Austin American-Statesman from Austin, Texas • 66

E12 Sunday, July 7, 1996 Life Arts Austin American-Statesman ET3 00 1 if to Savor the isolated "beauty of West Texas but don't expect to see a mall around every corner. Prepare to drive hours for shopping and a movie. 1 very serious here, there's no playing around. Nearly every kid in high school and junior high is studious and trying to make A's. That's the game here." Ernesto Martinez, superintendent and former high school principal, said Kruse is not exaggerating.

"When the bell rings they are ready to go to work, and they ex-pecttowork." What to buy? The remoteness that has preserved the quiet and some old-time values also has isolated the mountains from intensive retail shopping developments. Leo Dominguez and others are amused by the reaction of friends to their distance from shopping. "I tell people where I live and they say, 'What! You live 160 miles from a I say, 'Yes, and it isn't a very big he said, laughing. Like other families in the mountains, even the natives, the Dominguezes and Kruses make the three-hour trip to El Paso or Midland every few weeks to shop and see movies, sometimes driving back on the quiet roads late at night. "You measure distances in hours out here, not miles," Donna Kruse said.

Kate Farris, who lived a block from a natural foods grocery in Houston, said she has been able to cope with limited grocery selections by joining the Big Bend Food Co-op in Alpine, where members order from an Arizona natural foods wholesaler. The Big Bend coop, with many ex-urbanites among its 125 members, has a waiting list for membership and has spun off two smaller co-ops in Fort Davis. The real saviors, however, are the United Parcel Service trucks that wait for cargo planes landing at Alpine's airport every morning. Mail order catalogs are the shopping malls of the Davis Mountains. 1 11 Free-lance writer Pete Szilai divides his time between Austin and Fort Davis.

His E- mailaddresslspeteszoverland.net Continued from El Houston dental practice and relocated to Marfa with his wife, Kate, in 1994. "I'd been robbed and burglarized twice each in the last year in Houston. Crack and crime had come into the neighborhood and I had to deal with it every day," said Farris, whose dental office is now in Alpine, an uncrowded 25-mile commute through rocky Paisano Canyon from Marfa. From their front porch, the Farrises can see almost all of Marfa with the Chinati Mountains darkly looming against the horizon. Leaving urban angst "Here we have a quality kind of life that doesn't exist very many places.

We enjoy going home and not having people bothering us, and sirens and robberies and noises in the city. People as a rule are very straightforward and honest, a handshake still goes a long away. We live in a unique window of time," he said. For entrepreneurs and people with ideas, "there's an opportunity to do anything you want here. It may take longer than you like, but I see lots of opportunity" said Kate Farris.

Artists Tom and Susan Curry, who moved from the Travis Heights neighborhood in Austin to Alpine, say no particular incident sparked their relocation, but they tired of the congestion and bustle of Austin and realized in 1993 that communications by fax, modem and overnight delivery services had become so advanced that they could live and work anywhere. After two years in Alpine, they moved into an adobe home they built at the foot of a box canyon north of town. During the day they work together at their Prickly Pear Studio on a quiet Alpine side street. Leo and Elsa Dominguez left an affluent Dallas suburban neighborhood for Alpine three years ago so their three daughters would grow up with small-town values. Leo left a fast-track job at GTE and the couple opened a clothing store in Alpine, which flopped after 18 months.

Leo has since landed a job as development director of booming Sul Ross State University, and Elsa is teaching Spanish at the high school. The Kruses also left the city to give their children a better quality of life. Donna Kruse, a fifth-generation Austinite, said their decision Iai A Taylor Johnson AA-S photos High SchooL But does that matter? No. She has her jacket and her patch. What did that do for her self-esteem?" her father said.

"In a big (city) environment, there are so many people that you're probably going to get pushed away if you're not real aggressive," he said. "In a small environment, if you're willing to get involved, you easily can, and feel like you're making an impact. We felt that was so important for growing up and also for us as adults," he said. At Fort Davis' tiny school system, where the high school graduated just 26 students this year, personal attention is paid to students to ensure that they learn, according to Donna Kruse. "They are accustomed to Alpine's small-town lifestyle "These kids are really nonstop, they've really gotten involved in community life.

They're at the swimming pool, they're on softball teams, they get on Rollerblades and just go," Leo Dominguez said. He and Elsa had been so accustomed to monitoring them closely in the city that they initially had a hard time letting the children roam freely Their daughter, Maritza, made all-district varsity basketball player as a sophomore at Alpine High School last season. At Grapevine High School, which she would have attended if the family stayed in Dallas, she likely would still be on the junior varsity team. "Grant you, this whole (West Texas) district is not as big as Grapevine You can earn money while contributing to the future of medicine by participating in a Pharmaco research study. We conduct medically supervised research studies to help evaluate new medications.

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Be a part of something big at Pharmaco. paring it to the 1930s Dust Bowl drought. A few private wells in Fort Davis have gone dry, trees have died, dust storms are more frequent and concerned residents are watching what they fear is a potential aquifer killer the largest hydroponic tomato farm in the country is being built on the out-1 skirts of town. Leo Dominguez said bigotry against Mexican Americans is more pronounced in Alpine than it was in the Dallas area. His daughters, who mingled with all races and ethnic groups in their Dallas schools, have found children in Alpine more likely to form social groups by race.

