Over the course of filming two documentaries about the fathers of transgender and nonbinary children, Luchina Fisher has watched these families’ rights rapidly erode. 

“In [2023], we thought things were bad: we were having conversations around safety for our children,” she told the Texas Observer. “This is another level that we haven’t ever seen before.”

Fisher’s latest documentary, The Dads, which premiered in Austin at this year’s SXSW film festival, follows over a dozen fathers on a series of camping trips together where they bond over their shared hopes and fears for their gender-diverse children. It’s a feature-length expansion of her previous, Emmy-winning short film of the same name, which premiered at SXSW in 2023 before being picked up by Netflix. The new film follows the titular dads across camping trips from 2023 and, two years later, in 2025. By the time of the latter gathering, several of the families had decided to leave their home states or even move out of the country in order to protect their kids’ access to healthcare and basic human rights. 

It’s clear that Fisher isn’t merely an impassive, neutral documentarian when it comes to the plight of her film’s subjects. After all, when she speaks about the dads’ offspring, she refers to them as if they’re “her” children, too. And she doesn’t hold back her anger at what these families have faced, either. 

“We needed to capture this moment in history,” she told us. “It was really important to document it [so that] no one can say this didn’t happen … and really just for people to understand the human toll that these state laws and now the federal government is having on these families, that they have become political refugees in their own country.”

(Courtesy)

Despite the darkness looming over the film’s subjects, much of The Dads feels heartwarming, even cozy, as we see how deeply devoted these fathers are to their kids. In between hikes and other outdoor adventures, the men gather to talk about their children and how to protect them from the culture wars, but also about how proud they are. 

Outside of the camping trips, we accompany Stephen Chukumba, who is also one of the film’s producers, on a journey with his transgender son Hobbes to help him move into a dorm for his first year in college. Chukumba exudes anxiety as he worries about how Hobbes will be received by cisgender residents. But, on his return trip to pick him up for vacation, we learn that Hobbes has joined a fraternity where his brothers seem utterly blasé about Hobbes’ gender identity. Later Chukumba, a widower, grows tearful as he recounts how Hobbes selected his name as a way to remind himself of his late mother and their shared love for Calvin & Hobbes comics. 

Despite her closeness, Fisher’s presence is only lightly felt, if at all, during the film, as she lets the subjects speak for themselves. One unexpected side effect of this approach, and the emotionally-charged nature of what these families face, is that The Dads becomes a portrait in male vulnerability as these fathers cry together and hug, in the process building a lasting community.

“Men don’t want to cry; it’s just one of those things,” Chukumba told the Observer. “But in these spaces, we feel okay … and now we are all proudly claiming our tears, because for so long, we’ve denied ourselves the ability to be soft, to be vulnerable.”

Although neither strident nor demanding, the film constitutes a quiet but insistent call to action through showing us both the unconditional love the dads have for their kids and the fear they have in a nation that seems increasingly aligned against them. One recent study by the Movement Advancement Project suggested that as many as 400,000 transgender people relocated in the wake of Donald Trump’s second election, which would represent a massive internal displacement. The documentary puts a human face on these numbers, as we share in both the suffering and the resilience of these families in their determination to survive. 

Among the dads making difficult decisions is San Antonio’s Ed Diaz, whose 13-year-old daughter Charli moves to Canada with her stepmother during the film, after Texas banned access to gender-affirming care for minors in 2023. 

“We want to live our lives and be happy,” Diaz told the San Antonio Current. “I don’t want to have to deal with all the laws about using the wrong bathroom and the undercurrent of violence toward trans people.”

Chukumba expressed similar sentiments to the Observer when asked what he wanted viewers to take away from the film. “I just want everybody to leave us the fuck alone; that’s all I want.” 

He elaborated: “We just want what everyone else has, which is just regular, mundane lives, and so what I want everyone to do is to stop allowing the people that have made the lives of gender-expansive people miserable … to have the power that they have over us.”

Chukumba also warned that attacks on bodily autonomy won’t stop with trans people. “The rights that are being taken away from trans and nonbinary people and their families … are the canary in the coal mine.”

Five of the other fathers have formed a nonprofit, The Dads Foundation, which supports both recurring camping trips as well as advocacy for their families’ rights. Although The Dads hasn’t yet been picked up for theatrical or streaming distribution, you can contact the foundation to arrange a screening in your area.   

The post ‘Proudly Claiming Our Tears’: Fathers Stand Together for Their Trans and Nonbinary Kids appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Editor’s Note: This story was produced by Public Health Watch and is republished here with permission.

