Board Biographies
| OFFICERS | |
Gregg Cantrell, President Fort Worth Dr. Gregg Cantrell earned his Ph.D. in History from Texas A&M University in 1988. He taught at Sam Houston State University, Hardin-Simmons University, and the University of North Texas before joining the history department faculty at TCU in August of 2003. He teaches the American history survey courses, plus upper-level and graduate courses in Texas history. He is the author or editor of several books, including The History of Texas and Stephen F. Austin, Empresario of Texas, for which he won Kate Brooks Bates Award in 2000 for the best book on Texas history up to 1900. He won the H. Bailey Carroll Award for the best article in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly in 2001 and in 2005. Dr. Cantrell serves on the TCU Press Editorial Advisory Board and is a member of the Philosophical Society of Texas and the Texas Institute of Letters. He was named a TSHA Fellow in 2008. Follow his blog as he discusses his activities as TSHA President and his passion for history. |  |
John L. Nau, III, First Vice President Houston John L. Nau III is president and chief executive officer of Silver Eagle Distributors, L.P., the nation’s largest distributor of Anheuser-Busch products. Silver Eagle employs over 1,100 employees that serve sixteen counties in Texas through operations in Houston, San Antonio, Conroe, Cypress, and Rosenberg. Silver Eagle also distributes Grupo Modelo beers, a broad selection of microbrews and craft beers and several non-alcohol beverages and waters. Nau’s commitment to service is apparent through a broad spectrum of participation in civic, community, and philanthropic organizations in Houston and throughout the country. He serves as a board member of the following organizations: Discovery Green Conservancy, National Park Foundation, Friends of the Texas Historical Commission, San Antonio River Foundation, and the National Western Art Foundation of The Briscoe Western Art Museum. Nau is a graduate of the University of Virginia, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in history. He and his wife, Bobbie, reside in Houston. |  |
Lynn Denton, Second Vice President Austin Lynn Denton is the Director of the Public History Program in the Department of History and Associate Professor of History at Texas State University. The program prepares graduate students for public history careers in historic preservation, heritage tourism, historic site interpretation, and museum and archives management. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and her most recent research topics are collectors and collecting, material culture, and representation and the mediation of meaning in museums. Dr. Denton is the founding director of the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin and was awarded the Texas Association of Museums President's Award in 2007. A member of the Philosophical Society of Texas, she also holds memberships in the National Council on Public History, American Association for State and Local History, American Association of Museums and Texas Association of Museums. |  |
| Watson C. Arnold, Past President (2012) Fort Worth Watson Arnold earned his M.D. from UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas and a Ph.D. in history from TCU. A sixth-generation Texan, Arnold grew up in Waco, and he continues to oversee the family farm and ranch. He now resides in Fort Worth, where he is a retired pediatric surgeon from Cook’s Children’s hospital. He teaches the history of medicine part-time at several colleges: North Texas Medical Branch in Fort Worth, Texas Tech Health Science Center in Lubbock, and at TCU. Currently, he is the vice president of the Historic Waco Foundation and on the Board of Directors for the Fort Worth Library. His article, “The Mule: The Worker That ‘Can’t Get No Respect,’ ” appeared in the July 2008 issue of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly. |  |
Merline Pitre, Past President (2011) Houston Merline Pitre received her Ph.D. from Temple University and is a professor of history and the former Dean of the College of Liberal Arts & Behavioral Sciences at Texas Southern University. She has written numerous articles for scholarly publications. Two of her most widely noted works are Through Many Dangers, Toils and Snares: The Black Leadership of Texas and In Struggle against Jim Crow: Lulu B. White and the NAACP, 1900–1957. She was elected a Fellow of the Association in 2008. Her Black Women in Texas History, co-edited with Bruce Glasrud, won the 2008 Liz Carpenter Award for the best book in Texas women’s history. She has been the recipient of grants from the Fullbright Foundation, Humanities Texas, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In addition to being named a TSHA Fellow in 2009, Pitre is a member of the Speakers Bureau for the Texas Council for the Humanities and serves on the nominating board of the Organization of American Historians. |  |
