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He grew up in a working-class neighborhood of Brownsville, in a home with few books. But Oscar Cásares was surrounded by avid storytellers, including his parents and the aunts, uncles, and neighbors who would drop by almost daily. His three older siblings had moved out of the house by the time he was ten. “I was,” he said, “basically raised as an only child.” So he spent lots of time in the presence of adults, hearing them gossip about friends and relatives, recount family legends, and tell amusing stories from their jobs—as a cattle inspector, say, or a pastor, or a union organizer. Oscar studied the way they crafted their spoken stories. “I had these uncles who would tell the same stories over and over but…

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The University of Texas’s appeal as a destination for world-class swimmers was enhanced in the final push to the Paris Olympics. It was early June, 53 days before the start of the Summer Games, and lanes two, three, and four at the outdoor pool at the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center were occupied, respectively, by reigning Olympic champion Chase Kalisz, from outside Baltimore; world champion Hubert Kós, of Hungary; and Frenchman Leon Marchand, who eclipsed the last of Michael Phelps’s world records in 2023.In the outside lanes were Regan Smith, weeks away from reclaiming a world record in the 100-meter backstroke at the U.S. trials, and two others who would qualify for Paris. Erik Posegay, the new associate head coach of the UT men’s swim…

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As a high school student in the mid-1980s, I became fascinated with the Vietnam War. Perhaps this was because at the time I was not much younger than many of the troops had been when they were drafted. Or maybe I was beguiled by movies like Apocalypse Now, the Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket, and Platoon, which had kept the war roiling in the public consciousness. I read books by Michael Herr, Tim O’Brien, and Neil Sheehan, and even had a map of Southeast Asia taped to my closet door.But until picking up William Sturkey’s The Ballad of Roy Benavidez: The Life and Times of America’s Most Famous Hispanic War Hero (Basic Books), I had never heard of the book’s subject, which I found surprising…

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FILMIt Ends With UsIn theaters August 9Sulphur Springs native Colleen Hoover, whom Texas Monthly profiled in the June issue, is one of the best-selling novelists of the twenty-first century. Her sixteenth book, It Ends With Us, is a huge part of that success, helping the former social worker outsell Dr. Seuss and John Grisham in 2022. Now comes the movie adaptation, which Hoover cowrote, starring Gossip Girl alum Blake Lively as a florist named Lily who grew up in an abusive home but hopes to build a better life in Boston. When she falls for mercurial neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni, of Jane the Virgin fame, who also directs the film), her happily-ever-after darkens as his behavior begins to echo that of her late father. Overcoming childhood…

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Since its introduction in 1972, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders’ look has been iconic: short shorts, fringed vest, knotted top.  Equally iconic: the cheerleaders’ hair. The squad’s dance routines, including Thunderstruck, which has gone viral in the wake of the Netflix docuseries America’s Sweethearts, involve hair flips and shoulder shimmies that send the sweethearts’ curls bouncing. Hair is so imperative to the cheerleaders’ overall aesthetic that salon makeovers are a required part of the squad audition process. As featured in the Netflix series, hairstylist Kevin Ozowski, of North Texas’s Tangerine Salon, oversees DCC hopefuls as they have their locks transformed to “better suit” their skin tones and face shapes. On the show, he and his colleagues notably deepen the sole redhead’s scarlet locks and take New Jersey blonde…

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