Throughout their two decades together, Kay and Brian raised their family and shared the ups and downs of daily life. She was an educator with a gift for math and coding; he was a prankster who loved to make people laugh and a born caregiver who was a trusted confidant to many.

The couple especially enjoyed spending time hunting and fishing together near their rural Anderson County home in East Texas. 

For Kay, those memories are precious. Since losing Brian in 2017 to firearm-related suicide, she found that being in the woods, sitting in a deer stand or casting a line helped her reconnect most deeply with their life together.

“I just felt so at home and so close to him,” said Kay, who asked that she and her husband be identified only by their first names for privacy reasons.

Choosing her words carefully, Kay said she recognized that Brian had been going through something in the months prior to his death, but she didn’t have the education or experience to recognize the warning signs that he needed help.

Discussions involving mental health and firearms can be fraught in Texas, especially in a deeply conservative area like East Texas, where a culture of self-sufficiency and gun ownership runs deep. And it’s costing lives. Of the 4,389 gun deaths in Texas in 2024, more than 63 percent—or 2,779—were suicides, according to records obtained from Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Gun Violence Solutions.

East Texas is among the hardest-hit regions in the state. Panola County, which includes the town of Carthage near the Louisiana border, had among the highest rate of gun suicides in Texas from 2020-2024, with 27.1 suicides per 100,000 people, according to state records. 

Other counties in Deep East Texas—Henderson, Anderson, Cherokee, Van Zandt and Rusk, for example—also had high rates, with gun-related suicides accounting for more than 70 percent of all firearm deaths.

At the same time, access to mental health treatment and facilities in East Texas is limited by a sparse number of providers, lack of health insurance among residents, poverty, and transportation problems.

“It is very safe to say that we are in a mental health desert in the state of Texas,” said Steve Bain, Ph.D., a Texas A&M Kingsville professor of counseling who studies mental health care access.

“Out of the 254 counties in Texas, only about six of those are not considered mental health provider shortage areas,” Bain said. “In other words, everybody is short mental health, psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, social workers. Everyone is short. You’ve only got six counties who were like ‘Yeah, we’re doing pretty good,’ and most of those are urban counties.”

(Public Health Watch)

The concentration of gun suicides traditionally is higher in rural areas. Across the nation, 63 percent of suicides in rural areas involved firearms, compared to 50 percent in large metro areas, according to Johns Hopkins research.

Even if mental health resources are available in a region, they may be so distant that people won’t have the time, transportation or financial resources to access them, Bain said. And the situation is even more dire for minorities living in Texas, especially those in rural areas. 

“They fare even worse, in terms of availability and accessibility,” Bain said. “And then you’ve got a culture that says, ‘Well, you don’t talk about your problems.’”

Brian worked as an emergency room nurse for many years, and loved to host family, friends and their families at the couple’s home on Lake Palestine. He enjoyed taking them out on the jet ski or pulling the kids in inner tubes on the water, Kay said.

“Those were some of the most joyous times,” she said. “He just loved to have fun, whether it was with his work friends or with his family. There was just a lot of laughter.”

Brian was also a skilled handyman who built and fixed things around the couple’s home. 

“What was fun about that was that we would do that stuff together,” Kay said. “I would get what he needed and he would teach me.”

Despite a knack for brutal honesty, Brian was also deeply kind and supportive of the people in his life, Kay said. He was an especially strong advocate for the women in his life—colleagues, his daughters, his wife. 

Kay has found healing—and purpose—by working with East Texas support groups that focus on mental health and suicide prevention. Connecting with fellow survivors and advocates has allowed her to process Brian’s death and use her experience to help educate others about how to offer, or receive, help when needed.

Like others who spoke to Public Health Watch, Kay  said that reducing the stigma around asking for or accepting help and normalizing conversations about how to help someone in crisis—whether that’s asking to temporarily hold on to someone’s car keys or offering secure storage of guns or ammunition—is imperative for saving lives.

The discussions must go beyond the political discourse surrounding firearms in Texas, advocates say.

While we have gotten better at talking about mental health and suicide, “It’s still in whispers,” said pediatrician Sandra McKay, an associate professor and division chief of community and general pediatrics at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.

A gun owner herself, McKay started Target Safety, a collaboration between licensed firearm dealers and health care officials to provide safe storage of guns outside the home when needed temporarily for suicide prevention or other reasons. McKay said putting “time and space” between someone who is struggling and their firearms can be critical.

