still be at large. I didn’t know what to do. I considered bolting from the car, but I had on high-heeled shoes. There were no good options. After the longest 45 minutes of my life, headlights appeared. My date had returned, and I, who had scarcely driven a car before that evening, steered his grandmother’s Buick out of the park as he pushed it with his truck all the way to the Rose Oil service station. Then he drove me home. My parents, exhausted by my brother’s high school escapades, tended toward benign neglect with me. They were asleep when I returned and didn’t ask about my missed curfew when they woke up the next morning. And I certainly didn’t volunteer any information. Like Presley, I’ve waited until everyone is dead to tell my story. In 1946 it might have had a diferent ending. T WHAT A DIFFERENCE FOURTEEN YEARS MAKE By Jay Carr and Jeff Salamon When Rick Perry steps down from ofce on January 20, he will have not only served longer than any other governor in Texas history but also presided over a profoundly transformative era, when the state’s population and economy boomed and our demographics radically shifted. Here’s a snapshot look at the Texas Rick Perry inherited—and the one he leaves behind. Ethnic breakdown Population, by county type Suburban 17.1% 2000 “Big 6” urban counties 47.7% Total 20.85 million Other metro 18.7% 32.0% 38.4% 11.5% 12.4% African American Suburban 21.8% Total 27.19 million 52.4% 44.0% 2000 2013 Hispanic Small town 16.5% 2014 “Big 6” urban counties 46.4% Non-Hispanic white Asian or Pacific Islander Other metro 17.9% Native American Small town 13.8% Number of Texans experiencing extreme or exceptional drought during the first week of August 2.8% 4.4% 0.6% 1.0% Number of people living in Hays County (home of San Marcos, the fastest-growing city in the U.S.) 2000 0 2014 3,548,341 2013 176,026 2000 97,589 Amount of money spent per public school student (in 2013 inflation-adjusted dollars) 2000– 2001 $11,154 2013– 2014 $9,372 Number of producing gas wells Texas House of Representatives, by party afliation OBITUARY Democrat Republican Democrat Republican 60,486 103,445 Faded Royalty 42 78 2000 72 55 2014 95 2000 Cumulative number of wind turbines installed 2000 116 10,035 2014 Number of hours the average Houstonian spent in trafc delays annually 2000 2011 Research by Lauren Caruba, Ingrid Vasquez, and Christian Wallace 2013 40 52 Sources: United States Census, Texas Education Agency, United States Drought Monitor, Texas Department of State Health Services, Railroad Commission of Texas, Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Wayne Thorburn, Texas A&M Transportation Institute H U N T: CO R B I S / DAV I D WO O uring a lull in the conversation at the Dallas Petroleum Club, my lunch companion looked past me and nodded toward the corner of the room. “That’s Bunker and Herbert Hunt over there,” he said. “What sort of deals do you suppose they’re working on?” It was the early nineties and one of the first times I’d dined in the elite lunchroom of Dallas’s oil-igarchy. Though their fortunes had faded and they had retreated from the limelight, Nelson Bunker Hunt and his brother Herbert remained the local equivalent of royalty—deposed royalty, perhaps, but royalty nonetheless. Few in the D texasmonthly.com 1214_Reporter [Print].indd 42 11/5/14 5:42 PM