News

The histories of San Antonio, and those of Texas, are illuminated in stories contained in legal documents of county courthouses around the state. 

Bexar County Clerk Gerry Rickhoff is working to preserve aging, fragile documents found in the Bexar County Courthouse, and to retrieve about 70,000 documents dating back to 1717, which were given to the University of Texas by a Bexar County Commissioners Court over 100 years ago. 

In the late 1930s, still fresh off the success of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” Walt Disney came across a story by the English writer P.L. Travers about a magical nanny that visits the Banks family — young Jane, Michael, and baby twins John and Barbara. Disney became fascinated with the stories, and felt they’d make an ideal setting for a motion picture. He pursued Travers for some 20 years until she finally relented and allowed Disney to adapt her books.

The Waco State Home was established as the State Home for Dependent and Neglected Children by the Thirty-sixth Legislature in 1919. It was in operation until 1979. Anglo children adjudged by district courts to be neglected were declared wards of the state of Texas, and they were admitted to the home for care, education, and training.

At San Antonio's Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, Marabel Vasquez is monkeying around—but that's her job. She is the chimpanzees' behavioral specialist at the private research facility. She visits with the chimps, provides environmental enrichment and assesses their social dynamics.

On this January morning, it's overcast and 38 degrees, but the chimps brave the cold. Many are outside in their enclosed play area and welcome Marabel with hoots.

It looked like the opening of the television show "M*A*S*H" —a helicopter flying over a mountainscape carrying a passenger in need of care.

Personnel run out to meet the chopper, grab the patient and get to work. 

But this is in West Texas at the Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area, and the patients are desert bighorn sheep.  

“This is why I got into this business in the first place. It's landscape-level conservation is what it is,” said Mike Hill, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Fort Davis Regional Director. 

Going to the movies is a part of most of our lives. But for many families with special needs, heading out to see the latest blockbuster is not an option. 

In the movie business, bigger is better, and the local cineplex features an explosion of bewildering options designed to overwhelm the senses.  For most of us, that’s what makes the movies fun – but for others, it can be too much to take.

Vivian Edens is a San Antonio mom whose son, Hunter, has Asperger Syndrome, a disorder on the autism spectrum.

Onstage at the South By Southwest festival in Austin last month, Girl in a Coma played to a packed house at a club on Sixth Street with a special guest, Cherie Currie, co-founder with Joan Jett of the iconic late seventies all-female band, The Runaways.  Girl in a Coma’s bassist Jenn Alva says it was a real “rock star” moment for her.

“I guess we really never think about ‘Oh, we’re so cool,’ but when we were the backup band for her, we just felt like, ‘YEAH!,” says Alva. 

Drummer Phanie Diaz, laughing, pipes in, “Yeah, Jenn’s lips naturally snarled!”