Some states have turned to laws known as Extreme Risk Protection Orders, or ERPOs, civil actions that allow judges to prohibit gun possession temporarily for people deemed a danger to themselves or others.

More than 20 states from California to Maine, plus Washington, D.C., have some form of ERPO legislation. Texas took a different approach, however, with lawmakers passing a bill in 2025 that bans authorities from honoring ERPO orders from other states.

The Texas legislation, known as the Anti-Red Flag Law, went into effect in September. It was sponsored by Republican state Senator Bryan Hughes, who has represented East Texas in the Texas Legislature for two decades in a district that stretches across northeast Texas, including Panola County. Hughes did not respond to a request for comment.

Gun rights advocates argue that ERPO laws are easily abused through false allegations against firearm owners, setting gun owners up to lose their 2nd Amendment rights. Gun safety advocates argue that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the laws do not violate constitutional rights, and that some ERPO laws have built-in protections, including penalties for someone who makes false claims.

But the lines are not always drawn so clearly.

“In some cases, the Red Flag Law becomes a barrier rather than a solution,” said Dave Lewis, an Air Force veteran who is now director of Harris County’s Veterans Services Department. He said gun owners may fear they will lose their firearms if they seek assistance.

“It looks like an easy solution, but it may be a barrier to seeking mental health help,” he said.

There are no official records on the number of gun owners in Texas, but research indicates that there are more than 32 million firearms in the state, and that about 36 percent of Texans report owning at least one firearm.

Polling conducted in 2025 by the University of Houston indicates that 88 percent of Texans support implementation of an ERPO law, with 64 percent of respondents “strongly” supporting such legislation.

McKay said her organization has urged the Texas Legislature to pass liability protection for licensed firearms dealers who are willing to provide gun storage. While the bill has previously failed to pass both chambers, she is hopeful about its prospects in the next legislative session.

Government-funded health clinics and nonprofit facilities in East Texas often serve residents across multiple counties, meaning some patients may be forced to drive an hour or more for  appointments.

Some organizations operate mobile clinics and offer telehealth appointments, but spotty broadband can leave residents unable to take advantage of the latter. Transportation is also a key deterrent.

“The geographic spread is a problem, with lots of transportation needs,” said Mari Gutierrez,  director of clinical outcomes and suicide prevention coordinator at Andrews Behavioral Health in Tyler. “If someone needs to drive further for a clinic or a mental health location, they may not have a vehicle, the gas money, or even, sometimes, just the mental energy to make that transportation happen.”  

In addition, many residents are fiercely private and independent, said Kristin Bailey-Wallace, who grew up near Nacogdoches and is with the National Alliance on Mental Illness affiliate in deep East Texas.

“There’s a reluctance to seek outside services,” she said, adding that that resistance spans racial, religious, and socio-economic lines.

For some in the region, mistrust of providers can run deep, and seeking help can be seen as a violation of a faith tradition or community norm, said Jordan Bridges, a Nacogodoches-based licensed counselor who is also affiliated with NAMI Deep East Texas.

Family or community members who reject a diagnosis or recommendation can complicate treatment, he said.

“It kind of just undoes all the work,” Bridges said.

Bailey-Wallace, a licensed social worker, said that not everyone who considers suicide has a diagnosed mental health condition or history of substance use. People can become overwhelmed by life and circumstances, and may be at risk, highlighting the importance of expanding education and support services.

NAMI cites research showing that only 46 percent of people who die by suicide had diagnosed mental health conditions.

NAMI’s 2025-2026 Public Policy Platform includes recommendations that Texas officials establish a 988 Trust Fund to ensure long-term funding for call centers and crisis response, expand youth and LGBTQ+ suicide prevention services, and implement safe storage and other programs to reduce access to lethal means of suicide.

The organization also calls for expansion of Medicaid and mental health services for veterans, such as peer support programs and improved coordination with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and state mental health systems.

Robin Lewis’s brother, Que, was a deeply religious man who had served as a Marine. He was well-loved and respected in his rural Texas community west of Fort Worth, and while his life was not without challenges, there was nothing about  his behavior that raised alarms within his family.

But, in 2011, he died by gun-related suicide. The family struggled to understand what had happened, but began to realize he had been facing multiple stress-points. 

“You think, ‘He wouldn’t have done that,’” said Robin Lewis. “He was a pillar of strength in the community. At his funeral, so many people said, ‘We never saw this coming.’ Because like many, especially people in the veteran population, everybody says, ‘That’s the strongest among us,’ right?’ But, they wear that mask. They put on that mask. People don’t see what’s really going on.”

