How Corpus Christi could be on the brink of a water disaster

Hi, it's Terry Gross, host of Fresh Air.

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A major port city in Texas could run out of water as early as next year, what's behind

the looming crisis on today's Texas Standard.

Texas Standard is a production of KUT Austin, KERA North Texas, Houston Public Media and

Texas Public Radio in San Antonio, with support from CASA, court-appointed special advocates,

making a difference for children in foster care.

I'm Angela Cocheraga, we're also tracking how the war in Iran is affecting oil prices

and gas prices at the pump.

What's next?

Also, will the National Democratic Party spend more money in Texas after Talarico and

other candidates' strong showing in the primary election?

Plus, pan don't say.

A new masterclass teaches home cooks how to bake the beloved sweet bread.

All that and more when the standard gets started, right after this.

Wherever you are, it's Texas Standard Time on this 10th day of March, 2026.

I'm Angela Cocheraga in El Paso, and so glad you can join us.

Rising oil prices are in the headlines amid war in Iran, we'll examine what it means

for Texas producers and prices at the pump a little later in our program.

But first, water, not oil may determine the future of growth in Texas, and more immediately

a critical shortage of water in one of the state's industrial port cities is looming.

This Christie may be heading towards a water emergency.

A new investigation by Inside Climate News reports that after years of delays, political

fights, and major industrial growth along the Gulf Coast, city officials now warn the

region could hit a water emergency within months, and potentially run out of water next

year.

That would have far-reaching consequences beyond the city.

The port of Corpus Christi is a critical hub for oil refining, petrol chemicals, and

jet fuel, and shortages could ripple through energy markets and the Texas economy.

David Brown spoke with Dylan Badur, who reported the story, and he started by asking him how close

Corpus Christi is to running out of water.

It is imminent without very significant rainfall, exceptional rainfall, probably it's coming

before this fall.

What does that mean to... I mean, I'm having trouble getting my brain around this, a city

without water.

Well, nobody is really sure what that means because it hasn't happened in modern times,

but the folks who are sounding the alarm raise possibilities that for one, the industrial

sector would shut down.

They need huge amounts of water for cooling towers, and that would halt the production

of jet fuel that moves via pipeline to the airport of Dallas and Austin.

It would shut down some production of gasoline and essentially mothball multi-billion dollar

investments there.

For the city itself, experienced water managers in the area raise the possibility that the

state would need to spend billions on emergency pipelines and desalbed barges to avoid a full

evacuation of the city.

A full evacuation of the city?

Part of what I have discovered in this reporting is that there are no specific

plans.

Really, they're just starting to look at that, which may have had to do with me asking.

But in the state where people don't have water, it's not like as the water system runs

out, we're going to stay with the last drags, and so everyone can at least drink.

No, there's an event called Deadpool where after you hit a certain point, there's no

longer pressure in your water system, and it just doesn't work.

There's none coming out.

So wealthier families in that case would be able to put tanks in their homes and have

trucks come by and fill the tanks, which is what happens in many parts of the world.

But others, I mean, you know, it's up to everybody's imagination really.

There's not a set plan for this situation, so evacuation would be a somewhat obvious

last resort.

So you're talking about turning on the tap literally nothing coming out of the tap.

And if there were to be something coming out, it might be perhaps even dangerous, right?

That is true.

There are parts of their water system already where they're measuring increasing levels

of arsenic, not in Corpus Christi, but in the Nueces County water control district number

three, I believe.

And yeah, that I think is related to the water is now, you know, what is just coming off

of the sediment at the very bottom of the whole system.

How did this happen?

The story describes it, you know, really decades of missteps.

Were there key decisions or non-decisions that put the city in this position?

Well, there were a lot of decisions.

Really, this has been coming for more than a decade.

I've been reporting on this for years and everybody knew this was coming.

City leaders, in many cases, just stood there and watched it approach for ten years.

Perhaps in disbelief and thinking that it would veer in another direction eventually.

But this goes back to the fracking boom when we're producing a whole bunch more oil and

gas in Texas.

And so we need more downstream industries, the ones that take it from the oil field to make

it into plastics and fuel.

So Corpus Christi at that time is seeing a huge amount of interest in building these big

projects.

But they knew they didn't have enough water.

It's a semi-arid coastal area.

So there were people at that time who were saying, don't worry, we're going to build

desalplants.

It'll be fast.

It'll be great.

It'll be big.

So welcome all the industries right now.

