particular landscape. A Louisianan transplant, Flores confesses to an acquired lifelong addiction to the badlands, which for him are a state of mind as much as a physical place. 
     Georgia Tuxbury’s short story, quaintly reminiscent of Collier’s fiction at mid-century, highlights a West Texas wife who cherishes the surprising rightness of her marriage — a mysterious perfect match she does not need to understand. Nor does Patricia Kerns need to analyze her partial reprise of Henry David Thoreau’s experiment at Walden Pond. Abandoning contemporary luxuries, Kerns has undertaken in the Big Bend area what she calls a “crazy idea” —  the shaping of her home and her daily life with her “own two hands.” And, as the photo-essay in this issue suggests, how could we celebrate a Far West Texas senseof place without including cacti? The variations on a theme expressed by these marvelous plants, so perfectly adapted to their setting, parallel the myriad ways that people dream of feeling physically and emotionally at home in their surroundings.

Bill Scheick
Guest Editor

Download the entire Spring 2006 issue in PDF format


   Cowboys may be thought near extinct in this country, but they still ride and rope and round up cattle in Far West Texas. They also read, write and speak poetry. The 20th Annual Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering was the last weekend of February 2006, in Alpine. (See page 4.)    

    Trappings of Texas 20th annual event featuring the best in Cowboy Gear and Art is the second-oldest Trappings show in the nation. It remains on exhibit at the Museum of the Big Bend, Sul Ross State University in Alpine, through April. (See page 6.)

   Radio in the Big Bend region is not just about radio anymore. It’s about life – local and global. Non-commercial KRTS 93.5 FM reaches you where you are and takes you to places you’ve never been. It asks listeners to be owners, participants and developers of a media that serves its listening audience. It is a nonprofit media that connects us from village to village and county to county in Far West Texas, and to the world at large. (See April schedule on page 21.)

     KRTS 93.5 FM (Marfa Public Radio) arrived in the Big Bend February 13, 2006,when renowned television broadcaster Dan Rather turned on the switch at the new studio in Marfa. That historic launch was followed by a benefit concert byWillie Nelson and his band on Valentine’s Day, at Sul Ross State University in Alpine is presented in photos. (See page 15.)


Kay Taylor Burnett, Editor

Table of Contents:

3    Kay Taylor Burnett    Introduction
4    Jim Bones                  20th Cowboy Poetry Gathering
6    Charles Reins            Fort Davis
8    Tom Shuford            Ayn Foundation Marfa Project
9    Lonn Taylor              Indian Lodge
10   William Hanrahan    A Hiker's View
12    Dennie Miller        FOLKS OF FAR WEST TEXAS
14    Andrew Stuart       Below the Escondido Rim by David Keller
15    Jim Bones              Marfa Public Radio dedication   
16    Troy A. Gilbert     Escaping to Marfa
19    Jim Bones             Willie Nelson Benefit Concert
20    MARFA PUBLIC RADIO SCHEDULE
21    Judy Edwards       Nearly May
22    Elizabeth McBride    Copper Canyon
24    TRANS PECOS EVENTS CALENDAR and QUIZ
27    Dennie Miller    2006 Trappings of Texas
28    Roy Hamric        A Conversation with Judy
29    Jim Bones          Legend and Myth
35    Far West Texas Quiz Answers

Download the entire Winter 2006 issue in PDF format.

For almost 30 years, public radio has been a dream in Far West Texas. Many sincere efforts to bring it to our region failed. Now, KRTS – 93.5 FM on your dial, Marfa Public Radio serving the Trans-Pecos Region, will launch this February. See the story on page four, as Texas Monthly editor Evan Smith tells it for the Desert Candle.

We expand the Candle to 36 pages in this winter issue. Larry Moffitt of United Press International has a chapter, A Dog Canyon Adventure, from his memoir; Barbara Novovitch, journalist and stringer for The New York Times, presents Billy Faier, a new resident of Far West Texas; David Wilkinson, award-winning Texas author, shares an excerpt from his new novel in progress, Where the Mountains are Thieves; David Richards, Texas trial lawyer and published author, gives a true account of A Trial in Del Rio; and we introduce a new writer for the Candle, Sharon Collyer with The Great Terlingua Land Grab.

Luc Novovitch has graciously supplied photographs; Texas lawyer and poet, Michael Maguire of Austin and Marfa, pens poetry for this issue; Roy Hamric, former U.T.-Arlington and Baylor professor now living in Thailand, writes our book review; Andrew Stuart, a journalist and Candle assistant editor, reveals the artistry of filmmaking in Marfa; Lonn Taylor, retired Smithsonian historian now living in Fort Davis, lets us know about the Big Bend archeological studies in the area; Bob Miles of Fort Davis, a member of the Texas Mountain Trail Writers and Western Writers of America, tells our Folklore story; John Karges, a conservation biologist with The Nature Conservancy, teases with a Far West Texas Quiz; and Dennie Miller of Alpine, photographer and published outdoors writer, profiles four Folks of Far West Texas.

