They've come to El Paso from all over: artists, scholars, naturalists and historians who can offer depth and detail to the many facets of Tom Lea. Their perspectives will help illuminate why Lea's legacy continues to be vital, and relevant—for Texas and beyond.
KATHERINE ALEXANDER
Katherine Alexander was born in San Diego, California, in 1948. She is a landscape painter who lives in New York City and West Texas. She has had solo exhibitions in El Paso, Houston, Los Angeles, Marfa and New York along with group exhibitions throughout the United States and Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Her work is represented in numerous corporate and private collections. Alexander studied at California State University, Fullerton (M.A. 1976) and San Diego State University (B.A. 1971). Her work is included in The Artist and the American Landscape, and in American Artist Magazine in “Making the Landscape Your Own Katherine Alexander.”
MORRIS BROWN
Morris Brown is the director of the College of Architecture at El Paso for Texas Tech University. He earned a B.A. in architecture and M.F.A. in sculpture from Texas Tech University. Brown is a member of El Paso Chapter of AIA and is the education chairman for the Texas Society of Architects. Brown is also the author of Portals at the Pass and is a member of the Boy Scouts of America.
J.P. BRYAN
J.P. Bryan is the founder, chairman and CEO of Torch Energy Advisors. He has been actively engaged in the energy business for more than 30 years. He has extensive preservation experience. He has served on the advisory board for the Brazoria County Historical Museum, was chairman of the board for the Institute of Texan Cultures, served as president for both the Texas Historical Foundation and Texas State Historical Association, and was a commissioner for the Texas Historical Commission. He has written and delivered speeches on various subjects, mainly pertaining to Texas history and its preservation; he also collects Texana. Among his numerous business awards are Texas Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 1994 and Canadian Oil Producer of the Year in 1995.
Bryan received his B.A. from The University of Texas-Austin (1959-62); his L.L.B. from The University of Texas Law School-Austin (1963-65); and his B.F.T. from the American Institute of Foreign Trade-Phoenix, AZ (1966).
LAURA W. BUSH
Laura Bush is actively involved in issues of national and global concern, with a particular emphasis on education, health care and human rights. She has investigated and showcased successful programs for early childhood education, at-risk youth, global literacy and preservation of our national parks and our country’s national treasures. And through her travels to more than 76 countries, including historic trips to Afghanistan, Mrs. Bush has helped launch groundbreaking educational and healthcare programs for women.
Mrs. Bush is an advocate for women’s health and has been an active participant in campaigns to raise awareness of breast cancer and heart disease, both in the United States and around the world. She partnered with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in The Heart Truth campaign and the Red Dress project. She traveled to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Panama to help launch international partnerships for breast cancer awareness and research in collaboration with the U.S. Department of State, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Born in Midland, Texas, to Harold and Jenna Welch, Mrs. Bush holds a degree in education with a master’s degree in library science. She taught in public schools in Dallas, Houston and Austin and worked as a public school librarian. In 1977, she met and married George Walker Bush. They are the parents of twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna.
BRUCE COLE
Dr. Bruce Cole is the president and CEO of the American Revolution Center, the first national institution devoted to exploring the history and continuing impact of the American Revolution.
Cole served as the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2001-2009; appointed by President George W. Bush, he was the longest-serving chairman of the NEH. He launched initiatives such as We the People, a program designed to encourage the teaching, study and understanding of American history and culture; and the Picturing America project, which uses American art to teach history and culture in schools and libraries nationwide.
Cole came to the NEH from Indiana University in Bloomington, where he was a distinguished professor of art history and professor of comparative literature. In 2008 he received the President’s Medal from the university for his “excellence in service, achievement and teaching.”
Cole attended Case Western University, and earned his master’s degree from Oberlin College and his doctorate from Bryn Mawr College. He is also the recipient of nine honorary doctorate degrees. For two years he was the William E. Suida Fellow at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, Italy. Cole has held fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, Kress Foundation, American Philosophical Society, and the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a corresponding member of the Accademia Senese degli Intronati, the oldest learned society in Europe. He has written 14 books and numerous articles.