Take advantage of this big economic boom and we'll have desalplants up and running by

the time they are here.

Desalination.

Desalination.

So you basically are tapping all that water to the east of Corpus Christi.

That is correct.

Yeah.

I should explain that.

There was that we were going to be pumping massive amounts of water out of the sea and

turning it from salt water into fresh water.

So basically what they pitched is a limitless and drought proof, water supply.

So you have this rapid industrial build out since the fracking boom.

The city spending years talking about a desalination plant, but ultimately what?

Killing this idea at some point?

Ultimately, they just were not up to the task.

And so after saying they were going to build a desalination plant over the years they

realized, I believe, that they had no idea what they were doing and didn't really have

anyone to guide them.

And so it just kind of devolved into a really silly effort where they ended up being multiple

desalination plants and officials bickering with each other and then lots of protests

and then the discussion moved to how these plants were going to really destroy the ecosystems

of the bay and turn them hyper-sailing.

And it never, never went anywhere.

After all this, after these 10 years, a desalination plant still doesn't exist even on paper.

It's important to note here that it's easy to hear, okay, Corpus Christi is facing a water

crisis and just sort of riding it off as well, okay, it's a coastal city.

But we're talking about a place which, in recent decades, has become so closely tied

to Texas energy exports and frankly, what fuels Texas's growth.

We're talking about jet fuel here, the stuff that powers the planes that take off from Dallas

and San Antonio, right?

Yes, indeed.

Yeah, it's at the heart of the state economy.

I mean, folks, I talked with raised the possibility that some of it's dramatic, but

some people said this could bring down the Texas economy.

You know, and it's hard to know what's melodramatic in these sorts of situations.

However, other folks I talked with, you know, a guy, Chuck McConnell and Houston, a former

assistant energy secretary, he thought that the private sector would cover this situation

pretty quick.

That if fuel, jet fuel supplies were interrupted to airports, they would be a way to build

an emergency pipeline pretty quick from somewhere else.

Suppliers would step in, they would be trucking.

He was confident we'd move past that.

Corpus Christi would be bypassed, perhaps forgotten and sort of left to dry out.

But, you know, the emergency effort would be there, which, when you hear that, it does

kind of question you.

We can really build emergency pipelines of jet fuel to the airport, but no pipeline of

water.

It's a Corpus Christi.

Where do its residents?

So right now I understand city leaders and some communities in the way into Wases County

are frantically drilling wells and scrambling for alternatives.

Are all these band-aids, or is it foreseeable that perhaps you could drill enough wells

fast enough to head off disaster?

Nobody really expects that who I spoke with that these projects are going to come through

in time, and all these projects have their serious problems that are even silly.

For example, you mentioned drilling wells on the Nueces River, so they've been doing

about a year.

A former director of the Water Department, Mr. Dodson told me that the only reason they're

doing that project is because he walked into the office with a bunch of maps from his

house and showed the city of a well field that they had forgotten about from the 1950s

that at that time was seen as a last resort.

Dodson was also involved in another project that they are doing now, the Evangelion Groundwater

Project, and he said that the city kicked this one down the road for years, repeatedly

dismissed it because of their singular focus on desalination.

And now the city of Sinton, which relies on the groundwater, the city of Corpus Christi

wants, has contested those permits, sent them to administrative court, and there's really

no possibility of that coming online before the reservoirs deplete later this year.

Let me ask you something.

If you live in Corpus Christi right now, do you have a good sense of what to prepare

for?

What's how eminent this crisis is?

Or is this sort of all happening in the background of city politics?

People in Corpus do not have a good idea of how eminent this disaster is, and that's largely

because of the city leadership.

I'd say particularly the city manager, Peter Zenoni, who has just really neglected or declined

to acknowledge in any way the severity of this situation in many cases, perhaps, because

nobody wants to be the one to say it.

No one wants to be the one to say we failed, and we need help.

But they have not talked with businesses or publicly about what these emergency curtailments

would look like, or how they would do that.

The city continues to maintain a line that emergency is not eminent, that they've got

this under control, and it really, for me, recalled to mind the story of the Chernobyl

disaster in Ukraine when this nuclear power plant blew up, and all these nuclear scientists

were saying this is a disaster of historic proportions, and all the local political leadership

was saying, no, it's not, be quiet, you guys, and of course we know who was right.

So I think that the similar thing going on in Corpus Christi, a kind of denial.

Dylan, I know there are going to be some listeners who are going to say, hey guys, don't

be alarmist about this, and I want to be really circumspect here.