Kay Taylor Burnett
Editor



Kay Taylor Burnett  Introduction

Evan Smith  Public Radio arrives in Big Bend

Larry Moffitt  A Dog Canyon Adventure

Barbara Novovitch  Billy Faier, new resident of Far West Texas

Dennie Miller  FOLKS OF FAR WEST TEXAS

Roy Hamric  BOOK REVIEW: Dead in their Tracks by John Annerino

Bob Miles  FOLKLORE: The Legend of Dolores Mountain

TRANS PECOS EVENTS CALENDAR

Michael Maguire  POETRY

David Richards  A Trial in Del Rio

Andrew Stuart  Marfa Filmmaker, Rick Guilliams

David Wilkinson  Where the Mountains are Thieves

Lonn Taylor  Documenting Rock Art in the Trans-Pecos

Sharon Collyer  The Great Terlingua Land Grab

Kay Taylor Burnett  McDonald Observatory Represented in South Africa
  
John Karges  Far West Texas Quiz Answers

The rising
of the sun …
the going down
of the same …
the trill of a
mountain
sparrow
has rhythm …
as does art,
life, nature and
work.


Now, in our second year sixth issue, the Desert Candle continues the beat. Eve Trook (lawyer, weaver, and Candle associate editor) is now a senior editor; Lori Keyes (English instructor at Sul Ross State University) keeps the office running as advertising and office manager; Wendy Lynn Wright (Marfa artist) continues as production manager; and Roy Hamric (former UT and Baylor professor and editor of The Desert-Mountain Times) has served as a managing editor for the Fall issue.

The Candle provides a venue for good writing. Bob Miles, Lonn Taylor and Dennie Miller head the ranks of regular contributing writers. Bret Myers continues as artist/illustrator, and we add Mark Kneeskern, who works from his studio in Terlingua. The criterion for writers is that their text fits Far West Texas. In this issue Charles Reins glimpses notable visitors; Dennie Miller presents Folk of Far West Texas; Elizabeth McBride profiles a noted print maker; Ira Blanton tells of long-time residents; Carol Edwards describes Hummingbird activities; L. Martini pens poetry; Clay Reynolds gives a Texas book review; and Dan Logan furnishes clues to The Lost Sephardic Jews of Mexico. We also introduce Terry LaBorde, a new writer of fiction, with The Old Man and the Virgin.

The Desert Candle is not a publication for drumbeaters or axe grinders. We seek to raise the banner for creative enthusiasm and intellectual engagement with the authenticity of Far West Texas. The first Candle (Fall 1967 – Fall 2003) was owned and published by Judith Brueske of Alpine. She created a folksy, informative publication that she distributed quarterly for 17 years.

The Desert Candle was purchased from Judith in the summer of 2003. It emerged as the quarterly publication of a newly formed nonprofit literary arts organization, The Desert Mountain Institute, with the first issue in Spring 2004.

Kay Taylor Burnett
Editor


Download the entire Fall 2005 Desert Candle in PDF format.


Kay Taylor Burnett  Introduction

Terry LaBorde  The Old Man and the Virgin Bret Myers Illustrations

Carol Edwards  The Lore and Lure of Hummingbirds

Dan Logan  The Lost Sephardic Jews of Mexico

Charles Reins  When Mario Lanza and Woody Guthrie came to Big Bend

Dennie Miller  FOLKS OF FAR WEST TEXAS

Clay Reynolds  BOOK REVIEW: Lone Star Chapters: The Story of Texas Literary Clubs by Betty Holland Wiesepape

Bob Miles  FOLKLORE: Alsate – Last of the Chisos Apaches

TRANS PECOS EVENTS CALENDAR/FAR WEST TEXAS QUIZ

L. Martini  POETRY Mark Kneeskern Illustrations

Lonn Taylor  Hunter-gatherer Campsite Discovery

Tom Fullerton  Cowboy Goin’ Home Broke Again

Ira Blanton  The Yates Legacy: Lore, Legend, and Longhorns

Elizabeth McBride  ART REVIEW: Robert Arber: Marfa’s master print maker

Laura Long  Ars Poetica of a Desert Dweller / Falling Sideways into Grace

Far West Texas Quiz Answers

This second summer issue of the Desert Candle explores regional history and visions for the coming century as well as contemporary life in Far West Texas. We glimpse social history not often accessible outside of family story-telling. Through it, we gain an immediacy of experience with people sharing our land in a very different time, a sense of community with those we have no opportunity to meet in person. We can, for instance, come to understand the strength and reality of a woman whose life ended before many of us were born.

We may intuit how a childhood in the Big Bend Park might be different from those we have lived. We may begin to understand what bonds ranchers to their lands. We each have stories dear to our families and neighborhoods. Through the Candle, we share these stories and recognize the larger, more diverse community.