Houston Eddie Weller, professor of history at San Jacinto College South, has taught both American history and Texas history and is the author of numerous articles and books, including Joe T. Robinson: Always a Loyal Democrat. He became interested in history when he took former TSHA president Ben Proctor's Texas history course at TCU. Weller is in his eighteenth year as the Webb Historical Society sponsor at San Jacinto College. He has served as the president of the Southwestern Historical Association and is a deacon and Sunday school teacher at Nassau Bay Baptist Church. He has been the recipient of several teaching awards, including the TSHA's Mary Jon and J. P. Bryan Leadership in Education Award and the David C. DeBoe Award. Weller is currently a member of the TSHA's Education Committee and serves on the advisory board for Touchstone, the Journal for the Walter Prescott Webb Historical Society. |  |
| BOARD MEMBERS | |
| Mary Margaret McAllen Amberson (2013-2016) San Antonio A seventh generation Texan with roots deriving from Spanish and Mexican traditions, Mary Margaret McAllen Amberson was raised on a South Texas cattle ranch belonging to her family since 1790. She writes the history of the region viewed though the families of South Texas and notable military, political, and community leaders and told against the backdrop of the social, economic and political history of the Lower Rio Grande Valley. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in English and M.A. in History from the University of Texas at San Antonio, she assisted in compiling the New Handbook of Texas. Her first book, I Would Rather Sleep in Texas, began with research conducted by her grandmother, Margaret H. McAllen and her father James A. McAllen. It won the San Antonio Conservation Society Publication Award. Her newest book, A Brave Boy and A Good Soldier: John C. C. Hill and the Texas Expedition to Mier, tells the 1842 biography of a young Texan captured in battle and later adopted by Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. |  |
| Jane Cook Barnhill (2012-2015) Brenham Born in Atlanta, Texas, Jane Cook Barnhill is proud of her deep Northeast Texas roots. She attended the University of Texas at Austin for three years, and graduated from the University of Houston. The family moved permanently to Brenham in 1970, where volunteer work formed the hub of her activities. The Washington County Chamber of Commerce named her the Outstanding Woman of 1997. Preservation became a major focus for her while restoring the c1824 James Walker Homestead on the family property. She was awarded the Clara Driscoll Award by Preservation Texas and the Texas Society of Architects conferred an Honorary Membership to the Barnhills in 2010. She served two terms on the Texas Historical Commission and now serves on the boards of theTexas State History Museum Foundation, Friends of the Texas Historical Commission, Friends of the Texas Governor's Mansion (past president), Washington County Historical Commission, and the Brenham Maifest Association. A Life Member of the University of Texas Ex-Students Association, she serves on the UT College of Education Advisory Council. |  |
| Carlos Blanton (2013-2016) College Station Carlos Blanton received his Ph.D. from Rice University in 1999 and spent two years teaching the Chicano/Latino Studies program at Portland State University in Oregon before accepting an Associate Professor of History and Assistant Department Head position with Texas A&M University in 2001. Blanton’s Ph.D. dissertation sparked his interest in studying the history of bilingual education, which resulted in a book with Texas A&M University Press, The Strange Career of Bilingual Education in Texas, 1836-1981, that won the Coral H. Tullis Award in 2004. His research articles are also published in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly, the Journal of Southern History, the Western Historical Quarterly, the Pacific Historical Review, and others. Blanton is currently working on a biography of the famed civil rights activist and educator Dr. George I. Sánchez of the University of Texas. |  |
| Jessica Brannon-Wranosky (2013-2015) McKinney Jessica Brannon-Wranosky is an assistant professor of history at Texas A&M University-Commerce. She received her Ph.D. in history from the University of North Texas. Her research and teaching interests are southern, Texas, women’s, suffrage, and civil rights history, and digital humanities applications. Her work has appeared in a number of regional and national academic journals, anthologies, and a variety of online digital publications and exhibits. Most recently, her research was featured in This Corner of Canaan: Essays on Texas in Honor of Randolph B. Campbell; and forthcoming in Texas Women/American Women: Their Lives and Times, and Writing Texas History: A Guide to the History of the Lone Star State. Her current book project discusses the relationship between regional identity, the national votes-for-women movement, and the roles generations of Texas suffragists played in southern campaigning from Reconstruction through the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. hub of her activities. Members of her mother and father’s families first moved to the Lone Star State during the early Republic of Texas period, and both she and her husband, Michael, were born and raised in culturally diverse South Texas. They presently live in the Northeastern portion of the state with their daughter, Samantha. |  |
