Stayton Bonner

Texas Parks and Wildlife published my article on the Great Plains' lesser prairie chicken. It's a beautiful bird—grouse to be exact—with an unfortunate name. You may read it here. 

My friend Jerod Foster took the pictures. They and the magazine look fantastic. It's one of the best aesthetic presentations of anything I've worked on to date.

The story's Goodnight/Loving aspect was a lucky fluke. I was put in touch with Jeff Haley during research and interviewed him over the phone. Jerod then drove to his house outside Pampa for the photo shoot and noticed all these books by historian J. Evetts Haley in his library.

"That's my granddad," Jeff said. 

As it turned out, I was reading J. Evetts Haley's biography of Charles Goodnight at the time. Upon learning of the link, I saw a parallel between Goodnight's buffalo herd and the nearly endangered lesser prairie chicken and incorporated it into the story. It made the whole thing come together. Sometimes you just get lucky.

Jerod and I are currently working on another TPWD story about catch-and-release shark fishing along the Gulf Coast. I'll be watching from the boat as he takes the underwater shots.