Is there any possibility that based on what you've reported, what you've found, there's

any way to head off the sort of crisis that we've been describing?

Well, there's always the possibility of a hurricane, which could head this off.

There are always possibilities.

There is a possibility that everybody gets their act together and gets a billion dollars

out of the defense budget and just builds a huge pipeline.

I mean, if you think about how quickly we can build pipelines from the Permian base into

the coast, could we build a pipeline from East Texas to Corpus?

Absolutely.

It can be done.

But if nobody's talking about it, even a few months in advance, then that's not going

to happen.

So given the state of preparations right now, there is not a lot of optimism, but there

is always a possibility and a hope that maybe everybody comes together and starts doing

something.

Otherwise, really nobody is confident to assert that there's not going to be a disaster.

That's Dylan Badur, reporter for Inside Climate News, and we'll have a link to

history at TexasStandard.org.

The standard will be in Corpus Christi, March 20th, and the region's water walls will

of course be part of our program, and we're committed to continuing coverage of the state's

management of critical water resources going forward.

This is the Texas Standard, I'm Angela Cochirga.

More than 1,600 plants and animals are protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

But only one is a moss.

Harvest public media's Kate Grumpke reports on a new effort to protect these important

but often overlooked plants.

On a cold January morning in a nature reserve outside of St. Louis, almost everything is

brown and dry.

But with a certain type of scientist in tow, soon you're seeing the forest in a new way

and headed toward little patches of green.

I'd leave the trail as soon as I can.

Trails are to get me to near the bryphites and then I just run around in the woods.

John Brenda is a bryologist at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Bryologists study bryophytes, a group that includes mosses and other small plants called liver

warts and horn warts.

In the woods, Brenda spends a lot of time squinting it moss through a magnifying hand lens.

He wears around his neck.

Look at the different colors.

This has a different texture to it.

Like this is flatter and smoother and this is more rough.

What Brenda and many bryologists have in common is an appreciation for the little guy.

Mosses are underdogs.

But that can be a problem.

They don't get much attention even among scientists.

So there's a lot we don't know about them.

And you can't protect a species if you don't know it's struggling.

That's why Brenda and a group of scientists from across Canada and the US are forming the

bryphite conservation alliance to help understand and protect these plants.

Ohio State University's Mandy Slate is part of the team.

It's just this like missing link to understanding the entire ecosystem that we've just kind of

overlooked.

Slate says these tiny plants are a super important part of their natural communities.

They store carbon and impact how water moves.

They're also habitats themselves.

If you zoom in really close to a patch of mosses, it's like a mini forest full of even smaller

creatures.

But Slate says there's a lot left to learn about mosses and other bryphites.

We don't know where they actually occur.

We don't know their abundance in those locations and we don't know any threats, but all of that

information is needed together at the same time to really understand how a species is doing.

And you need all of that data to get protection from the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

The only moss currently protected by the agency is the South Lano Springs Moss, an endangered

plant whose only known population is on one private ranch in Texas.

This best is the scientist who did the species assessment for that moss.

To our knowledge, there's only male individuals left in that population and it is even possible

that the entire population consists of clones of a single surviving individual.

We really don't know.

Best recently retired after 19 years as the Texas State botanist for the US Fish and Wildlife

Service.

He says plants get a lot less conservation attention than animals at the federal agency.

We have a very few bought this in the whole country.

And mosses are an even smaller specialty within botany.

Kierwefferling studies mosses at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

He has a deep respect for these plants and wonders why there's so little attention paid

to them.

It's not a lack of ecological relevance.

I don't know.

I think it's because they're small and hard to identify, maybe?

I don't know, but it's nonsense.

It's sad and maybe one could say it's an opportunity for education and outreach.

While more legal protections for mosses would be welcome, Wefferling says the Brie Fight

Conservation Alliance is about more than just federal lists.

They're hoping to inspire people to take a closer look at these little plants.

I'm Kate Grumpke, Harvest Public Media.

This public media is a collaboration of public media newsrooms across the Midwest and Great

Plains, including the Texas Standard.

And you're listening to the Texas Standard.

For many people waking up across Texas, there's no better way to start the morning than with

the aroma of sweet buttery, freshly baked pandulse, or Mexican sweet bread.

Most of us buy our pandulse at a bakery, but a recent masterclass in San Antonio taught

people how to bake their own iconic pastries.

Texas Public Radio's Mariana Varro has the story.