| James H. Clement Jr. (2012-2015) Dallas James H. Clement Jr. graduated in 1979 from the University of Texas at Austin with a MBA in Finance and in 1976 from Tulane University with a B.A in Economics. He then held various positions with First City National Bank of Houston (including the Corporate Finance department and, ultimately, the Petroleum and Minerals group). In 1984, he joined King Ranch, Inc., a multinational agribusiness and energy company, where he attained the title of VP/Treasurer. From 1989 until today he has acted in the capacity of an independent financial consultant. Since 1992 he has served on the board of King Ranch, Inc. and from October 1994 until May 1995, Mr. Clement acted as interim CEO of King Ranch, Inc. during its search for a full time CEO. From 1999 until today he has served as Chairman of the Board of King Ranch, Inc. He serves on the boards of King Ranch, Inc.; Episcopal School of Dallas; Chairman of the Management Council of the King Ranch Institute for Ranch Management (a graduate degree program at Texas A&M University-Kingsville); Houston Trust Company; President’s Council- Texas A&M Kingsville; and is Chair of the Tom Lea Institute. Mr. Clement was appointed by Gov. William P. Clements to the University System of South Texas (system for Texas A&I now Texas A&M- Kingsville) and also served on development board of Pan American University (now UT- Pan American). He is a past member of the Madison Council of the Library of Congress, Advisory Board of the University Texas Press and the San Antonio Academy Board of Trustees. |  |
| Stephen C. Cook (2011-2014) Houston Stephen C. Cook has served TSHA for the past five years as the chair of the Handbook Committee and more recently as a member of the Development Committee. He and his wife Allyson, a former TSHA Board member, were active in the initiation of the Handbook of Texas Online in 1999, which broadened the reach of the Association and helped attract foundation support for the Digital Gateway. Cook’s great-grandfather, Guy M. Bryan Sr. (a nephew of Stephen F. Austin), was a charter member and fellow of TSHA. Cook is president and CEO of Fieldstone Partners, a private equity and financial advisory firm based in Houston. He is currently president of the Foundation for Amigos de las Américas, a Latin American youth service organization, and served on the board of the San Jacinto Museum Association for fifteen years. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School. |  |
W. Marvin Dulaney (2013-2016) Arlington Dr. W. Marvin Dulaney is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of History at the University of Texas, Arlington. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in American and African-American history at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He has published scholarly articles and reviews in the Journal of Negro History, Civil War History, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, The Houston Review, The Historian, Pacific Historical Review, Texas Journal of Ideas, History and Culture, Legacies, Encyclopedia of African-American Civil Rights, Locus, The Georgia Historical Quarterly, The New Handbook of Texas, Our Texas magazine, African Americans: Their History, the South Carolina Encyclopedia, The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, The African American Experience in Texas History: An Anthology, Lone Star Legacy: African American History in Texas, and The Chronicle of Historical Studies. He is the editor of Charleston’s Avery Center: From Education and Civil Rights to Preserving the African-American Experience; Born to Serve: A History of the Woman’s Baptist Educational Missionary Convention of South Carolina; The Avery Review; and the book, Essays on the American Civil Rights Movement. He is author of the book, Black Police in America. |  |
| Jeffrey Dunn (2010-2013) Dallas Jeffrey Dunn is a practicing attorney and shareholder with the Dallas law firm of Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr, PC. His law practice is focused on commercial finance, banking law, and payments law. He is listed in Best Lawyers in America in Banking Law (2006 to date) and the author of over 30 legal articles and continuing legal education seminar papers and presentations. A native of Houston, Jeff has served in leadership positions with historical organizations for more than twenty years. He was a public member and chairman of the San Jacinto Historical Advisory Board (2000-2007), president of the Texas Map Society (2006-2008), chairman of the Dallas County Historical Commission (1999-2003), member of the Board of Trustees of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza (1999-2003), member of the Harris County Historical Commission (1989-1996), and president of the Bellaire Historical Society. He is a co-founder, vice president, and board member of the Friends of the San Jacinto Battleground (2002 to present). He received his bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University (where he served as Student Body President), master’s degree from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin, and law degree from Southern Methodist University. |  |
