Center for History & Culture of Southeast Texas and Upper Gulf Coast

06/09/2026

With sorrow, we learn that our founder Dr. Mary Scheer passed away at her home in New Braunfels on May 22.

Dr. Scheer was born in San Antonio. Her father was a career tech-sergeant in the US Air Force, and she spent much of her childhood in various locations abroad. She returned to Texas where she graduated from high school. She earned a BA (1970) and MA (1975) at Southwest Texas University. She enjoyed her first career as a schoolteacher and later pursued a career in history, receiving a PhD (2000) from Texas Christian University.

In 2002, Dr. Scheer joined the history faculty at Lamar University. She served as chair of the History Department from 2011 until her retirement 2019. During her career at Lamar, Dr. Scheer was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Potsdam, Germany (2004), and in 2016, she founded the Center for History and Culture of Southeast Texas and the Upper Gulf Coast, serving as its first director until her retirement. She authored The Foundations of Texan Philanthropy (2004), co-edited Twentieth-Century Texas: A Social and Cultural History (2008), and edited Women and the Texas Revolution (2012).

You may find her obituary at this link.
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/new-braunfels-tx/mary-scheer-12897380

We look forward to acknowledging Dr. Scheer's contributions at the 2026 Fall Launch when we will mark the 10th anniversary of the Center that she founded.

05/21/2026

The Center for History and Culture announces that Tim Seiter wins the 2026 Summerlee Book Prize in the Nonfiction category for Wrangling Pelicans. The award recognizes the book-length publications that best enrich our knowledge of the past, present, and future of Southeast Texas and the greater Gulf regions. It is made possible by the generosity of the Summerlee Foundation.

The jurors praise Tim Seiter's Wrangling Pelicans:

“Wrangling Pelicans peers deep into the lived world of the soldiers manning Presidio LaBahía in early Spanish Texas. Seiter's research is phenomenal, matched only by the crisp pacing of his narrative.” Jeff Forret—author of The Price They Paid: Slavery, Shipwrecks, and Reparations Before the Civil War (2024).

“Wrangling Pelicans offers a refreshing examination of the fort at La Bahia (present Goliad) and the challenges to soldiering in Texas under Spain. Seiter, however, not only presents the harshness of making a living on the Spanish frontier in northern New Spain, but he also provides an indigenous perspective of the Karankawa who dominated the Gulf coastal region in the shadow of Apache and Comanche expansion from the Southern Plains. The book deftly weaves multiple angles from the internal daily struggles of military life through Antonio Treviño, a Badeño, as the protagonist amidst the external threat from Native American resistance that undermined Spanish mercantilism, missions, and conquest.” Francis X. Galán—author of Los Adaes: The First Capital of Spanish Texas (2020).

“An excellent book that explores the complicated daily experiences of Spanish soldiers stationed at Presidio La Bahia, highlighting how they managed diplomacy, warfare, and leisure, and grappled with their positions within the empire. Seiter’s monograph explores Spain’s impact on the Gulf Coast, showing that presidio soldiers sometimes acted on their own against orders from the crown and their superiors. This makes the book both informative and engaging to read.” David Robles—author of The Pharr Riot: Police Brutality and a People's Uprising in South Texas.

05/21/2026

The Center for History and Culture announces that Burnside Soleil wins the 2026 Summerlee Book Prize in the Creative category for Berceuse Parish. The award recognizes the book-length publications that best enrich our knowledge of the past, present, and future of Southeast Texas and the greater Gulf regions. It is made possible by the generosity of the Summerlee Foundation.

The jurors praise Burnside Soleil's Berceuse Parish:

“Berceuse Parish conjures a fictional Louisiana place caught between bayou and river, memory and myth, between the words of French-speaking ancestors and the silence lost to poverty and displacement. Burnside Soleil holds all of it together through a cast of wayward, estranged, dead, and beloved characters who had to be written. In precise and exacting poems, Berceuse Parish delivers the toiling affection that comes with being from somewhere worth knowing.” Randy Gonzales—Winner of the 2024 Summerlee Book Prize for Settling St. Malo (2023).

“Berceuse Parish gives readers a rare inside view of life in Cajun Country. To read the book is to take a trip to a place of rivers, bayous, pelicans, and sweltering summers. Told through a cast of characters who are shaped by their environment, the book is a triumph in creativity and emotional depth.” Gretchen Johnson—Winner of the 2018 Summerlee Book Prize for Single in Southeast Texas (2017).

“Berceuse Parish is a distinctive and distinguished chapbook—at once a collection of poetry and prose, a snapshot of a delightful corner of Acadiana. Soleil's extravagant whimsy will transport you to imaginative realms and marvelous people.” Adam Nemmers—author of American Modern(ist) Epic: Novels to Refound a Nation (2021).

04/21/2026

From the Texas Gulf Historical Society and the Lamar University Department of History.