From sweet sugary conchas or seashells to nubes, soft airy buns that resemble fluffy

clouds, people across the US start their day having pandulse in the morning.

But it's more than just a sweet treat.

It's a tie to people's culture and identity.

Just walking into a panaderia and being welcomed with the aroma of butter, sugar, and cinnamon

is enough to awaken childhood memories.

We used to buy pandulse out of the trunk of an elderly man's vehicle when I was young.

It stayed with me forever.

That's Home Baker, Rachel Nahirah, who grew up in a Texas border town.

She was one of a dozen bakers who last month came together at San Antonio's The Bake

Lab Kitchens for a hands-on workshop series on all things pandulse.

Los Angeles-based chef Alex Benia led the workshop.

He's the author of the cookbook for Mexican bakery, a comprehensive guide to Mexican pandulse

for home and professional bakers.

Bakers in the class included Claudia Hurt, a pastry instructor at a community college

in Corpus Christi.

And other bakers followed chef Benia's instructions carefully.

A portioned and shaped out the dough into small, fluffy balls before placing and stamping

the iconic shell like sugar topping on top.

Hurt grew up in Mexico, where pandulse is a mainstay in households.

There is a bunch of things that I can enjoy, so every time I make something like that

at school, I tell them all this reminds me of my grandpa.

There isn't a concha emoji yet, but popularity of pandulse continues to grow.

A morning concha has more popular than a morning muffin in parts of the southwest, and

now even mainstream grocery stores are stocked with pandulse to start the day.

Hurt says people all over the country can take a bite of Mexican culture.

I think bringing people together, that's what I love about pandulse.

As the first batch of homemade conchas go into the oven, bakers in the class continue

topping their dough with different sugar toppings.

Then the aroma of sugar fills the room, and a timer rings.

Signalling that the first batch of conchas are done.

Though chef Benia argues that the conchas could use a few more minutes for the sugar topping

to cool to its perfect crumbly consistency, the anticipation is too great.

For Homemaker Rachel Nahira, the first bite is heaven.

Oh my God.

Nahira says the taste of pandulse ties her to her Latino culture.

It just makes you want to honor the traditions of the pandulse, you know, honor my culture,

and it makes me feel proud when I am trying to kind of recreate the experience for my childhood.

Bakers in the class walked away with homemade pandulse, and a desire to preserve the tradition

for generations to come.

Just past 28 minutes past the hour, Texas Standard Times, stay with us.

There's much more ahead.

Support for Texas Standard comes from Texas Mutual Insurance Company, a workers compensation provider,

committed to helping Texas communities and emphasizing safety.

More at texasmutual.com slash Texans get it.

It's not just about the brisket or the ribs or the sausage or even the sides.

It's the culture and people who are passionate about it.

Where there's smoke, there's Daniel Vaughn, Texas monthly barbecue editor, join us next Thursday on the Texas Standard.

Support for where there's smoke comes from HEB.

From the Texas News are my Matt Herob, three Mariachi students were released from ICE detention

Monday after bipartisan pressure.

San Antonio Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro spoke with the media afterwards about the conditions

at the Dilly Detention Center where two of the teens were held.

Texas Public Radio's Corey Cook reports.

Castro said the Gama's Quayar family was released from detention, but his work is not finished.

I'd said very clearly that my goal is to shut down Dilly.

I don't think anybody should be kept in that trailer prison.

And most especially children, we met more children today who have been traumatized by the experience.

Castro provided examples of a young boy with a swollen stomach from lack of food,

and a pregnant woman lacking medical care to describe the inadequate and often cruel treatment.

This was Castro's third trip to Dilly.

He's expecting to return there on March 20th.

I'm Corey Cook in San Antonio.

The airport situation in Houston is improving.

Houston Public Media's Tom Perumian was at Hobby Airport earlier where wait times largely

returned to normal.

Things are demonstrably different at Hobby this morning.

After being on the National News Monday for those hours long TSA screening lines, Tuesday

is off to a good start.

Lines are running at about 10 minutes.

Passengers are streaming into TSA check stations and through the boarding terminal.

Wait times had been as long as five hours at Hobby Airport because of a TSA staffing shortage

caused by the partial government shutdown.

The U.S. Court of International Trade has ordered the Trump administration to repay more

than $126 billion in emergency tariffs collected over the past year.

That follows a Supreme Court ruling that Trump imposed those tariffs illegally.

The many small businesses are in a weak position to force the administration to pay up.