| David A. Gravelle (2011-2014) Dallas David A. Gravelle is currently the Vice Chairman of the Texas Historical Commission. A Commission member since 2001, he serves as Chair of the Organizational Excellence/Strategy Committee, the Marketing Communications Committee and leads the legislative effort. A native Texan, Gravelle is the owner of Gravelle Branding/Marketing, a branding consultancy. He was the founding partner of Richards/Gravelle, advertising and public relations agency and from 1975-1986 he was Director of Marketing for MCorp, a Texas-based bank holding company. A U.S. Army veteran, Gravelle's military career includes over 30 military parachute jumps. He has climbed Mts. Rainier and Shuksan, made a sunrise ascent of Mt. Fuji and completed an Outward Bound survival course. |  |
Albert Hausser (2011-2014) San Antonio Albert Ford (Boo) Hausser, a native San Antonian, is a fifth generation rancher in Frio and Zavala Counties. Hausser currently serves on the boards of Friends of the Governor’s Mansion and Friends of the Texas Historical Commission and advisory boards of Scenic Texas, The Witte Museum, The Port Aransas Museum and Los Compadres de San Antonio National Historical Park. He formerly served as commissioner of the Texas Historical Commission, President of the Friends of the Governor’s Mansion and Chairman of Los Compadres de San Antonio National Historical Park. Hausser received his bachelor’s degree, majoring in history, from Southwestern University in Georgetown. He received the George Christian Volunteer of the Year Award for outstanding volunteer service to historic preservation in Texas, the Historic Rehabilitation Award from Preservation Texas and the Historic Preservation Building Award from the San Antonio Conservation Society for the restoration of the 1847 Arcadius Steinle House in Castroville. |  |
Kay Bailey Hutchison (2012-2015) Dallas In 1993, Texans elected Kay Bailey Hutchison to the United States Senate in a special election, making her the first—and, to date, the only—woman elected to represent the state in the Senate. One year later, she was re-elected to a full six-year term. In 2000, she received more votes for her re-election to a second full term than any other statewide candidate had ever received. And in 2006, she was again re-elected by an overwhelming margin. Senator Hutchison is the Ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Additionally, she serves on the Appropriations Committee, and the Committee on Rules and Administration. In the 112th Congress Senator Hutchison serves as the Ranking Republican Member of the Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, and Science. Senator Hutchison is a member of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly (RNHA) National Advisory Committee. |  |
| Richard B. McCaslin (2011-2014) Denton Richard B. McCaslin, a professor at the University of North Texas, is the author of Tainted Breeze: The Great Hanging at Gainesville, Texas, October 1862 (LSU, 1994), which won the Tullis Prize and an AASLH commendation. He also wrote Lee in the Shadow of Washington (LSU, 2001), which was nominated for a Pulitzer and received the Laney Prize and the Slatten Award. Another of his books, At the Heart of Texas: One Hundred Years of the Texas State Historical Association, 1897-1997 (TSHA, 2007), earned the Award of Merit from the Philosophical Society of Texas. He has also produced A Soldier’s Letters to Charming Nellie (U of TN, 2008) and Fighting Stock: John S. "Rip" Ford in Texas (TCU, 2011. His other works include The Last Stronghold: The Campaign for Fort Fisher (McWhiney Foundation, 2003), and three volumes in the Portraits of Conflict series (U of Arkansas)--on South Carolina (1994), North Carolina (1997), and Tennessee (2007), which won the Freeman Award. |  |
| John Miller Morris Jr. (2013-2016) Austin John Miller Morris is a native Texan, an award-winning author, and a Professor of Geography at the University of Texas at San Antonio. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, Morris also attended the University of Vienna and Moscow State University. He specializes in the historical geography of the Greater Southwest. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, he is the author of five books, including El Llano Estacado and the recent Taming the Land. Dr. Morris lives in Austin in an old Victorian house. |  |
| Rebecca Sharpless (2013-2016) Fort Worth Rebecca Sharpless, a seventh-generation Texan, is an associate professor of history at Texas Christian University, where she teaches and researches in U.S. women’s history, particularly in the South and Texas. She received her B.A. and M.A. from Baylor University and her Ph.D. from Emory University. Her most recent book, Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865-1960, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in fall 2010. Her first book, Fertile Ground, Narrow Choices: Women on Texas Cotton Farms, 1900-1940, explored the lives of ordinary women in Central Texas and received two awards from the TSHA. With Elizabeth Hayes Turner and Stephanie Cole, she is co editing Texas Women/American Women: Their Lives and Times. Sharpless directed the Baylor University Institute for Oral History from 1993 to 2006 and in 2005-2006 served as president of the Oral History Association. |  |
