{"id":944,"date":"2018-12-31T14:51:02","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=944"},"modified":"2018-12-31T14:51:02","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:51:02","slug":"glenn-dromgooles-texas-reads-column-appears-weekly-at-lonestarliterary-com-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=944","title":{"rendered":"Glenn Dromgoole’s Texas Reads column appears weekly at LoneStarLiterary.com"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/span><\/span>Texas Reads<\/span>>> archive<\/span><\/a><\/span>Glenn Dromgoole<\/span><\/h1>\n

5.28.2017\u00a0\u00a0 Mahon served forty-four years as West Texas congressman<\/h1>\n

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<\/a><\/span><\/span>Lubbock author Janet M. Neugebauer has written a comprehensive political biography<\/span> of longtime U.S. Rep. George H. Mahon, who represented West Texas in Congress for 44 years before retiring in 1978.<\/p>\n

A Witness to History: George H. Mahon, West Texas Congressman<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Texas Tech University Press, $45 hardcover) is a 480-page account of Mahon\u2019s life from 1900 until his death in 1985, focusing primarily on his\u00a0 congressional service, eventually chairing the influential House Appropriations Committee and, before that, its military appropriations subcommittee.<\/p>\n

Neugebauer is deputy director of the Southwest Collection at Texas Tech, where Mahon\u2019s papers are archived, so she had access to a wealth of information stored there. She quickly gets to the point, not spending too many pages on Mahon\u2019s early years \u2014 graduating from high school in Loraine, Simmons College in Abilene, and University of Texas Law School. He was serving as district attorney in Colorado City when he ran for Congress in 1934 and won in a runoff.<\/p>\n

On his first day in Congress \u2014 Jan. 3, 1935 \u2014 Mahon made it a point to write his first letter \u2014 a letter of appreciation \u2014 to Judge W.R. Ely of Abilene, who had loaned him money to attend Simmons College. Mahon would go on to be one of the most powerful leaders in Congress and a close friend of several presidents. But at his funeral in 1985, House Minority Leader Jim Wright eulogized him as \u201ca gentle man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThe word honorable was not just a title for George Mahon,\u201d Wright said. \u201cIt was a way of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kent Hance, who succeeded Mahon as congressman in 1979, concurred in the book\u2019s foreword, noting, \u201cNo doubt George Mahon would be appalled at the lack of civility in national politics in this day and time, and would attribute this lack of congeniality to the logjam that now prevails in Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/span>Wildflowers:<\/span> Texas photographers Rob Greebon<\/span> and Richard Reynolds<\/span> have teamed up to produce a gorgeous, full-color and very affordable 80-page book, Texas Wildflowers Impressions<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Far Country Press, $12.95 paperback). This one will look good on your coffee table and you\u2019ll enjoy thumbing through the pages and looking at the beautiful photographs. It also makes a nice gift to someone visiting here from another state or country.<\/p>\n

Bluebonnets take center stage, of course, but there are plenty of sunflowers, Indian blankets, corn poppies, brown-eyed susans, yucca, milkweed, cactus and more. The book includes a brief look at what kinds of wildflowers can be found in different regions of the state, and don\u2019t skip over the captions because they are informative and enlightening.For example, Greebon tells about a photograph he took of a longhorn and her calf grazing in a field of flowers. He was driving by and he stopped and took the picture. \u201cI\u2019ve learned from experience,\u201d he writes, \u201cI\u2019d rather stop and take the shot, rather than wish later that I\u2019d stopped!\u201d A good rule of thumb for any aspiring photographer.<\/p>\n

Glenn Dromgoole\u2019s<\/span> latest book is West Texas Stories<\/span><\/a><\/span>Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.<\/p>\n

>> Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole 5.28.2017\u00a0\u00a0 Mahon served forty-four years as West Texas congressman Lubbock author Janet M. Neugebauer has written a comprehensive political biography of longtime U.S. Rep. George H. Mahon, who represented West Texas in Congress for 44 years before retiring in 1978. A Witness to History: George H. Mahon, West Texas Congressman (Texas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}