Daniel Rivera, owner of Houston's Toy Store misfit toys, says he's taken a severe hit.

But we have no expectations of getting any money back from this administration.

If there's something that happens and we get that money back that we spent, that would

be wonderful.

But we're too small of a business to take any legal matters, any legal action against anyone.

It would just wipe us out.

The Treasury Department has not responded to questions about the tariffs.

And San Antonio Music Legend, Ogi Myers has died at the age of 85.

Author Joe Nick Potosky says Myers and the Sir Douglas Quintet were creating music that

drew from their South Texas roots but sounded unlike anything else at the time.

So much was unique and distinct about the sounds that were coming out of here compared

to the rest of the United States.

Those three people, you talk about Dexam, Clockily Menace and Ogi Myers, that is the

sound of South Texas.

There's no word yet from Myers' family about a memorial service.

I'm Matt Haravan, the Texas Newsroom.

Support for these Texas headlines comes from Half Price Books.

A Texas bread, new and news bookstore proudly supporting public media and its role in informing

our communities.

Store locations, staff picks and more at hpb.com.

33 minutes past the hour, Texas Standard Time, I'm David Brown, to spend or not to spend.

That is the question the National Democratic Party faces when it comes to Texas, specifically

the Senate race between Democrat James Tallerico and either Senator John Cornyn or Attorney General

Ken Paxton who are in a runoff for the Republican nomination for that Senate seat.

The result of that Republican runoff may well determine whether Democratic officials give

a financial boost to Tallerico to help flip the seat in November.

Joining us now to tell us more, Elena Schneider, reporter for Politico, Elena, welcome to

the Texas Standard.

Thank you so much for having me.

Why are some Democratic decision-makers not totally sold on Tallerico's ability to pull

this off this Senate race?

Look, I have talked to so many Democrats who describe Texas as their great white whale

as the state that they dream of flipping, that they believe they can one day flip, that

is trending their way, but it's just incredibly hard to do.

Look, I think that story's gotten a little more complicated because the dreams of turning

Texas blue for Democrats started really during the Obama years when he was so central in

getting young voters and voters of color out, that story's been a lot more complicated

in the Trump years, who has done far better with voters of color and with young people.

I think Democrats are looking at Texas pretty wearily.

They see this runoff and there's a lot more energy and excitement of Democrats going

up against Ken Paxton and their willingness to then invest in this race than it were if

Senator John Corden emerged from it.

There's a bit of a TBD quality all of this because I think that they see Paxton as an

easier target to go after.

More vulnerable, I guess, because of some of his much talked about indiscretions as his

critics might say.

Exactly.

He carries a lot more baggage and might turn off sort of your traditional Republican

Republicans and Independents who would come out for somebody like John Corden.

Yeah.

And I think there's some real reality here too about the broader Senate map, which is

that there's a lot of places where Democrats have to go on offense if they have any prayer

of turning the Senate blue this cycle and there are other places that are cheaper.

So in a way, they're having to allocate this money in different places and they've got

to figure out, okay, do we really, how much of a chance do we really stand in Texas?

Exactly.

Look, they already have identified North Carolina and Maine as two states where they know

they are going to spend money.

Then you sort of go one step out from that Alaska and Ohio where they had really key recruits

in those two states.

They believe that those are also on the list.

Then do you at Iowa, do you add Texas, do you add Montana, which just came on?

And suddenly that bill at the end of the day gets pretty big.

Speaking of bill, forgive me for interrupting, but how much money might the Democrats be

prepared to spend in Texas if we ended up with just throwing it to, let's say, a Paxton

versus Tallariko contest.

So I've talked to a lot of Democrats who said that it would take in the neighborhood of

like 150 to 200 to 250 million.

So that's a big neighborhood.

But that being out of money, it would take in a state that is as expensive as big as Texas.

And look, Tallariko is a fundraising star.

He could do a lot of that himself and could make this competitive all in his own.

But Beto Rork had about $80 million raised and spent for him in 2018 and I think that

they would definitely have to surpass that if they wanted to make Texas real.

Elena, as you were talking with Democrats up in DC, did you get a sense that there's

a difference of opinion on whether or not it's worth trying to win in Texas?

Yeah, I mean, you've got some folks who really do believe the Texas is the future.

And if Democrats don't start investing in places like Texas, they're going to have big

problems in 2032.

And onwards in terms of even trying to win the White House because where the future of

sort of people are living is not necessarily in Democrats' core battleground.