Dave Lewis, Robin’s husband, puts those lessons to use now in his handling of veteran mental health issues in Harris County, drawing some clients from far outside the Houston area. For someone quietly struggling with stress, something as seemingly inconsequential as a speeding ticket can trigger a crisis, he said.

“Your bucket is full of 10,000 stressors, and that last thing overflows your bucket,” Lewis said.

Harris County Veterans Services offers a special voluntary program, Texas 2 Step, to help find temporary storage for firearms—or even just for key components, such as firing pins—during a crisis. The program, which is funded by a VA grant, works with the veteran and family members, he said.

“We think of Texas 2 Step as a non-Legislative approach (non ERPO) for a secure, temporary storage of firearms, and tools for family members to use to create time and distance,” Dave Lewis said.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs operates hospitals in Houston, Dallas, and Shreveport, Louisiana, but there is no in-patient VA hospital in Deep East Texas. An outpatient clinic offers mental health resources in Longview in Gregg County, and there are veterans clinics in Louisiana that offer crisis intervention, PTSD support, substance-use treatment, and other mental health resources, Pete Kasperowicz, the VA press secretary, said in an emailed response to questions from Public Health Watch.

The VA also offers virtual mental health care, and veterans and former service members can get free emergency suicide care at any VA or non-VA emergency room under the Compact Act. Many local or regional health care clinics also offer support services for veterans.

Nationwide, 6,398 veterans died by suicide in 2023, according to the VA. In Texas, 581 veterans died by suicide in 2023, with nearly 80 percent of those deaths involving a firearm, according to the department.

More than 1.53 million veterans lived in Texas in 2023, up to 60,000 of them in East Texas, according to a state assessment. The VA report found that contributing factors to veteran suicides from 2021-2023 included documented chronic pain, health problems, financial hardship, relationship problems, and unsecured firearms in the home.

“You’ll see very simplistic views of it being reduced to combat exposure or something like that, but that’s not really what the data show,” said Sonja Batten, chief clinical officer with Stop Soldier Suicide, a national nonprofit organization.

While combat exposure can be a risk factor for service members who are deployed, many veterans who die by suicide did not serve in combat roles. Traumatic brain injury, the transition out of military service, losing employment and social support, health care access and coverage, a high rate of gun ownership, and sexual assault while in service—which affects both women and men—are all risk factors, Batten said.

While civilians face those same risk factors, they impact veterans at higher rates, she said.

More work is needed to reduce the stigma around asking for help, said John Richardson, vice president of research and evaluation at Stop Soldier Suicide. Building community, and having conversations based on understanding and shared experiences can help veterans feel safer about opening themselves up to help, he said.

“It’s a sign of resilience and growth to get through what we need to get through, just like we did in the military where we worked as a team,” Richardson said.

Jodie Duncan had trouble finding resources to help navigate her grief after her 19-year-old daughter, Nycole, died by suicide in 2013.

She lived in West Texas at the time, and felt isolated, with no tools or support to understand why Nycole had died or how to process her loss. She finally found a sense of community when she moved to Mount Pleasant in Titus County, in far northeast Texas.

“It was like trying to see your way through mud,” Duncan said. “I was kind of on my own. I don’t want anyone to feel or experience that, be it through the loss of a child, parent, sibling, friend. They are all very unique individual losses.”

Jodie and her husband, Donnie, purchased the Raw Iron Powerlifting League in 2020. In addition to holding sanctioned powerlifting competitions, the couple, who own Raw Iron Gym in Mount Pleasant, began an annual charitable competition in Nycole’s honor, called Lifting the Stigma. 

Typically, 70 to 80 lifters, ranging in age from 3 to 73, compete over two days while helping raise money for mental health and suicide prevention. The  event offers lifters the opportunity to honor loved ones lost to suicide.

Upcoming “Lifting the Stigma” events are set for June 6 at the The Church at Azle near Fort Worth, and August 1-2 in Mount Pleasant at the Andy Williams Junior High gym.

In Anderson County, meanwhile, Kay continues to find refuge—and healing—in the outdoors. 

The pain of losing Brian runs deep, but helping people in her community find support has been a blessing, she said. She’s seen grieving survivors find peace and joy as they share memories of loved ones lost.

“It’s just like a weight was lifted,” she said. “It just produced hope.”

Former Public Health Watch reporter Raquel Torres contributed to this report.

