Most authors will admit that a lot of credit for their books should go to persons whose names do not appear on the title page, and Explorers and Settlers of Spanish Texas is no exception to that rule. From the beginning, we knew that finding the appropriate level of vocabulary and using different sentence structure for adolescent readers would be a problem. To meet that challenge, it seemed reasonable to have students in our intended range of audience and their teachers read sample chapters. Fortunately, we had contacts through friends and former instructors of Joseph’s daughter, Lindsey Nicole, who was a student at Pace High School in Brownsville, Texas.
Nicole Joseph and her younger friends, Denise Garza and Gilbert Muro (then at Stell Middle School in Brownsville), read the first chapters on Cabeza de Vaca and Coronado. Their suggestions received serious consideration and led us to rewrite sentences and recast paragraphs. Our genuine thanks are extended to Nicole, Denise, and Gilbert.
Two teachers, María Valdez and Alma Ortiz Knopp, both instructors at Stell Middle School, are also friends of the authors. They are experienced teachers with a good sense of what young people will read or will not read. Assessments of our revised chapter texts by Ms. Valdez and Ms. Knopp helped support the judgments of the three students mentioned above.
At the other end of the state, in Denton, Chipman asked Dr. Richard M. Golden, chair of the Department of History at the University of North Texas, if his son Jeremy would read the revised chapter on Cabeza de Vaca. Jeremy, then a student at Briarhill Middle School in Highland Village, Texas, gave that chapter his thumbs-up.
Rodney Hess, a former student of Chipman’s and Teacher of the Year (1999) in the Keller, Texas, ISD, had students in his eighth-grade United States history classes read two chapters of the manuscript. Mr. Hess reported that his students thought the writing to be “quite good and interesting.”
Finally, we called on our longtime friend Dr. Mary Doyle, chair of the Department of English at Newman Smith High School in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD. Mary, a specialist in reading, applied three different formulas to determine readability. On those scales, the text of two chapters ranked at grade levels of 9.19, 8.53, and 9.50. Thus, we feel the writing is appropriate for both middle and high school students.
The authors’ institutions, the University of Texas at Brownsville (UTB) and the University of North Texas (UNT), also provided valuable assistance. Joseph was aided by a reduced teaching load, and Chipman received a Faculty Research Grant to defray the cost of illustrations and maps. We wish to express our special thanks to Dean Anthony Zavaleta, Vice President for External Affairs at UTB; Dr. Farhat Iftekharuddin, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at UTB; and Dr. Rollie R. Schafer, Vice President for Research at UNT, as well as to UNT’s Faculty Research Committee, for having confidence in the scholarly content of a book intended for public school children.
At the University of Texas Press, our appreciation of its assistant director and editor in chief, Theresa J. May, knows few bounds. She encouraged this largely derivative work from our biographies in Notable Men and Women of Spanish Texas and supported our efforts from the very first. Thanks also to Letitia Blalock, our copyeditor, and Carolyn Wylie, our manuscript editor at the press. The authors accept the usual responsibility for errors and omissions, because our names do appear on the title page.