Today we’d like to introduce you to Don Frazier.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’ve spent most of my life in higher education. For most of that time I was in Abilene.
In 2019, Schreiner University recruited me to Kerrville as part of their strategic plan to be uniquely and intentionally Texan. Together we manifested this as The Texas Center.
Our mission is to help people all across the state tell the Texas story. From the Alamo to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, to all 254 counties, we aim to promote the Lone Star heritage in ways that intertwine all the people of our state as part of this remarkable journey. We are also preparing the state for stories yet to come.
We do this several ways. Our E Pluribus Texas program is centered on 250 short, five-minute videos that tell the Texas tale from the beginning of time to present. Designed for classroom use, they are appropriate and interesting for audiences of all ages. These are free on the Texas Center YouTube channel.
We publish books through our imprint, State House Press. We lead tours of where Texans made history, and where history made Texans.
It’s a big task, but one we hope serves to encourage our friends and neighbors, vecinos y amigos, enhance their own Texas journey.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Life is not without its obstacles. Not everyone agrees on what the Texas story is, or why we should find it useful or worthy of study. These are contentious days, and we’ve had people snarl and snap at us from a variety of perspectives. We are determined optimists, however, and believe that every Texan story should be included—that’s why our video series is E Pluribus Texas. Out of many, ONE Texas.
We’ve quit worrying about what the chattering class has to stay, or the clamoring special interests groups.
We serve all Texans. And, we aren’t the first folks in our state to face headwinds. This state has never been an easy neighborhood to live in. But, that’s what’s adds to our spirit, and resilience.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I did a few things before I became an academic historian. I was in the newspaper business, I was part of a television crew that produced Major League Baseball games, and even worked in the defense industry. I also worked as a gunfighter/street performer at Six Flags over Texas. That was fun!
None of these roles really scratched my itch to tell great stories that had long shelf life. That led me to graduate school in history at Texas Christian University.
Since then, I’ve written several books on Texas during the Civil War era, as well as works on the relationship between The United States and México in the early days of our sister republic to the south. I’ve been a classroom professor and taught students for more than thirty years, while I have also led trips all over the world, managed big museum and public history projects, and engaged with state government in an advisory capacity. I even wrote a full length play that tells the story of Susannah Dickenson and William Travis’s enslaved servant, Joe.
You put all this creative energy together with a little entrepreneurial instinct and you end up with The Texas Center at Schreiner University,
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
Well, that’s hard to say. I’ve been driven, and I believe led, to pursue my life’s work the way I have. There have been events I could have done without, that’s for sure, but in hindsight I see them for what they were—part of the refining process. There have been instances that I can only attribute to the Hand of God, and I am thankful for them.
Through it all I have tried to maintain my role as an honest broker as we try to make sense of our shared past, and what potential it has for making a brighter future for all of us,
As to good luck or bad? I am inspired by the Rudyard Kipling Poem “If.”
Life is just…life. But t comes at you hard, ready or not!
Pricing:
- E Pluribus Texas—free online.
- Curriculum supporting E Pluribus Texas—by subscriptions to home schoolers as well as private, charter, and public schools.
- Texas Center Tours—depends on where we are headed!
- State House Press books—check out website and Amazon for pricing.
- Bona Fide Texan program—for Texas adventurers of all ages, $49-$150
Contact Info:
- Website: https://thetexascenter.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetexascenter?igsh=MTBqczZsd3kxdnA3bA==
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1NbbATWZNd/?mibextid=wwXIfr
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donaldfrazier?utm_source=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=member_ios
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@thetexascenter?si=Ow6iDlHK6jvyV_UF