Mental Health Resources: If you or someone you know is in need of support, the national suicide and crisis hotline, 988 Lifeline, can be reached by dialing 988. Veterans can access help by dialing 988 and then pressing 1. The National Alliance on Mental Illness also offers the NAMI HelpLine with support and resources.

The post East Texas Hit Hard by Gun-Related Suicides appeared first on The Texas Observer.

This story was produced by Grist and co-published with the Texas Observer.

On an unseasonably warm January day, Duff Hallman’s goats and sheep wandered unhurried through the rocky hills of his ranch 30 miles south of San Angelo, Texas, unbothered by the long shadows that swept over the ground. The shadows fell from wind turbines towering 250 feet above, their blades spinning like clock hands over land that has been in Hallman’s family for four generations. From a shady spot in his backyard, Hallman can almost nod off watching them turn. “It slows your pace down a bit,” he said. 

At 74, Hallman still feels honored to work the 9,200-acre ranch he owns with his brother and sister, sometimes putting in as much as 15 hours a day. The labor starts at dawn — mending fences, clearing pastures, tending horses and livestock — and is far from lucrative. He doesn’t do it for the money, but out of gratitude to those who kept the ranch going before him. “Somebody worked their tail off to make it happen,” he said. “And I have worked my tail off, too.”

Duff Hallman stands on his family ranch, which he owns with his siblings. In 2007, they signed a lease with a clean energy company to bring new revenue. (Laura Mallonee / Grist)

Standing beneath a live oak, his ballcap shielding tired eyes, Hallman spoke of bluebonnets that carpet the pastures each spring and moonrises that “knock your socks off” — one so bright he thought it was a spaceship. His great-grandfather Sam Henderson, a Texas Ranger, bought the land in 1916; it straddles Tom Green, Schleicher, and Irion counties about four hours west of Austin. Hallman spent his childhood summers there, learning his way around.  

He took over after his grandparents died in 1975 and set to work — rebuilding pens and corrals, cutting cedar and mesquite, tending livestock. In the early 1980s, an oil company drilled 15 wells, and the Hallman siblings prospered. “That was a good time,” he said. “They were trying to get it out of the ground as fast as they could.”

But within a decade, the oil began drying up and federal wool subsidies vanished. Suddenly the ranch felt fragile. They needed a new revenue stream — something that might soften the hard years and help keep their children on the land after them — and in 2007, they signed a lease with a clean energy company. They hadn’t even heard of wind rights when the landman called. “We just thought the wind blew across the surface,” Hallman said.

For roughly six months, workers uprooted stones, bushes, and trees; carved 53 miles of road through the hills; and poured concrete slabs for 33 steel towers. The land thrummed with constant motion and dust choked the air. As Hallman watched his ranch transform, he worried that he’d made a mistake.

Little did he know, he had glimpsed the future. 

Goats wander across a caliche road on Duff Hallman’s property, which hosts 33 windmills that form part of the 160 MW Langford Wind farm. The facility began operations in 2009. (Laura Mallonee / Grist)

Hallman’s doubts reflect a larger reckoning underway in West Texas. Over the past two decades, rural counties that helped meet the nation’s demand for oil have become unexpected linchpins of its clean-energy buildout. Pumpjacks now stand alongside wind and solar farms drawn in part by open range and generous federal incentives. For Schleicher County, where oil production has waned and the tax base dwindled, “renewables” have taken on a double meaning, offering the promise of fiscal stability in a place desperate for economic renewal. But that promise is now complicated by the Trump administration’s rollback of clean energy policy and many of the incentives that fueled the boom. 

Texas has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA. During the three years after the legislation passed in 2022, developers invested some $62 billion in clean energy ventures statewide and announced billions more in planned construction. Projects already constructed or proposed in Schleicher County — including a hydrogen facility once estimated to bring $1.2 billion in tax revenue — were forecast to generate tens of millions for schools, hospitals, and other services.

But those projections rested on one key assumption: The federal tax credits at the heart of the IRA would remain in place. The law extended earlier incentives through 2024 and established a new system of credits to begin in 2025. This federal support — including additional incentives for installations built in low-income communities and regions with a history of fossil fuel extraction — could cover up to 70 percent of a facility’s cost.

Before the cuts, governments and landowners across Texas stood to collect nearly $50 billion in lease payments and tax revenue from current and planned projects, according to one report, with roughly three-quarters of counties positioned to benefit. Now, many of these developments — and their hoped-for revenue — face a precarious future. More than $4 billion in investment has already been threatened or cancelled. All told, the about-face could eliminate thousands of jobs and shave $20 billion from the state’s gross domestic product by 2035. The climate consequences are equally stark, adding roughly 83 million metric tons of carbon emissions to the atmosphere by some estimates. 