And if they don't start bringing some states online, they're going to be in some real trouble.

And then you've got sort of maybe more short termist thinking in terms of like, we just

need to flip the Senate.

And if we want to do that, we shouldn't go chase White Whales.

We should focus on the states that are cheaper and more competitive.

You know, there was a special election for a state Senate seat here back in January

and a Democrat in a district that is considered to be quite red indeed ended up winning by

something like 17 points.

And a lot of Democrats said, aha, this is the year.

This is the year.

And I think that there may be some Texas Democrats listening to us right now thinking, I hope

that Democrats in Washington are paying attention that we may be seeing a kind of sea change

here.

Then again, you have the flip side.

You used to be better or work signs all over the state.

And it was considered that that would be the year that Texas Democrats flipped.

So I guess we keep asking this, is this the year, right?

That's right.

I hate to keep going back to this metaphor, but it's this sort of this elusive whale

that they have been chasing in part because of what it offers of the sort of new pathways

that might open up for the Democratic Party if they could turn a place like Texas blue.

In the same way that they were able to turn Georgia blue in 2020 and it really did change

the path to 270 for a presidential election.

Texas would be huge if that suddenly became competitive.

But as of yet, it still hasn't moved quite enough.

I mean, I think it's going to be fascinating.

Hotel Rico's face is up against, but honestly, I think either candidate, either Republican

candidate is going to be in for a real fight and will be really, really interesting to see

where that margin lands this fall.

Elena Schneider is a reporter for Politico.

We're going to have a link to more of her reporting on this over at Texas standard.org.

Elena, thanks again for joining us.

Of course.

See you guys.

It's the Texas standard, I'm Laura Rice.

The business of growing and milling wheat is still alive in Texas.

The crop is a staple for many farmers.

But the grain industry used to look much different here, particularly in a set of six North

Texas counties where wheat was king.

Rebecca Sharpless is a professor of history at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth

and author of People of the Wheat, Culture and Cultivation in North Texas.

Professor Sharpless, welcome to the Texas standard.

Thank you.

Well, this book focuses on the history of an area dubbed the North Texas Wheat Belt.

For those not familiar, where exactly are we talking about?

We are talking about the six counties that start with Dallas in Fort Worth and then go

up to the Red River.

So Dallas, Denton, Colin, Cook, and Grayson, which cooking Grayson are right on the

Red River.

Well, of course, people look in at this area now, especially the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex.

No, how huge and thriving it has become.

How did the wheat business of the 18 and 1900s help develop what we know as DFW today?

A couple of different ways.

One is for the farmers, of course, who grew the wheat, grew the crop and sold it.

At first they would just barter it or get their own flower back in wheat form, but gradually

that became more of a business.

And then as the milling business got started, it was jobs for the workers and a good number

of the millers made pretty good money and some made fortunes.

So from those fortunes, those folks did things like endow churches and collect art and

help with cultural institutions of various kinds.

So direct money into people's pockets as wages and then fortunes that turned into cultural

institutions.

Well, and this money was made in part by some creative marketing techniques that flower

companies and bakeries used.

Could you tell us about some of those that stuck out to you?

Absolutely.

The best known one is the musical form called Western Swing.

It was like country in Western, but it had brass and it had drums.

And that was new in that day.

And that got started in the early days of radio in the 1920s.

There were various bands and various musical acts, but the best known one was Bob Willes.

The mills had various marketing ploys, as you said.

And one of them was by sponsoring radio shows.

And radio was just getting started and the stations were often not very powerful.

They were more local in nature.

And the programming would be local in nature too.

So Bob Willes band was playing for a fourth radio station and their sponsor backed out.

And the radio station went looking for a sponsor and they asked Buris Mills.

And the marketing director of Buris Mills was a kind of notorious character named W. Lee

O'Daniel.

And O'Daniel didn't know much about music and he didn't know much about radio.

But he thought this sounded like a good idea.

So he agreed signed up to sponsor the Bob Willes program.

And it became wildly popular.

And O'Daniel took over as the announcer for the program.

Turned out he was a natural for it.

So you've got a couple of things going for it.

One is this remarkable music that's still around.

And the other is this magnetic personality in the form of W. Lee O'Daniel.

And one day O'Daniel casually asked the viewers, so he says, I suppose it was casual.

And you think, you think ought to run for governor?

And the postcards poured in saying, yes, please run for governor and he did and he won.

So he became the governor of Texas.

This was in the 1930s.

