Texas Tech Press announces new releases
Texas Tech University Press recently announced several new releases, which are now available for purchase.
"Beside that Windmill": Illustrated by Don Parks, story by Minda Parks
What does a boy do when he has to spend his summers on a dry, windy farm, living in a house with no water or electricity? No TV, no radio, no telephone, no bathroom, no refrigerator. This was ranch life long ago.
Don Parks grew up on a family ranch in the rural Great Plains. The sky was big and blue. Cattle roamed the fields. Cowboys came and went. Most important of all, the ranch’s water was supplied by a faithful windmill. Every night it lulled the boy to sleep, and every day it worked alongside the family in the sun.
Windmills still dot the landscape of the wide spaces of America’s Great Plains. They serve as reminders of what it took homesteaders to settle this hardscrabble region and how they coaxed enough water from the earth to live by.
When Don Parks grew up, he began painting the childhood he remembered. His paintings are set alongside a story by his wife, longtime educator Minda Parks. Together, the narrative and the paintings tell the history of windmills on the Great Plains.
"Driller: An Oilman's Fifty Years in the Field" by Hubert H. Hays; Other primary creator W. R. McAfee and Catherine Hefferan
From the famous oilpatch that spread from West Texas to New Mexico, Alaska, China, and other locales, Hubert H. Hays (1935–2005) drilled for oil. He drilled for fifty years—and he was good at it.
He knew what negative 70 degrees does to casing and drill pipe. He knew what 500 degrees downhole does to affect drilling. He set records drilling gas wells and never had a blowout. Hays had a worldwide reputation that preceded him, and he probably drilled as many wells as any other man during his time.
But alongside learning the ins and outs needed for such a successful five-decade career in oil, Hays came to know the eclectic cast of roughnecks that can make up a good crew. He heard about the colorful lives they led and the myriad paths oilmen take.
Driller, compiled from notes and recordings by his wife Catherine and edited by Russ McAfee, tells the story of Hays’s life in oil: the ups and downs, the wisdom and the difficulty of the center of our energy needs. Readers will come away with invaluable technical knowledge, colorful stories, and a clear-eyed sense of the real oilfield seen by the men who plumb the earth for energy.
"Texas Natural History in the 21st Century" Grover E. Murray Studies in the American Southwest by David J. Schmidly, Robert D. Bradley and Lisa C. Bradley
One-hundred-fifty years ago, Texas was very different. A rural population was spread thinly across the eastern and central parts of the state, and vast lands in the western regions were still undisturbed.
Texas’s habitats and biota changed dramatically as its population increased and people spread across the landscape. In "Texas Natural History: A Century of Change" (2002), David Schmidly chronicled the changes that occurred during the twentieth century. In this second edition, Schmidly is joined by colleagues Robert and Lisa Bradley of Texas Tech University to extend that story over the first two decades of the 21st century.
The focus of "Texas Natural History in the 21st Century" continues to be on the mammalian fauna of the state, and it includes a reprinting of Vernon Bailey’s 1905 “The Biological Survey of Texas” with new annotations and updates. In the rest of the book, the authors discuss changes in landscapes, land use, and the status of Texas mammals in the last hundred years. The authors present current challenges to conserving the natural history of Texas and suggest long-term solutions to those challenges, including actions focused on both private and public lands.
As Texas approaches the daunting challenge of conserving its wildlife, Texas Natural History in the 21st Century serves as a rallying cry for addressing the scenarios imperiling Texas’s natural history in our present day and in the future.
For more information in pricing and availability for any of these publications or others published by Texas Tech University Press, visit www.ttupress.org
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech Press announces new releases