One county illustrates what has been gained by the boom — and what could be lost with its passing. Scurry County, about two hours northwest of Hallman’s ranch, is one of the largest producers of renewable power in West Texas. Companies have built roughly a dozen wind and solar farms, with a total capacity of about 2,300 megawatts of power; they are projected to generate nearly $1 billion for the county and local landowners over the facilities’ lifetimes.

County Judge Dan Hicks said clean energy helped stabilize a budget long whipsawed by volatile oil and gas revenues. Some years, without a steady income stream, local officials faced the prospect of closing the library, the youth center, and the golf course. Renewables helped change that. Abatement agreements with developers created reliable, long-term payments that don’t fluctuate with the market or vanish when a manufacturer leaves town, Hicks said. Jobs have been slower to follow, but a support industry is beginning to take shape around the installations. “When your population is 17,000, every job counts,” he said. Eventually, he said, “I’d love to see us become the energy capital of Texas.”

He doesn’t think new wind and solar will come without federal incentives. Yet Joshua Rhodes, an energy researcher at the University of Texas who has studied the IRA’s impact in Texas, anticipates development continuing — albeit more slowly, and at greater cost. That likely means pricier electricity and slimmer returns for rural counties hoping to share in the growth. How much of it will materialize now is uncertain.

Schleicher County Judge Charlie Bradley looks out the window of his cluttered second-floor office in Eldorado, the sand-colored farming town he’s known all his life. The old filling station on the corner, where he pumped gas in high school, has closed. So has the wool warehouse a few blocks south, where he helped process yarn in middle school. 

Just north of the courthouse, the yellow-brick elementary school shows its age. Water pools in the basement and leaks through the ceiling, and, as one teacher said, “a lot of the rooms stink.” At lunchtime, kids from the high school next door spill into the surrounding neighborhood, a mix of small houses and mobile homes. A washing machine rusts on one porch. Yards collect trailers, cars, and piles of brush, though many assert pride with Texas stars, decorative windmills, and Christmas lights still twinkling in January.

Bradley grew up here in the 1960s and ’70s, when Eldorado was prosperous enough to support several family-owned groceries, stores, and restaurants. He set out for Texas Tech University and dabbled in six subjects before settling on photography. (“Best seven years of my life,” he said.) After returning home, he ran a portrait studio for a decade, then spent another 10 years chasing storms as an insurance adjuster. He was in the middle of one in 2007 when the retiring county judge called to suggest he run for the job. Bradley said he didn’t know a thing about governing. “Well hell, Bradley,” the judge replied, “Nobody does. If they did, they wouldn’t run.’” 

Schleicher County Judge Charlie Bradley sits at his desk in what he calls “the messiest office” on the second floor of the courthouse in Eldorado, Texas. Bradley has held the job since 2009 and is running for reelection unopposed. (Laura Mallonee / Grist)

By the time Bradley took office in 2009, the county was reeling from the decline of the fossil fuel and sheep industries. Then came fresh blows. A fundamentalist Mormon sect that was the county’s fourth-largest taxpayer was prosecuted for child marriage and lost its property in 2014, putting a sizeable dent in revenue. The next year, the Baker Hughes oilfield services yard — which employed about 80 people — shut down. With property taxes already near the legal ceiling, Bradley had to trim about $300,000 from the budget, hitting roads, bridges, and a meals program for the elderly. Much of what remained of the fossil fuel economy eventually left, too, though a Kinder Morgan gas pipeline announced in 2019 has boosted the tax base. The population has fallen from roughly 3,500 in 2010 to about 2,300 in 2024.

Today, the county runs on $9.3 million. Things are so tight there are just two workers to cut all of its grass, and Bradley has been known to climb on a mower to help out. “It’s real relaxing,” he said. “You can’t hear the phones.”

Renewable energy has provided a modest lift. The 160-megawatt Langford wind farm, which stretches into Schleicher County from an adjoining county, came online the same year Bradley took office, offering a bit of relief amid the losses; it now pays the county about $35,000 annually. The 100-megawatt Live Oak wind farm was built in 2018; in just the past six years, it has contributed nearly $16 million in taxes to local governments, including $7.2 million to Bradley’s budget. A 430-megawatt solar farm rising nearby could add about $225,000 to his budget each year.