Jean A. Stuntz (2013-2016) Canyon Jean Stuntz earned her BA and JD from Baylor University and Baylor Law School and her MA and PhD from the University of North Texas. She specializes in the history of Texas women especially in the Spanish era and in West Texas. Her first book, Hers, His, and Theirs: Community Property Law in Spain and Early Texas, is a trans-Atlantic study of laws regarding women. It won the Presidio la Bahia Award and the Texas Old Missions and Forts Restoration Association Award for the Best Book on Spanish Texas and was a runner-up for the Liz Carpenter Award for the Best Book on Texas Women. Stuntz has chapters in Texas Women on the Cattle Trails and Women of the Texas Revolution, which each won the Liz Carpenter Award. Stuntz has presented several times at the Texas State Historical Association, the Western Historical Association, the Southern Historical Association, and the American Historical Association, and more. She teaches Texas history, Women's history, and Spanish Borderlands among other classes at West Texas A&M University. |  |
| Emilio Zamora (2012-2015) Austin Emilio Zamora is a professor in the Department of History at The University of Texas at Austin. He specializes in Mexican American history, Texas history, oral history, and transnational (U.S./Mexico) working class history. His latest publications are Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas, Mexican Job Politics during World War II and Beyond the Latino World War II Hero: The Social and Political Legacy of a Generation (co-edited with Dr. Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez). Zamora has served as the Vice Chair of the advisory board of the Mexican American Cultural Center (MACC, Austin), and a member of the advisory board of the Hispanic Texas History Project, a statewide archival collection program with the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project based at the University of Houston. Zamora also serves as a Fellow of the Texas State Historical Association and as a Fellow of the Barbara White Stuart Centennial Professorship in Texas history at The University of Texas. |  |
| J. P. Bryan, Honorary Life Board Member Houston J. P. Bryan and his family have had years of involvement with the Texas State Historical Association and the history of Texas. His uncle, Guy M. Bryan was a founder and Secretary and served on the Board from 1897-1901. His father was President from 1965-1967, and J. P. was President from 1982-83. Recently he raised pledges of $750,000 to fund the Lone Star Chair in Texas History at the University of North Texas, to which he and his wife are contributors. He has raised more funds for the TSHA than anyone in its history. Bryan was first introduced to the TSHA by former TSHA Director, H. Bailey Carroll, for whom he served as a grader while attending The University of Texas in pursuit of his law degree. He is also the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Torch Energy Advisors Incorporated (TEAI) of Houston. In addition to his positions at Torch, Bryan serves as chairman of the board of Resaca Exploitation, Inc. |  |
Walter L. Buenger, Honorary Life Board Member College Station Dr. Walter Buenger received his Ph.D. from Rice University in 1979 and began teaching at Texas A&M University soon after. In addition to serving as chair of the history department, he teaches courses in U.S. history, the history of the South, and Texas history. His own area of research focuses on comparative border studies, the South, and Texas since 1820. He was elected a Fellow of the Texas State Historical Association in 2000. The author of numerous books and articles, he was awarded the Coral H. Tullis Award in 200 for his book, The Path to a Modern South: Texas between Reconstruction and the Great Depression. He is currently working on a project researching the relationship between history and memory in Texas after 1820. A native of West Texas, Beunger served as TSHA President in 2009-2010. |  |
| John W. Crain, Honorary Life Board Member Dallas John W. Crain of Dallas is President and CEO of the Summerlee Foundation. He is a Life Member of the TSHA Board of Directors and a past President, having served as the Association's 60th president from 2004-2005. Crain also serves as a Commissioner of the Texas Historical Commission and is chair of the Antiquities Advisory Board. Crain serves as an ex-officio member of the Sixth Floor Museum. He is also an advisory director of the Clements Center at SMU and the Friends of the Texas State History Museum. Crain has also served as President of the Texas Map Society. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas and a master's degree from Southwest Texas State University. Crain holds a Certificate in Arts Administration from Harvard University, a Certificate in Museum Management from the University of California at Berkeley, and is a graduate of the Endowment Institute. He has continued to be a member of a number of learned and honorary societies, including the Philosophical Society of Texas, the Phillip Lee Phillips Society of the Library of Congress and the Sons of the Republic of Texas, Thomas J. Rusk Chapter in Dallas. |  |