In November 2008, President George W. Bush awarded Dr. Cole the Presidential Citizens Medal “for his work to strengthen our national memory and ensure that our country’s heritage is passed on to future generations.” Earlier in 2008, he was decorated Knight of the Grand Cross, the highest honor of the Republic of Italy.
JAN WISBRUN DREHER
Jan Wisbrun Dreher is an artist and master gardener. A native of El Paso whose family emigrated through Mexico, she studied Economics and Spanish at the University of Colorado, Boulder before returning to El Paso and UTEP for post-graduate courses in Educational Psychology and Guidance. Dreher earned her Master Gardener certificate in 2007.
MIMI R. GLADSTEIN
Mimi R. Gladstein has chaired both the English and theater arts departments at the University of Texas at El Paso. She is the author of five books and co-editor of two, one of which, The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes: Selected Works of José Antonio Burciaga, won the American Book Award, a Southwest Book Award and a Latino book award. Her most recent book on Ayn Rand is part of a series on major conservative and libertarian thinkers. Currently, she is president of the John Steinbeck Society of America. She was inducted into the El Paso Women’s Hall of Fame in 2011.
DANNY GONZALEZ
Danny Gonzalez has been working at El Paso Public Library’s Border Heritage Center for five years. Some of his duties include processing research requests for local historical and genealogical information, researching historical documents, digitizing photograph collections and working on special multi-organizational projects. His latest public presentation was to the Texas State Historical Association in March of this year; the focus of that conference was the 100-year anniversary of the Mexican revolution.
PHIL GOODELL
Phil Goodell was born and raised in El Paso, where he graduated from El Paso High School. He went east for college and graduate school, and earned a Ph.D. in geology from Harvard University. He has taught at UTEP since 1975, specializing in mineralogy, economic geology, and geochemistry, and applies these studies to northern Mexico.
KEN GORSKI
Ken Gorski is a member of the American Institute of Architects who has spent 25 years in private architectural practice involving commercial projects. Gorski was instrumental in bringing a full four-year bachelor of architecture degree program to El Paso in a joint partnership with Texas Tech University’s College of Architecture. A graduate in architecture from the University of Kansas, Gorski has taught civil engineering in the Engineering College at UTEP, has been an adjunct architecture professor at Texas Tech University College of Architecture El Paso, and is currently an associate professor and the coordinator of El Paso Community College’s architecture discipline.
MARIAN HADDAD
Marian Haddad is a Pushcart-nominated poet, writer and instructor. Her most recent collection of poems is Wildflower. Stone. (Pecan Grove Press, 2011).
Former First Lady Laura Bush refers to Haddad in her memoir, Spoken from the Heart: “Texas poet Marian Haddad wrote once about El Paso, ‘The sun is different here. ... Drastic and dense,’ she called it, and it truly is.”
Haddad’s also is the author of Saturn Falling Down (2003) and Somewhere between Mexico and a River Called Home (Pecan Grove Press, 2004).
An National Endowment for the Humanities recipient, Haddad holds a bachelor of arts degree in creative writing from The University of Texas at El Paso and an M.F.A. from San Diego State University, where she was associate editor for Poetry International, Vol. III.
Haddad has taught at Our Lady of the Lake and Northwest Vista College and at St. Mary’s University. Her works in progress include a collection of essays about growing up Arab-American in a Mexican-American border town.
DANIEL IRVING
Daniel Irving received his M.A. from Binghamton University, State University of New York, and his B.A. from Queens College, City University of New York. His most recent work includes issues of border life, traumatic experience, and intergenerational influence in ontological and narrative construction, with a particular focus on Southern and Southwestern authors of the early 20th century.
RICHARD KOONE
Born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where his father worked as an entomologist for USAID, Richard Koone grew up in Honduras, Spain, Nigeria, and the Philippines. He graduated from the University of Arkansas with a degree in political science before being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Field Artillery serving tours in Augsburg, Germany; Fort Sill, Oklahoma; Campbell University in North Carolina as an ROTC instructor; Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; Fort Sam Houston, Texas; and Heidelberg, Germany. His military duties also took him to Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia and Uruguay. Koone retired as a major in 1996 and worked as the site manager for the Computer Battle Simulation Center at Fort Sam Houston. In January 2002, he began working at the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg as the education programs coordinator. In this capacity he does living history presentations for school tours and assists with historical research. Koone lives in Fredericksburg with his wife, Nan. Their two daughters are graduates of the University of Texas.