An operations building for Langford Wind in southern Tom Greene County. The project’s turbines spread across Tom Green, Schleicher, and Irion counties. (Laura Mallonee / Grist)

Still, Bradley remains clear-eyed about green energy’s limits. Several companies have signed agreements without ever breaking ground, and those that did haven’t replaced what oil and gas once provided. The projects employ only a handful of workers — nothing like the number the oilfield service yards and gas plants once did.

The modest financial gains have come with friction. Some ranchers, tired of what Bradley called “scraping out a living on six inches of topsoil and rock,” want the money clean energy developers pay to lease their land. They also hope the revenue might help Schleicher County avoid the fate of neighboring Menard County, one of the state’s poorest. Others resent having their tax dollars spent on federal incentives for what they call “alternative energy.” Bradley said he has been asked, “Why in the hell do we want all that stuff? This is ranching land, and it’s always been ranching land.”

The flashpoint came in 2023, when ETFuels began leasing rights for a 500-megawatt wind, solar, and battery complex that would also produce hydrogen to make methanol for shipping — a larger and more complex industrial endeavor than anything Schleicher County had seen before. For many residents, the problem wasn’t the size, but the water. The plant would draw from the Edwards-Trinity Aquifer, the county’s only source, and no one could say how much could be spared. The first exploratory wells came up dry; later ones struck water. The question filled the civic center with tense, packed meetings. But under state law, Bradley had no ability to intervene in the landowner’s drilling. “I can’t tell him what to do with his land,” he said.

ETFuels never broke ground, but something even bigger emerged. In December of 2024, Apex Clean Energy pitched a wind, sun, battery, and “green” hydrogen facility that would produce enough energy to power 700,000 homes and create 90 full-time jobs. This time, the water would come from another county. A presentation outlining the benefits left school board members speechless: The operation would provide as much as $1.2 billion in property tax revenue over 25 years, including $20 million a year for the school district, enough for a new elementary school. In November, the board put a bond package to voters, hoping the Apex project would pay for it. (The measure ultimately failed.)

Apex appears to have scuttled plans to produce hydrogen in Schleicher County, though it’s not clear why. The company, which declined to comment, last promoted the project in June, just before President Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” into law. Among other things, that legislation rolled back the production tax credit of up to $3 per kilogram for green hydrogen. Experts like Rhodes at the University of Texas doubt many such projects can be viable without it. 

Bradley won’t speculate about lost or future revenue. “That egg is not in my basket,” he said. What is in his basket lies just beyond his office window: an elementary school with a leaky basement, two men mowing all of the county’s grass, and a community that’s spent decades waiting for something to take root.

If Bradley can see the changes that have come to Schleicher County in recent years, Sandra Pfeuffer can hear them. The sound carries across ranchland where her family once expected only the lowing of cattle.

Her father-in-law leased wind rights on his ranch in Eden, a town in neighboring Concho County, to a renewable energy company in 2008. He did so, Pfeuffer said, because he was dying, and paying estate taxes would have required selling off part of the ranch. Nothing came of the deal, but a decade later, her husband Ray signed a lease with Maverick Creek Wind Farm, which was built in 2020. “It was the worst decision we ever made,” Sandra said.

The four turbines hummed so loudly, and the transmission line buzzed so persistently, that she couldn’t sleep during visits. “I’m not going to lie — mailbox money is great,” she said. “But the mailbox money will never cover the loss of the enjoyment we had in that ranch.”

Pfeuffer is now fighting the rising tide of clean energy developments in eastern Schleicher County, where she lives. She isn’t blind to the irony of her stance. Ranches are dividing all around, she concedes, and times are changing. But she has come to see such projects not as progress but as a threat to the only life she’s wanted. “As a rancher, I feel kind of like a quail,” she said. “Everything’s after you, and it’s only a matter of time ’til you die.” 

When ETFuels began drilling wells on her neighbor’s land in 2023, she led the charge against it. She worried about what might be lost beneath the surface. “My fence doesn’t go underground and separate your water from my water,” she said. “It’s wrong for my neighbors to pump half a million gallons a day and cut my water away from underneath me.” (A representative of ETFuels told the county’s water board it could use about 220,000 gallons per day.) 

The next year, the Pfeuffers gathered fellow ranchers around their dining table and formed the Edwards Plateau Alliance to “counteract misleading narratives” about renewable energy. Sandra organized meetings, brought in outside critics, and pressed lawmakers to protect groundwater from hydrogen development. “[Companies] go into communities that need a lifeline and they promise the world,” she said. “The money is not worth the peace and beauty that they take away from your property.”