Tourism is a certain part of our future in Far West Texas: eco-tourism, adventure tourism, cultural tourism, historical tourism. Perhaps more important than developing the necessary infrastructure to sustain that tourism is the development of a community vision to inform the goal of tourism: the establishment of a regional identity with historical themes, values, and stories. The Candle reflects this development and celebrates its inclusiveness.

The community’s basis resides in story-telling and visions, poetry and history – the visceral part of our humanity, in Far West Texas or anywhere. They are what the Candle is about.

Eve Trook
Guest Editor


Download the entire Summer 2005 issue in PDF format.

Eve Trook  Introduction

Dawn Trook  Lannan Writers

Kelly Fenstermaker  Miller Ranch

Tyrus Fain  Rio Grande Border

David Busey Tejano Architecture

Jim Glendinning  FOLKS OF FAR WEST TEXAS

William J. Scheick  BOOK REVIEW: God’s Dog at Civilization’s Door by Lisa Lenard-Cook

Chuck Rucker  FOKELORE

TRANS PECOS EVENTS CALENDAR/FAR WEST TEXAS QUIZ

Jesús Tofoya  POETRY

Kay Ford Ellis  ART REVIEW: Gretchen Coles

June Cooper Price  Under the Piñon Pines

Linda Bailey Potter  Irene Rogers Peters: one woman, many roles

Eve Trook  Sustainable farming returns to Far West Texas

Cathryn A. Hoyt  CDRI Botanical Gardens: A Vision of the Future

Far West Texas Quiz Answers

 "... I love to lie and listen to the music of the wind strumming a sagebrush guitar. And over yonder hill the moon is climbing …” 
                                 Excerpt from song: Along the Navajo Trail
 
Visionary. Strong. Independent. These words conjure images of individuals who pioneer new worlds.  Far West Texas is settled by these kinds of people, and a few of their stories emerge in this issue of the Desert Candle. The Prologue from One Ranger gives a glimpse inside an era in Texas and the page-turning Memoir of one Texas Ranger, Joaquin Jackson. Denise Chavez’ El Inglés Tan Bonito chronicles her grandmother’s far-reaching journey into an English speaking world.
 
In the modern maze of high-tech living midst traffic and noise - within and without - some may pause to consider and even to pursue a more simple way of life.    ‘Simple’, for some, means solitude and time for reflection; less talk and more reality; less material goods and more value; less indoor hours and more outdoor experiences; less complicated relationships and more instinctive ones.  Bill Hanrahan tells of his leap into a new way of life in A Connecticut Yankee in Jeff Davis’ Fort.
 
Yet, this sparsely populated Big Bend region stretched over 22,000 square miles of desert and mountain terrain, and offering ‘simple’living,  is connected to theworld via public radio (www.MarfaPublicRadio.org see Tom Michael’s article), telephone, fax, internet, satellite and cable TV. It hosts one of the largest telescopes on planet earth, monitoring galaxies beyond.  Rebecca Johnson and staff tell of this wonder, McDonald Observatory, while Bernie Zelazny sketches the canopy in The Big Bend Sky – Past and Present.

Creative impulses seem to emanate from the soil itself in Simone Swan’s The Merry Pranks of Scholarly Mud Freaks, and its qualifier, Dwelling Inside/Outside the Cultural Body by Surpik Angelini.

The Candle’s featured artists this spring areWestern painter Wayne Baize from Fort Davis (front cover art) profiled by KayEllis, and poet Professor Nelson Sager posturing Shakespearian sonnets in Wild West vernacular. 

Get to know some of our diverse Folks of Far WestTexas as Bob Miles introduces a few, and reminisce with us an earlier mode of travel via James Bunnell’s Pinto Canyon. 

Interesting book reviews, folklore and a Far West Texas Quiz are a standard treat of the Desert Candle, now entering its second year of publication.     
 
 Kay Taylor Burnett
 Editor


Download the entire Spring 2005 issue in PDF format from the "attachment" link below.  (Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0 or greater.)

Kay Burnett Introduction

Kay Ellis Wayne Baize: Legend in the Making

 

Tom Michael Public Radio and our Changing Landscape

   

Bill Hanrahan A Connecticut Yankee in Jeff Davis Fort

   

Denise Chavez El Inglés Tan Bonito

   

Joaquin Jackson / David Marion Wilkinson ONE RANGER Prologue

   

Bob Miles FOLKS OF FAR WEST TEXAS

   

Clay Reynolds BOOK REVIEW: Texas Post Office Murals by Philip Parisi

   

TRANS PECOS EVENTS CALENDAR / FAR WEST TEXAS QUIZ

   

James Bunnell Pinto Canyon

   

POETRY Nelson Sager Shakespearian Cowboys

B.D. Zelazny The Big Bend Sky - Past and Present

   

Simone Withers Swan The Merry Pranks of Scholarly Mud Freaks

   

McDonald Observatory Staff Stars, Comets, Galaxies and Quasars

Surpik Angelini Dwelling Inside/Outside the Cultural Body

   

Far West Texas Quiz Answers