ADAIR MARGO
Adair Margo owned the Adair Margo Gallery in El Paso from 1985-2011, exhibiting more than 400 artists from a dozen countries. She became especially devoted to the legacy of Tom Lea, founding The Tom Lea Institute in 2009. She recorded Lea’s oral history and was co-editor of Tom Lea, An Oral History (1995, Texas Western Press), which won the Border Regional Library Association Award. She wrote the forward to The Two Thousand Yard Stare, Tom Lea’s World War II (2008, Texas A&M Press), which was the winner of the Texas Institute of Letters Award. Margo also recorded the oral history of National Humanities Medal recipient Jose Cisneros, co-editing Jose Cisneros, Immigrant Artist (2006, Texas Western Press).
Margo is a graduate of Vanderbilt University (B.A. art history); studied Renaissance art and Italian with Syracuse University in Florence, Italy; and earned her M.A. in art history at New Mexico State University.
Adair Margo was the chairman of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities during the Presidency of George W. Bush (2000-2008). She was recognized by President Felipe Calderon with the Aguila Azteca, the highest recognition given by the government of Mexico to a non-Mexican citizen, and by President George W. Bush with the Presidential Citizen’s Medal.
PRINCE G. McKENZIE
Prince G. McKenzie is the director of the El Paso Railroad Museum. He is an officer of the El Paso Archaeology Society and has taught in Texas Archeological Society field schools. McKenzie served for 14 years as a visiting curator at the El Paso Museum of Art and for one year as the acting curator. He served two tours in Vietnam and graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso with a B.A. in history. McKenzie also studied the history of art at UTEP and abroad, traveling by train in 1971-72 to the United Kingdom and Europe to visit historic sites, cultural centers, and museums to study and document art and architecture.
PETER MEARS
Peter Mears is associate curator and department head of the art collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin, where he manages a large collection of artwork from the Americas, Asia and Europe.
Since arriving in 1995, Mears has curated exhibitions that explore literary portraiture and the works of artists who write and writers who paint and sculpt.
From 1988 to 1995, Mears served as curator of exhibitions at The Austin Museum of Art, (formerly Laguna Gloria Art Museum). Mears attended the University of Delaware and is a graduate of the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He has served as visual peer panelist for the Texas Commission on the Arts and has juried statewide art exhibitions.
BRANDON D. SHULER
Brandon D. Shuler is a seventh-generation Texan who traces his bloodline back to the Comanche Chief Quanah Parker and the early Parker clan that settled Texas. He is a Ph.D. candidate in literature, social justice, and the environment at Texas Tech University, where he studies Southwestern literature with an emphasis on Texas literature.
Shuler has won awards from the Texas Outdoor Writers Association and his fiction and poetry have appeared in Dark Sky Magazine, Red River Review, Interstice, and other literary journals. His first book, Glory of the Silver King: The Golden Age of Tarpon Fishing (Texas A&M University Press, 2011), is an edited edition of famed Texas sportswriter Hart Stilwell’s unpublished manuscript. He is currently editing NewBorder: An Anthology of Texas/Mexico Border Writing (TAMUP) and Whispering Like a Mountain: The Life Conversation of Tom Lea and J. Frank Dobie (University of Texas Press). Shuler is a Bruce Family Foundation Fellow for American Literature. More about Brandon and his work may be found at www.brandonshuler.com.
MICHAEL TOMOR
Dr. Michael Tomor is the director of the El Paso Museum of Art. He has been with the museum for more than five years, returning to El Paso in March of 2006 after directing the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art. Today he is focusing on fulfilling the mission of the El Paso Museum of Art to educate the public about art of the United States, Europe and Mexico by partnering with museums primarily in Mexico City, Spain, and the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast United States to bring quality programs to the people of El Paso, Las Cruces and Juárez.
Tomor received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in art history from The Pennsylvania State University, with a focus on 17th-century painting in Southern Europe, specifically the art of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. He has been a professional in the museum field since 1987, with direct experience in the areas of museum education, exhibition development, marketing, fundraising, finance (public and non-profit) and collections management.