Future of the Southern Plains

This conference had its beginnings at a meeting at Southern Methodist University's Taos campus. Then in the spring, the same group of scholars met at SMU to continue to bring the Southern Plains to the forefront by asking important questions about its past and suggesting prospects for its future. The contributors, some of them natives of the region, bring to their work a blend of scholarship and personal experience. They match intellectual sophistication with deep affection for a place defined primarily as western Texas, Oklahoma, and eastern New Mexico. Within this volume is a story about America, a story about limits, and a story about challenging those limits.

Seven historians, one geographer, and a paleoclimatologist contribute a wealth of observation, analysis, and commentary on the environmental characteristics and history of the Southern Plains. They address such themes as failing communities, scarce water, endangered species, and disappearing ways of life—and the possible results of these developments not only in the Southern Plains but elsewhere on the globe.

Based on presentations at both symposia sponsored by the Clements Center for Southwest Studies, these essays treat the most important aspects of life on the Southern Plains today, from climate, politics, and religion to business and environmental renewal.

The papers have been compiled into a book, The Future of the Southern Plains, edited by Sherry L. Smith, and published by University of Oklahoma Press in 2003. Contributors and topics include: Sherry L. Smith, Dan Flores, John Miller Morris, Diana Davids Olien, John Opie, Jeff Roche, Yolanda Romero, Elliott West: Exploration and Connie Woodhouse:.