May 2009

FOCUS ON TEXAS

At the (Texas) Beach
By Ashley Clary

Texas is as diverse as it is large: It has deserts, valleys, rivers, lakes, hills, mountains and mesas … and, of course, 367 miles of general coastline. Each month, thousands of Texans make the long or short trek to the seashore to get away. We received more than 200 photos of fun in the sand and sun, as well as some grim reminders of how hard 2008 was to our beaches. Here are just a few of our many favorites.

Liliana Osborn truly enjoyed getting down and dirty on her first trip to the coast on July 4, 2008. Parents and Pedernales Electric Cooperative members Julia and David Osborn took Liliana, then 11 months old, to ill-fated Crystal Beach on the Bolivar Peninsula, which was slammed by Hurricane Ike just a little more than two months later.

A week after Hurricane Ike hit, this hungry pelican searched for a snack just before sunset on the Mustang Island beach at Port Aransas. Keith Axler of Pedernales Electric Cooperative sent us this photo, which he says reflects the actual color of the sky and water before a storm moved in.

This shot of a shrimp boat in Matagorda Bay came courtesy of United Cooperative Services member Arnetta Clements. “I was in Bay City for my dad’s funeral and escaped to the beach for some alone time,” she said.

When Pedernales Electric Cooperative member Lea Brimberry saw this TV set in the dunes near Little Shell Beach on North Padre Island, she decided to have a little fun and had her sister, Lisa Brimberry, take this funny and unique shot.

This beautiful, yet desolate photo was sent in by Sarah Williams, who snapped it at Jamaica Beach on Galveston Island the first morning residents were allowed to go back home to view the post-Hurricane Ike damage. Her parents are members of Bandera Electric Cooperative.

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VACATION PHOTOS is the topic for our JULY 2009 issue. Send your photo—along with your name, address, daytime phone, co-op affiliation and a brief description—Vacation Photos, Focus on Texas, 1122 Colorado St., 24th Floor, Austin, TX 78701, before MAY 10. A stamped, self-addressed envelope must be included if you want your entry returned (approximately six weeks). Please do not submit irreplaceable photographs—send a copy or duplicate. We regret that Texas Co-op Power cannot be responsible for photos that are lost in the mail or not received by the deadline. Please note that we cannot provide individual critiques of submitted photos. If you use a digital camera, e-mail your highest-resolution images to focus@texas-ec.org or submit on our website at www.texascooppower.com. (If you have questions about your camera’s capabilities and settings, please refer to the operating manual.)

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