And then when one of the senators, US senators died, O'Daniel got his seat in the US Senate.

So he went from flower mill manager to US senator.

Well, you know, we look at North Texas now and we see much of the wheat growing has shifted

further west into the panhandle.

So how did that happen?

OK, so we started getting harvest, started getting mechanized in the early 19th century.

And first they developed machines that just would cut and people would have to follow along

and pick it up and bundle it and make it into sheaves and all that.

And it's extremely tedious and time consuming.

Gradually, the mechanization included machines with what we call combines that would cut the

wheat and then bundle it.

And you can imagine that cut greatly down on the labor that was required for harvest.

And farmers who could afford to buy a harvest or could rent or lease a harvest from their

neighbors were thrilled to do this.

And so it's a matter of economy of scale.

People who look at North Texas think it's flat, but it's actually not completely flat.

West Texas, on the other hand, is in places completely flat.

And so they could use harvesting machines that were several times wider and longer than

the ones that could be used in North Texas.

And so it's just a matter of economy of scale.

Well, you end this book in 1972 at the dedication of the Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth.

What about that scene made it the right spot to finish the story?

The Kimball Museum is one of Fort Worth's cultural treasures.

It's not a big collection, it's not a big museum.

But if they have, let's say, a Matisse, and a Matisse that is considered to be of higher

quality comes on the market, they'll buy the second Matisse and sell the first one.

So their motto is to have only the best of the best.

And people come from far and wide to the Kimball.

It's just a lovely museum and host all manner of remarkable exhibits.

And they never, whatever in a million years, put that collection together with wheat.

But that is in fact where the Kimball fortune started.

They lived in white right Texas.

And K Kimball's father started in the milling business.

And when K was about 13, he started working in the mill and just grew the business and

grew the business and grew the business.

And people don't know that.

When you think of money in North Texas, you think of oil and cattle and now technology,

but you don't think of wheat.

And so it seemed to me that the dedication of the Kimball was the place to remind people

of the role that we actually did have in building the metropolitan area.

Rebecca Sharpless is a professor of history at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.

We'll have links on our website where you can learn more about her new book, People of the

Wheat, Culture and Cultivation in North Texas.

Professor, thank you again for joining us on the Texas Standard.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate your interest.

Hi, it's Terry Gross, host of Fresh Air.

Hey, take a break from the 24 hour news cycle with us and listen to long form interviews

with your favorite authors, actors, filmmakers, comedians and musicians.

The people making the art that nourishes us and speaks to our times.

So listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY.

This is the Texas Standard.

I'm Angela Cocherga.

Gas prices are rising and it comes amid the war involving the US Israel and Iran and

follows the killing of Iran's supreme leader.

One major reason is disruption in the Strait of Hormuz.

A 20% of the world's oil passes through the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman.

And shipping there has slowed to a near-stand still, rattling global energy markets.

To understand how this conflict and the Persian Gulf is impacting the global supply of oil

were joined by Matt Smith, a lead oil analyst with Kepler.

Thanks for being here again, Matt, on the Standard.

Thanks Angela.

Well, a lot of this revolves around the Strait of Hormuz.

Tell us what's happening there and the significance for oil prices and the supply chain.

Yeah, things are crazy, Angela, and have been for the last 10 days or so.

You have, as you mentioned, 20% of the world's energy coming out of the mid-east Gulf there.

It's about a third of global crude exports.

And we have to bear in mind, it's not just the crude side, but it is 15 to 30% of fertilizers.

It is 20% of global NNG exports, those have halted.

You've got 15% of clean products as well.

So that is jet fuel, that is diesel, that is gasoline.

And so this is having a massive impact on the global market.

Not just because producers in the region are having to shut in production because they

can't get tankers into the area to load, but you're not getting those tankers out to be

able to supply the global market.

Now there's the ripple effect here to Angela, so if we just think about the US, the US is

very much insulated from a supply perspective, or at least from the crude side of things,

but we are still very much feeling the impacts of the price increase simply because you

see regional prices at the pump, diesel prices are impacted by global prices, and they

are impacted by global factors.

So delve a little more into that, which countries are the most affected?

Gosh, so 90% of this crude oil goes into Asia, and so China gets 45% of its oil from the

Middle East there, and that has been halted.

So this we're talking about, four and a half million barrels a day, India is probably

in the worst situation from an oil perspective because it run, this refineries run about

five million barrels a day, it imports about five million barrels a day, it gets about

half of that from the Middle East.

