Billy Porterfield Accession

Billy Porterfield, the legendary Texas journalist and award-winning author of several books, has donated his major archive to the Wittliff Collections at the Alkek Library, Texas State University-San Marcos. During a celebrated career that spanned more than 50 years, Porterfield became a major voice at leading Texas newspapers with 5.4 million words in print and broadcast. Born in 1932 in East Texas, Porterfield grew up the son of an itinerant oilfield worker and attended dozens of schools before graduating from Woodsboro High School in 1950. His nomadic childhood informed his work, much of which takes place on the road, as well as his approach to gathering ideas for newspaper columns. Curiosity, a notepad, a map, and a full tank of gas were the tools of his trade.

As a reporter for the Houston Chronicle in the early 1960s, Porterfield won the Ernie Pyle Memorial Award. In 1967, after stops at the Detroit Free Press and the Chicago Daily News, he became the first writer selected for the prestigious Dobie-Paisano Fellowship, a writer’s retreat at the former ranch of J. Frank Dobie southwest of Austin. In 1969 he joined Jim Lehrer at KERA-TV in Dallas as a commentator on Lehrer’s nightly news program, later taking over for Lehrer as executive producer. He also produced and narrated several prize-winning documentaries for public television. In 1978 Porterfield became a columnist for the Dallas Times Herald, and in 1985 he joined the Austin American-Statesman as a columnist. His writings have appeared in a number of publications large and small, including The Saturday Evening Post, Texas Monthly, The New Braunfels Zeitung, the Malakoff News, and The Chautauquan. He also taught creative writing at Southern Methodist University. His published books include LBJ Country (1965), A Loose Herd of Texans (1978), Texas Rhapsody: Memories of a Native Son (1981), The Greatest Honky-Tonks in Texas (1983), and Diddy Waw Diddy: The Passage of an American Son (1994).