Voices of the BIG
BEND
Jim Glendinning The Galloping Scot, Author, World Traveler and sometime tour operator.
Story and photographs by Jim Glendinning
ROBERT HALPERN
Robert Halpern was born on
October 8, 1954 in Alpine, where his
parents lived. His father, Albert
Vernon Halpern, known as Bob, and
his mother Florence, “Flo,” had a sec-
ond son, Daniel, a few years later.
Danny flew with the USAF for 30
years, and now flies with Delta
Airlines. Robert went into journalism
and, with his wife Rosario, became
joint owners of the pre-eminent
regional newspaper, The Big Bend
Sentinel.
Halpern’s schooling was in Alpine,
from elementary school through high
school,
graduating
in
1973.
Elementary school was in “The
Castle,” a gothic building, since
demolished, on the site of today’s ele-
mentary school. At high school he
was a B+ student, and remembers
with affection his teachers Phyllis
Connor, Thomas Patti, Carol Lewis
and Faye Davis. Alpine was “an idyl-
lic place to grow up,” he recalls.
Flo was the sister of Paul
Forchheimer, and the whole family
worked at Forchheimer’s, long the
most important general store in the
Big Bend region. Halpern took lunch
at Highland Drug, where an attrac-
tive young woman called Rosario
Salgado from Presidio worked the till.
They married in 1978 and had three
children, Miriam, Alberto and Diego.
Rosario is Halpern’s feisty and vital
partner in The Big Bend Sentinel and its
sister newspaper, The Presidio
International.
After high school he enrolled at
SRSU for two years, where he
learned the basics. In 1976,
Forchheimer’s was sold, so there was
no longer a responsibility to work
there. Halpern, who had played
drums since grade school, took a year
off, moved to Luling, Texas, and
joined Joe Bob’s Bar and Grill Band,
12
Cenizo
ROBERT HALPERN
Marfa
touring the area and having a blast.
In 1978, Halpern enrolled at the
University of Texas at El Paso and
two years later graduated with a BA
in Journalism. Almost immediately he
was hired at the Odessa American, and
for five years learned the reporter’s
trade (“the best journalism education
there could be,”), ending up as city
editor. He moved in 1985 to the El
Paso Times, where he became assistant
city editor. Here he learned editing
and news management for three
years.
In 1993 Halpern and Rosario
made a bold decision and bought The
Big Bend Sentinel. The Marfa economy
was moribund. But diligent and pro-
fessional nurturing of the paper, with
the later acquisition of the Presidio
part-Spanish language newspaper,
The Presidio International, paid off.
Big Bend Sentinel coups include the
revelation that the county’s chief law
enforcement officer, Sheriff Rick
First Quarter 2016
CHRIS LACY
Alpine
Thompson, was engaged in smug-
gling cocaine (1992). More recently,
stories about the shooting of burros in
Big Bend Ranch State Park and the
Rio Nuevo water scandal were
reported first by The Sentinel.
With a growing reputation and
numerous journalism awards, The Big
Bend Sentinel has attracted young writ-
ers who later went on to greater
things. These include Jake Silverstein,
who edits The New York Times
Magazine; Daphne Beal, who segued
into successful novel writing; and Dan
Keane, who moved on to Associated
Press, reporting from Bolivia. Also,
still living in Marfa, is Sterry Butcher,
who won a journalism fellowship at
Stanford University and now has a
column in Texas Monthly.
Sitting in his handsome Marfa
home and relishing breathtaking
views across range land to the Davis
Mountains, Halpern ruminates on the
importance to him of the land and the
sense of community in the Big Bend
region. He believes in the importance
of the Fourth Estate’s (print media’s)
role as the watchdog of government.
He takes a measured view regarding
the influx of newcomers into the
region, and local reaction.
Notwithstanding the continuing
demands of putting out a weekly
newspaper, for which Halpern doubly
credits Rosario for her part in its suc-
cess, he takes time to read Texas
Monthly and The New York Times, and
to read books, with a current interest
in biographies of musicians. The
musician in him is gratified when he
plays drums with the local band the
Doodlin’ Hogwallops.
Beyond the success of the paper,
what Halpern is proudest of are the
three children he and Rosario have
brought up. Miriam (35) lives in
Girona, Catalunya, Spain, works as a
translator and is married to a Catalan
teacher. Alberto (27) is the senior
administrative assistant to El Paso
County Commissioner David Stout.
Diego (23), who is fluent in Japanese,
is a social worker in Washington, DC.
The family keeps in touch through
Skype once a week, across four time
zones, a detail which particularly
pleases Halpern, an editor in this age
of instant communication.
CHRIS LACY
There is no more famous ranch in
West Texas than the storied 06 Ranch,
whose land stretches from Alpine
across the Davis Mountains to the
Balmorhea highway, and which has
been owned and managed by the
Kokernot family for more than a centu-
ry.
The story starts around 1837, when
David L. Kokernot, landowner and
scout for Sam Houston during the
Battle of San Jacinto, acquired the 06