But there's other ramifications too, so for example, we look at Europe, Europe gets 45%

of its seaborn imports of jet fuel from the Middle East.

Now if we bring it back to the US, you look at the US West Coast, the US West Coast relies

upon South Korea for 85% of its jet fuel imports, and South Korea, like many different Asian

markets, are starting to stop their exports because they need to meet the needs of their

domestic markets first, then like China has banned product exports, and so you're seeing

the world slowly grinding to a halt here in terms of these energy flows.

Well, President Trump on his truth social media platform said, quote, if he ran, does anything

that stops the flow of oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United

States of America 20 times harder than they have been hits thus far, unquote.

So what do you make of that and the impact on the oil market?

The challenge that we have here, Angela, is that even if that happens, Iran has $20,000

drones that it can send at tankers or missiles at tankers that are going to pass through

the Strait of Hormuz, and so Iran still has this ability to have a massive impact on the

global market in terms of energy, even though it may be being absolutely pummeled and bombed.

So what are you watching for in the next few weeks?

Do you see this resolving or getting worse?

I know you don't have a crystal ball, but your best guess.

So the challenge is that even if we do get the Strait of Hormuz opening back up, it's

going to take a gradual increase to get all of the traffic moving through it.

We've got sort of 400 tankers that are stuck in there, vast majority of those are loaded

with oil and products and everything, and at the same time you've had these producers

that have been shutting down production too because they can't export those barrels.

And so the major concern is first getting the Strait of Hormuz opened up, but for that

to open up, it's not going to take insurance or it's not going to take a naval

convoy or anything because that isn't enough comfort for these tankers to pass through.

It's going to need to take a resolution with Iran here for the Strait to be opened up

and for the traffic to flow again.

So does the political instability in the Gulf make Texas energy companies more competitive

or valuable right now?

You know what, there's always a winner out of any of these situations and US producers

are one of those winners because oil prices have absolutely rallied so strongly, US oil

producers are able to now hedge their future production at a much, much higher price

than they would have been able to for the maybe just two weeks ago.

And so they are very much benefiting from this situation so that there is always a silver

lining.

So there have been a lot of headlines recently about rising prices at the pump around Texas

and across the country.

How much of that do you attribute to political instability abroad?

100 percent.

100 percent.

As mentioned, your local gas station is influenced by the price of oil.

The price of oil is influenced by global factors.

So as we see prices of the pump jumping 50, 55 cents over the last week, that is all driven

by what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz and in the mid-East Gulf.

Well, you mentioned some of the other prices it may rise.

What about things like electric bills, air travel or something maybe we're not even

expecting.

What are you looking at?

Well, diesel prices have gone absolutely crazy as well and so diesel is the lifeblood

of the manufacturing industry and the trucking industry as well.

So that's going to be reflected through interinflation and into the price that we're paying

for products.

Jet fuel is also increasing, so plain tickets are going to be going up and so it's across

the board here, energy as a whole is going to be causing inflation.

Anything else you're keeping an eye on as during these uncertain times in terms of oil or

energy prices or the global market?

Well, we've talked about the US producer benefiting as Asian refines are scrambling to find

barrels to replace mid-East Gulf barrels, they're looking to the US and so we should expect

US crude exports to be increasing in the coming weeks and months here to take advantage

of that.

The same the Gulf Coast is a large exporter of gasoline and diesel and that's going to

be very much in demand in the global market so we should be seeing a lot of competition

for that in the coming weeks here.

Matt Smith is a lead oil analyst with Kepler.

Matt, thank you again for joining us on the standard.

Thank you.

We're out of time for today's program but you can keep up with the news 24-7 at TexasStandard.org

and as we cover the water crisis in Texas we want to hear from you what are your biggest

concerns and is there something your community is doing well that could provide a blueprint

for other places in Texas.

Reach out to us on social media at TexasStandard or contact us at TexasStandard.org on our contact

us page.

Be sure to join us tomorrow as we look at how the new world's screw worm is affecting

US Mexico cattle trade.

The parasite shut down the border to livestock from Mexico.

From all of us at the standard, thanks for listening.

I'm Angela Cochera, wishing you the very best from El Paso.

Philanthropic support for TexasStandard comes from Casey and Scotto Hare, the Winkler Family

Foundation, Lynn Dobson and Greg Woldridge, Adrian Killam and the George Huntington Family.

Thanks so much for listening to the TexasStandard.

I'm David Brown, we'll see you tomorrow.