Dr. Kenneth Margerison, Professor, Department of History, was named a Piper Professor of 2013 by the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation. To celebrate this special recognition, President Trauth will host a reception for Dr. Margerison in the fall. Details will be communicated to all faculty at the beginning of the fall 2013 semester.

Congratulations to PH students Alex Borger and Ann Landeros whose article on their successful class project to secure a state historical marker in Galveston for boxer Jack Johnson appeared in Sunday’s Galveston Daily News.

Congratulations to Jimmy McWilliams whose ebook, The Politics of the Pasture, will be available any day now. You can find it here.

Congratulations to Bryan Glass whose article "Protection from the British Empire? Central Africa and the Church of Scotland," will appear in the Spring print issue of Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History.

Congratulations to Jimmy McWilliams who had another article published in Slate. To read his article, please follow this link, "All Sizzle and No Steak: Why Allan Savory's TED talk about how cattle can reverse global warming is dead wrong."

Congratulations to Nancy Berlage whose co-authored article, “Identity and Institutions in Political History: A Cross-Disciplinary Discussion,” will appear in the journal Politics, Groups, and Identities, scheduled for release May 17, 2013.

Jessica Pliley has been accepted to participate in the summer academy "American Studies in a Transatlantic Perspective: Critical Regionalism in Politics and Culture,' hosted by the Bavarian American Academy and the University of Erlanger-Nuremberg in May.

Congratulations to Ron Johnson who will be a participant in the NEH Summer Institute, African-American History & Culture in the Georgia Lowcountry: Savannah and the Coastal Islands this summer.

At the Bilateral University Model Arab League in Houston (16-17 February), Texas State students Bita Razavimaleki and Nora Lisa Cavazos received "Outstanding Delegation" for their representation of the Syrian Arab Republic on the Social Affairs council, and Matt Korn received "Outstanding Chair" for his leadership of the Joint Defense council.

Congratulations to Frank, and Joaquin’s wife Yasmine, who have been named as Top Hispanic Educators in Texas by the Online Colleges of Texas. You can find the information here.

Congratulations to Rebecca Montgomery, Elizabeth Bishop and Angie Murphy who all won library grants to purchase databases that will aid all of us and our students in our continuing research.

Congratulations to Jose Carlos, whose book, El quipu colonial: estudios y materiales [The Colonial Khipu: Essays and Sources] (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2013). He is the co-author of the Introduction and one of the chapters.

Congratulations to Jessica Pliley, whose article, “The Petticoat Inspectors: Women Boarding Inspectors and the Gendered Exercise of Federal Authority,” appeared in the January 2013 issue of the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

Congratulations to Joaquin Rivaya-Martinez. His chapter, “De la civilización a la barbarie. La indianización de cautivos euroamericanos entre los indios comanches, 1820-1875,” appears in La indianización. Cautivos, renegados, «hommes libres» y misioneros en los confines de las Américas, s. XVI-XIX, edited by Salvador Berbnabéu, Chritophe Giudicelli, and Gilles Havard, pp. 107-136. Seville: Doce Calles and CSIC-EEHA, 2013.

Jessica Pliley’s interview about the book project with Marilyn Wilkes aired on the MacMillan Report and can be viewed here.

Congratulations to James McWilliams whose article, "Beastly Justice" was recently published in Slate. The article explores the midievil and early modern European tradition of holding criminal trials for animals that broke the law. Click here to read this fascinating article.

Congratulations to Joaquin for the publication of his latest article: “San Carlos de los Jupes. Une tentative avortée de sédentarisation des bárbaros dans les territoires frontaliers du nord de la Nouvelle-Espagne en 1787-1788.” Recherches amérindiennes au Québec, 41 (2-3 ; 2011): 29-42.

Congratulations to our Liberal Arts nominees for Presidential Excellence Awards:
Dwight Watson and Elizabeth Bishop for Service
Elizabeth Makowski and Jose Carlos de la Puente for Scholarship
Margaret Menninger for Teaching

Congratulations to Deirdre Lannon, TX State History MA and History Department Senior Lecturer. She found out yesterday that she has been accepted into UT’s doctoral program! We are extra happy because she is going to continue to teach for us online while she works on her degree.

Congratulations to Jessica Pliley who participated in the Gilder Lehman’s 14th Annual International Conference, "Abolition Past and Present: Scholars, Activists, and the Challenge of Contemporary Slavery," held at Yale University, New Haven, CT, November 8-10, 2012. It is available on C-Span at http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/309205-2.

