Award Recipients
We have awarded 796 awards, prizes, and fellowships in the past 129 years.
🏅 2022 Al Lowman Memorial Prize
🏅 2022 Coral Horton Tullis Memorial Prize for Best Book on Texas History
A longtime professor at Trinity University (1981–2009) and resident of San Antonio, Char Miller is now W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis at Pomona College in Southern California. Among his dozens of publications related to America’s environmental and urban history are Deep in the Heart of San Antonio: Land and Life in South Texas (Trinity University Press, 2004) and the edited collection On the Border: An Environmental History of San Antonio (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001).
For more information about this author, please see his Handbook of Texas entry.
Thomas T. Smith, Col. (Ret.) U.S. Army, of San Antonio is the author of The U.S. Army and the Texas Frontier Economy, 1845–1900 (Texas A&M University Press) and The Old Army in the Big Bend of Texas: The Last Cavalry Frontier, 1911–1921 (Texas State Historical Association). He is a Fellow of the Texas State Historical Association.
Dr. Arnoldo De León taught at Angelo State University between 1973 and 2015, retiring as Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus. A specialist in Mexican American History, he authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited a total of twenty-one books and published numerous articles and book chapters. Perhaps the most notable of these publications is They Called Them Greasers: Anglo Attitudes Toward Mexicans in Texas, 1821-1900 (University of Texas Press, 1983), a monograph regarded as a classic in Tejano history. Other of his volumes include The Tejano Community, 1836-1900 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982); Ethnicity in the Sunbelt: A History of Mexican Americans in Houston (Houston: Mexican American Studies Program, University of Houston, 1989); and Tejano West Texas (Texas A&M University Press, 2015).
Among his more memorable distinctions, De León served as a Visiting Scholar at the University of Houston in 1986; held the C.J. “Red” Davidson Professorship in History at Angelo State from 1988-2015; and gained induction into the Texas Institute of Letters in 1996. In 2013 the National Association of Chicana/Chicano Studies (NACCS) Texas foco presented him with the “Premio Estrella de Aztlán Life Time Achievement Award” for his contributions to Tejano History. In recognition of his career achievements, the Texas State Historical Association in its annual meeting of 2018 held a session titled “Tejana/o Resilience: A Panel in Honor of Arnoldo De León.” In 2021 Robstown High School selected De León as an exemplary graduate from RHS (class of 1962). That same year, Angelo State University named its History Department in his honor.
🏅 2020 Larry McNeill Research Fellowship in Texas Legal History
🏅 2021 Cecilia Steinfeldt Fellowship for Research in the Arts and Material Culture
🏅 2026 Ron Tyler Award for Best Illustrated Book on Texas History and Culture
James Harkins is a sixth-generation Texan and Senior Deputy Director of Heritage for the Texas General Land Office. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Communications with a minor in Business from Texas State University–San Marcos in 2005, and a master’s degree in Public Administration from Texas State in 2010. His graduate thesis was recognized with the 2010–2011 James W. McGrew Research Award from the American Society for Public Administration.
Harkins has worked at the Texas General Land Office since 2005, where he oversees the Save Texas History Program and leads major initiatives related to historical preservation, public interpretation, and collections stewardship. He served as project lead for Texas Takes Shape: A History in Maps from the General Land Office (University of Texas Press, 2025) and has curated or co-curated exhibitions at institutions including the Witte Museum, the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, and the Bullock Texas State History Museum.
A former president of the Texas Map Society, Harkins remains active in several professional organizations, including the Texas State Historical Association, the Bullock Texas State History Museum, and the Alliance for Texas History. His research and public-history work have been recognized with the Cecilia Steinfeldt Fellowship for Research in the Arts and Material Culture, the Larry McNeill Research Fellowship in Texas Legal History, and a second-place Presidio La Bahía Award from the Sons of the Republic of Texas in 2025 for Texas Takes Shape.
🏅 2020 Mary Jon and J. P. Bryan Leadership in Education Award
Patricia Richey is the chair of the social sciences department at Jacksonville College where she is co-sponsor of the Barnwell Anderson chapter of the Walter Prescott Webb Society. She also teaches as an adjunct instructor at LeTourneau University, Criswell College, and Baptist Missionary Baptist Theological Seminary. She has led dual credit history students through projects for National History Day and served as a reader for Advanced Placement history exams. She received the Ottis Lock Educator of the Year Award for Higher Education from the East Texas Historical Association.
🏅 2025 Ron Tyler Award for Best Illustrated Book on Texas History and Culture
🏅 2025 Liz Carpenter Award for Best Book on the History of Women
Victoria H. Cummins is the A.M. Pate, Jr. Professor of History, Emerita, at Austin College, known for her extensive research on art and culture in colonial Mexico and Texas. She has published widely in journals like the Hispanic American Historical Review and the Southwestern Historical Quarterly, focusing on Texas art and women's contributions. Cummins has co-authored several book chapters and served as a fellow of the Andrew Mellon Foundation. She earned her Ph.D. from Tulane University.
🏅 2020 Liz Carpenter Award for Best Book on the History of Women
Cynthia E. Orozco earned her BA from the University of Texas at Austin and an MA and Ph.D. from UCLA. She has taught at the University of Texas at San Antonio, the University of New Mexico, and Eastern New Mexico University–Ruidoso, where she is Professor Emeritus of History and Humanities.
Orozco is the author of several landmark works on Mexican American civil rights history, including No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement and Agent of Change: Adela Sloss-Vento, Mexican American Civil Rights Activist and Texas Feminist, which received TSHA’s Best Book in Texas Women’s History Award in 2020. Her latest book, Pioneer of Mexican American Civil Rights: Alonso S. Perales, profiles the principal founder of LULAC. She is also co-editor of Mexican Americans in Texas History and has contributed more than 80 articles to the Handbook of Texas.
In 2025, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) appointed Orozco its National Historian in recognition of her unparalleled scholarship on the organization’s history. Among her many honors, she is a Ford Foundation Fellow, a Fellow of the Texas State Historical Association, and has been named a National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Scholar. She also serves on the Executive Board of the Organization of American Historians and the Alliance for Texas History.
Dr. San Miguel is a scholar of U.S. history who specializes in Mexican American Education and culture. Professor San Miguel received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. Much of San Miguel's research has focused on the impact of politics, culture, and language on the education of Mexican Americans. He also has served on the History Department's Executive and Graduate committees. He was President of the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies and has served on the Board of Directors for the Institute for the History of Texas Music at Southwestern Texas State University and on the editorial board of the Journal of Latinos and Education. Professor San Miguel has received many awards including the Public Forum Distinguished Lecture Award from North Harris College, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies-Tejas foco, an Outstanding Book Award for the best book on the History of Education for Brown, Not White, and an international award for one of his articles published in 2016. In 2020 the History of Education Quarterly selected one of his publications as one of the top ten best articles published during the past 60 years.
