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Texas Standard commentator W.F. Strong has met a lot of Texans throughout the years. Some have shared bits of history from the Lone Star State. Some have recalled old family traditions or news of certain oddities.
But others have imparted on him some unique problem-solving skills. This story tells of two old friends and their quick thinking.
Texas Standard commentator W.F. Strong reminds us of a time you’ll find particularly in rural Texas – Cowboy Time.
The start of the school year means it’s the end of summer travel season for many families. As Texans well know, depending on where you live in the state, it can take longer to travel out of it than to cross several state lines beyond our borders.
Texas Standard commentator W.F. Strong reflects on coming back to Texas.
There are a few symbols so deeply woven into the fabric of Texas that they seem as native as mesquite or bluebonnets. One of them is the Stetson hat. Not just any Stetson hat – the Boss of the Plains.
Texas Standard commentator W.F. Strong says that oddly enough, it didn’t come from Texas at all.
If there’s one thing the Texans of the early republic never lacked, it was imagination – especially when it came to dodging tariffs and taxes. Texas Standard commentator W.F. Strong explains.
Back in frontier times, it was the most deeply feared moon in Texas and northern Mexico.
This bit of history really does seem too strange to be true. It involves the family of John Wilkes Booth, the son of Abraham Lincoln, and Sam Houston.
Growing up in Texas, WF Strong found that whistling played a important role in his life. But there are many ways to whistle. He explores a few of them.
If you examine any good map of Texas, you’ll notice a natural division of East and West Texas that runs from the eastern side of the Panhandle down to Abilene and San Angelo and on past Uvalde to Carrizo Springs and Laredo. To the west side of that line is arid and to the east is wetter and greener. And it becomes increasingly dry as you go west and increasingly humid as you go east. Texas Standard commentator W.F. Strong explains the history of this geographical marker.
Steinbeck’s comments about Texas and Texans go well beyond his “Texas is a state of mind” quote. Texas Standard commentator W.F. Strong explores.
Texas Standard is celebrating its 10th birthday by looking back on 10 years of covering Texas. One way we’re going to do that is with top 10 lists. We started by counting down our top 10 Stories from Texas from commentator W.F. Strong.
Some of the most frustrating hours of our lives might be spent in a vehicle. After some hard times on the road, nothing can feel better than the perfect parking spot at the place you need to be. But how will you pull in? Texas Standard commentator WF Strong has some thoughts.
On the western side of the Panhandle, right on the Texas/New Mexico border are two towns that were established just a few years apart in the late 1800s. They were separated by a line as thin as a goal line. They both still exist today — with populations of less than 1,500 each. But Texas Standard commentator W.F. Strong says their beginnings were very different.
Texas Standard commentator WF Strong says the Gruver Farm Scholarship Foundation has already made a multi-generational impact.
A strongman politician is something we’ve heard a lot about recently. This Stories From Texas is about a strongman from history and a plan to set him up anew in Texas.
Texas Standard Commentator W.F. Strong dug up this story — one that you probably didn’t hear about in Texas history, for one, because it didn’t come to fruition.
Even though the words “Remember the Alamo” are available on t-shirts, bumper-stickers, and kitchen kitsch, the Alamo wasn’t always remembered with the reverence it is today. For a long time, the Alamo was used mostly as a warehouse. Even the church, which people rather universally think of as the Alamo, was used as an army depot for decades. Texas Standard commentator WF Strong has the story of two women who helped to change that.
Sometimes things happen in the world that just seem too coincidental to be coincidental. We have lots of words to describe these moments — luck, serendipity, maybe fate or destiny, perhaps a miracle?
Texas Standard Commentator WF Strong remembers one of these moments he just can’t explain.
These five Californians, including John Wayne and Robert Duvall, have made great Texans in movies.
The recipe is a mainstay under the Friday night lights and has morphed – and gotten more portable – since its debut in 1949.
Stories of lost gold have long dominated Texas lore. Coronado looped around what’s now the Texas Panhandle in search of it. And there’s that allegedly lost gold mine in the Guadalupe Mountains of far west Texas.
Texas Standard commentator WF Strong has had his own experience with reportedly lost treasure. And he recalls another story of lost gold.