Congratulations to Dan Utley who, with his co-author Cynthia J. Beeman, published History Along the Way: Stories beyond the Texas Roadside Markers (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2013).

Congratulations to Jessica Pliley, whose article, "The Petticoat Inspectors: Women Boarding Inspectors and the Gendered Exercise of Federal Authority,” appeared in this month’s Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 12, no. 1 (Jan 2013): 95-126.

Congratulations to Gary Hartman and the CTMH. Their Guy Clark tribute album, This One's for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark, has been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Folk Album of 2012. The album includes performances of Guy Clark songs by such prominent artists as Willie Nelson, John Prine, Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, Kris Kristofferson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Shawn Colvin, and others.

Congratulations as well to Gary Hartman and the Center for Texas Music History. The Center has been awarded a $7,500 Humanities Texas grant to help fund the Center's National Public Radio series, This Week in Texas Music History. For the past five years, This Week in Texas Music History has been broadcast on NPR affiliates throughout the Southwest to an audience of more than one million listeners. The program is also available worldwide online at: http://kut.org/category/music/this-week-in-texas-music-history/

Congratulations to Liz Makowski on the publication of her fourth book, English Nuns and the Law in the Middle Ages: Cloistered Nuns and their Lawyers, 1293-1540 (Suffolk, UK: The Boydell Press, 2012).

Congratulations to Frank de la Teja on the publication of his chapter “Plan de Ramón de Murillo para reformar las defensas de la frontera norte de la Nueva España,” in De las Navas de Tolosa a la Constitución de Cádiz: el Ejército y la Guerra en la Construcción del Estado, ed. Leandro Martínez Peñas and Manuela Fernández Rodríguez. Valladolid, Spain: Asociación Veritas.

Congratulations to Brandon Jett (MA ’12) whose article “Paris is Burning” will be published in the East Texas Historical Journal in the Fall 2013 issue. Brandon worked with Dwight on the thesis.

Congratulations to Dr. McWillimas who had an article published in Slate. The artilce is titled "Trojan Horse Meat" and can be found at this link.

Congratulations to Masters’ graduate Jenny Paul whose article, “Fighting the Nashville Blues: the Outlaw Image in Texas Country Music,” appeared in Sound Historian: Journal of the Texas Oral History Association, vol. 14 2012. Current students Bonnie Tipton and Kendra DeHart have book reviews in the same issue.

Dr. Denton received official notification that the Summerlee Foundation has authorized a grant of $50,000.00 to the CTPH field service initiative based on the proposal she submitted in July. The department is thrilled to be able to provide public history students with the opportunity to assist county historical commissions and small historical institutions and organizations.

Congratulations to Elizabeth Makowski whose chapter, “Canon Law and the Spirituality of Cloistered English Nuns,” came out in Canon Law, Religion & Politics, ed. by Uta-Renate Blumenthal, Anders Winroth and Peter Landau (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012).

Congratulations to graduate student Doug Dixon whose article, “Beyond Thirty-Eighth-Parallel Politics: Masculine Ideals of a Hoosier Soldier in Korea,” appeared in the Fall 2012 volume of the Journal of the Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to our gardening fund. We had just the right amount of money to buy the flowers, the soil and some bags to protect the plants when (and if) it freezes. A special thank you to the crew who showed up Saturday morning. Under the leadership of Rebecca (who did all of the buying and organizing), Lynn, Dan, Shannon, and Madelyn (with assistance from Annie and Riley) did a great job of taking away the old plants, repotting and cleaning up. It looks wonderful out there!!

Congratulations to Frank for the publication of “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness? An Expert Reviewer’s Experience,” in Politics and the History Curriculum: The Struggle over Standards in Texas and the Nation, ed. Keith A. Erekson. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Joaquin Rivaya-Martinez “Becoming Comanches: Patterns of Captive Incorporation into Comanche Kinship Networks, 1820-1875.” On the Borders of Love and Power: Families and Kinship in the Intercultural American West, edited by David Wallace Adams and Crista DeLuzio, pp. 47-70. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012.

Jeff Helgeson--, "'Who Are You America But Me?': The American Negro Exposition, 1940," was published over the summer in: Darlene Clark Hine and John McCluskey, Jr., eds., The Black Chicago Renaissance (University of Illinois Press, 2012).