The Texas Gulf Historical Society and the Lamar University Department of History release volume 61 (2025) of The Texas Gulf Historical and Biographical Record. This volume contains an essay based on Carrie Helms Tippin's keynote address and articles by Annemarie Anderson, Randy Gonzales, Todd Romero workshopped at the 2025 Greater Gulf Symposium hosted by the Center for History & Culture of Southeast Texas and Upper Gulf Coast at Lamar University.

Table of Contents:

Carrie Helms Tippen, "Good News, Bad News: Bringing Stories of Pain and Pleasure to Cookbooks of the Gulf South."

Randy Gonzales, "'Flavor Such as You Never Tasted Before': Indigenous Filipino Food in Nineteenth-Century Louisiana."

Todd Romero. "We Had to Cultivate a Taste for the Food: Marketing Cajun and Creole Foodways in Southeast Texas."

Annemarie Anderson. "The Florida Net Ban's Legacy: Aquaculture as New Waterwork along Florida's Forgotten Coast."

04/08/2026

From our colleagues at the Center for Resiliency.

Jesse Thompson from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Texas presents,"Oil and Energy Markets in the current global landscape, from Venezuela to Iran, and their impact on the SETX region."

Join us for the second event in the Resiliency Lecture Series
🗓 April 16th, 2026
⏰ 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
📍 Science Auditorium (Near Chemistry Building)
📚All students, faculty, and administration are invited!

More Information Contact 📨[email protected]

04/02/2026

The Center for History and Culture hosted the Fifth Annual Greater Gulf Symposium earlier this week. On Monday, symposium chair Keagan LeJeune (McNeese State) and fellows Paula Buchanan (Columbia), Wil Carr (NC State), Paul Del Bosque (UT Austin), Corey Diane Ashby (independent scholar), Chaney Hill (Rice), and Marquel Sennet (Houston) with Jimmy Bryan (Center director) toured the ExxonMobil facility at Beaumont and enjoyed an excursion on the Neches with the Ivory Bill--joined by Rebecca Boone (Dean LU COAS), Nina Gjoci (Lamar University Center for Resiliency), and Sherry Peddy (LU Events). On Tuesday, we workshopped six research articles, and that evening, we enjoyed an insightful keynote presentation from Dr. LeJeune. Thanks to everyone who came out to the keynote reception. Thanks to the Center for Resiliency for their generous support of the symposium. Thank you Ree Stelly, Bruce Wright, and all those who helped behind the scenes.

03/31/2026

Scholars at work. The workshop phase of the 5th Annual Greater Gulf Symposium is underway. Tonight at 5:30 pm Dr Keagan LeJeune will give the keynote on Storytelling in the Greater Gulf. Reaud Event Space. Reception & poster session. Refreshments. Free and open to the public.

03/16/2026

Tuesday, March 31, 5:30 pm, Reaud Event Space.

Dr. Keagan LeJeune will give the keynote for the 5th annual Greater Gulf Symposium. He will talk about the power of storytelling to bridge past and future, ignorance and insight, speaker and listener. Dr. LeJeune is Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Professor of English at McNeese State University, Lake Charles, Louisiana. Keynote presentation, poster session, reception. Refreshments. Free and Open to All. Special thanks for the generous support of the Lamar University Center for Resiliency.

https://www.lamar.edu/arts-sciences/research-centers/center-for-history-and-culture/events-and-news.html

03/06/2026

Thanks to everyone who came out to hear Dr. George Díaz's presentation. Airline delays prevented Dr. Díaz from appearing in person, but he volunteered to stream in, and with the efforts of Bruce Wright (LU Media), Sherry Peddy (LU Events), and Ree Stelly (Center for History and Culture), LU students and faculty and SETX community members enjoyed the opportunity to learn about the history of Mexican Americans in the Texas prison system during World War II. Big thanks to everyone involved.

02/27/2026

Thursday, 4:30-6:30 pm. March 5, 2026. Reaud Event Space (985 Jim Gilligan Way, Beaumont, TX 77705).

The Center for History and Culture looks forward to hosting Dr. George Díaz. He will talk about his research on the Mexican experience in Texas state prisons. In previewing his talk, Díaz explains that his research "examines the incarceration of segregated Mexican inmates in the Texas Prison System during World War II ... Through singing patriotic songs on prison radio programs, competing in “Victory” prison rodeo events, and buying war bonds, Mexican American inmates fought for inclusion against a common enemy. Although Mexican American prisoners’ struggles for acceptance did not free them from incarceration, their labors altered the way the state viewed them as well as the way they viewed themselves." Díaz received a 2024-2025 research fellowship from the Center for History and Culture to support his project. He is an associate professor of history at the University of Texas-Rio Grand Valley and the author of Border Contraband: A History of Smuggling across the Rio Grande (2015). Refreshments provided. Free and open to the public. https://www.lamar.edu/arts-sciences/research-centers/center-for-history-and-culture/events-and-news.html