A visit to their 3,300-acre ranch shows what she believes is at stake. A few miles from the turnoff from the main road, a sign reads: “Wind Turbines Destroy Land Value.” Beyond the stately, white farmhouse and its web of gates, rocky pastures stretch wide and still, dotted with live oaks and a few oil pumpjacks. Sandra cut the engine of her all-terrain vehicle in front of one and listened. There is no whoosh or hum, only the rustle of breeze through the grass.

A water windmill turns on a January evening in Mason County, on the eastern edge of the West Texas region. ( Laura Mallonee / Grist)

The quiet helps explain why the Pfeuffers are so committed to their ranch. They have spent years clearing mesquite and cedar so grass can take hold — not just for profit, she said, but to benefit the land. The work has taught her to pay attention. “Out here, you’re so connected to everything,” Sandra said. “If there’s a rock out of place, you notice.”

She doesn’t see that kind of attentiveness in the push for renewables. To her, it’s just another extractive industry — one that will leave West Texas depleted, its water drained, and its land scarred with concrete, rebar, and fiberglass. Above all, she resents what she sees as urban priorities imposed on rural communities by people who will not live with the consequences. “I don’t come into town and knock down your buildings so I can run my cows,” she said. 

The Pfeuffers’ activism has riled other ranchers. Sandra said that her neighbor no longer speaks to her. She’s heard rumors of vague threats, of people at the coffee shop saying things like, “These people who are fighting this, we know where they live.”

While the fight in West Texas plays out in sidelong glances and veiled warnings, in Austin it is reduced to charts, forecasts, and models. State planners say Texas simply doesn’t produce enough energy: Rising electricity use, driven in part by population growth and a boom in data centers across the state, are pushing demand sharply upward even as extreme weather strains the grid. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the nonprofit that manages power for about 90 percent of the state’s electric load, expects peak demand to climb from 85 gigawatts to 150 by 2030. To move that juice, the state is building a $33 billion transmission “superhighway” with 2,500 miles of high-voltage lines linking the power plants of West Texas to cities like Dallas.

Discussing the state’s plans, Pfeuffer’s voice hardens. “Texas is so unique,” she said. “Do we really want to destroy it with power lines, wind turbines, solar panels? One day we’re going to wish we hadn’t.”

The future she fears is coming quickly. A 200-mile stretch of high-voltage transmission lines could bisect eastern Schleicher County, not far from her land. More might follow. The buildout seems relentless. “I have to wonder,” Pfeuffer said, “if I’m ever going to sleep again.” 

The din and dust that roiled Duff Hallman’s ranch in 2009 have long since faded. What replaced them were steady payments that helped offset the rising cost of ranching. The expense of maintaining the place has crept as high as $217,000 a year. Lease payments — Hallman wouldn’t be specific, but suggested roughly $200,000 annually, split between him and his two siblings — helped cushion them during the droughts of 2011 and 2021, which stripped the fields and forced them to sell their cattle. Not that Hallman has any illusions about its limits. “Is it like having oil?” he asked. “No. Not anywhere close.”

Hallman tells other ranchers who are considering windmills on their own property that he barely notices them anymore. His only complaint is the giant icicles they sometimes sling during freezing rain. Still, he’s happy. Clearway Energy, which owns Langford, maintains the towers; after construction, it paid for the lost trees and reseeded the land — things Hallman said the oil and gas companies never did. The roads it built double as firebreaks. Driving down one in his truck, he gestured toward the scenery rolling by. “These hills are rough and rocky,” he said. “I haven’t lost that much.” 

Still, his enthusiasm isn’t always enough to overcome skepticism and deeply held convictions, including the idea that turbines lower property values. He chuckled at that. “I bet you we could get top dollar for our ranch,” he said. 

Hallman admitted that the solar farm rising up the road gives him pause. He could earn a little money grazing sheep beneath the panels, but he worries how the facility might impact wildlife and the ecosystem he has worked with a biologist to maintain. He’s as wary of transmission lines and data centers as anyone, and was among those who declined to let ETFuels draw water from his land, choosing instead to safeguard it for the future. 

Renewables have helped the ranch, but he knows the land may not stay in the family forever. Every generation brings more heirs, each holding a smaller parcel with a looser grasp of its history. Change is inevitable. One day, the steel columns may vanish, made obsolete by something he can’t yet picture. Hallman shrugged at the thought and smiled. “I don’t know what that’s going to be, but it’s going to be something pretty ‘wow,’” he said. “We’re only limited by our imaginations.”

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