Other disappointments are smaller but nonetheless aggravating. Finding reliable plumbers and other repair people can be daunting, especially with the demands of a larger population, and levels of service at restaurants and retail businesses is often poor by city standards. Culture shock Clashes in values also can occur. The Currys, formerly of Austin, for example, were angered last year when an Alpine man killed a mountain lion cub; two weeks ago, a black bear was shot near town. Many of the newcomers realize some culture shock would come with the move and are sensitive, about upsetting the easy-going ambience that attracted them in the first place.

But a few have brought fresh ideas, energy and capital when they saw a need. Photographer and musician Todd Jagger, a former member of the Austin Lounge Lizards who moved to Fort Davis in 1991, recently became an Internet service provider, an expensive gamble in a town of only 1,000. The Internet also is Dominguez's focus. As Alpine's volunteer Chamber of Commerce president, he is promoting a virtually revolutionary idea for local businesses World Wide Web marketing. Not all the citified ideas have been accepted in the small towns, regardless of the energy behind them.

In recent years, Jagger and others have brought a dozen name bands to play at Fort Davis' annual Harvest Moon and Tunes Festival, which was canceled last month because it was underappreciated by locals. The-Farrises, once active in Houston's arts community, spent nearly a year establishing and promoting the Big Bend Arts Council. Several months ago, they decided to back off. "People out here are used to being independent and alone and doing it themselves," said Woody Farris, a painter and sculptor. "Those of.

us who've moved from the cities are more accustomed to groups and committees." Despite those bumps in the road, former urbanites worried about finding new friends say they have been pleasantly surprised to find no shortage of social events and engaging, interesting people. Dominguez said most of his relationships in the Dallas area were with other corporate employees who could be transferred at any time. In Alpine, people are there because they want to be, and he observes more commitment to the community, family life and the friendship itself. The Farrises have so many Houston visitors in Marfa that they keep a guest book. "Some people we didn't see as much as we wanted to in Houston, but when they're here we have so much more quality time with them that we enjoy it more," Farris said.

He and Kate say their new friendships in West Texas tend to be fewer and deeper than the many superficial relationships they had in Houston. The Dominguezes' daughters quickly made friends and became businesses were added in 1995, according to Tabor. Marfa has seen virtually no new construction because so many existing houses had been for sale, some for many years. Brisbin, the county judge, said real estate sales took off in 1994 and have remained brisk. Recent home buyers include a lawyer from Austin, a geologist from Houston and two professional women from New York.

Tabor said new residents applying for service are mostly from Houston, Dallas and other Texas urban areas, but many are also from California. Considerable interest in Alpine was generated last year when it was included in the book "100 Best Small Towns in America" and subsequent "USA Weekend" excerpts from the book. (Fort Davis, however, has received negative statewide press as the home of defiant Republic of Texas secessionist Rick McLaren, recently imprisoned for ignoring a federal court order.) The influx of newcomers has some long-time residents concerned, although no strong anti- growth faction has developed in Alpine or elsewhere in the mountains, longtime residents say Many realize that the remoteness and lack of jobs will deter a mass immigration, and suitable property to buy or rent may be difficult to find in Marfa and Fort Davis, towns landlocked by large ranches. "I think the growth so far has been positive, but I just hope we never lose the small town, personal relationships we have with each other," said Ray Hendryx, general manager of KVLF-AM and a lifetime Alpine resident. "I would be uncomfortable if Alpine got so big that I didn't know most of the people in town." Tht former urbanites interviewed for this article seem happy with their decision to move, but they have encountered some unanticipated disappointments and problems, from environmental deterioration to racism.

The clear air and 100-mile views many remember from earlier visits to the Davis Mountains and Big Bend National Park are now so rare as to be worthy of celebration. On summer days, the mountains are veiled by a sulfur dioxide haze. The federal Environmental Protection Agency blames power plants and industrial emissions from northern Mexico, and as far away as Houston and Mexico City under certain climatic conditions. Becoming acid rain when mixed with moisture, the pollutants are a threat to the area's limited vegetation and the McDonald Observatory's sensitive telescope mirrors. Recent arrivals are finding that the drought effecting all of Texas has been uSder way two years longer in the West Texas High Country, with some ranchers com i Tom Curry moved from Austin to Alpine in 1993 with wife Susan.

Both are artists who soon discovered that in the age of fax, modem and overnight delivery, they could live and work anywhere they liked. 11 2 i 4 was sealed after news reports about gangs at Crockett High School, her alma mater. They decided not to subject their children to unsettling influences at school and the anonymity of crowded classes. Nevertheless, when Mark landed a job with the state Highway Department in Alpine and it came time for the Kruses to leave Austin, Donna initially resisted. "I went into a mental dive, curling up into a ball.

'You're moving me to the far side of the she said she told her husband. "He promised me if I didn't like it in four years I could go home, but in four years we were so deep into Fort Davis and West Texas, and we bought this property, that we couldn't afford to leave," she said, admitting that she would have returned to Austin then given the opportunity. But not now. Alpine building boom Measured against growth in Texas urban areas, migration to the Davis Mountains seems minuscule, but it's significant for an area that languished with hardly any growth for decades. A recent door-to-door population survey placed Alpine's population at 6,200, up just 566 from the 1990 census.

But the hills around Alpine are alive with the sound of hammers. This summer, in a veritable building boom, 50 new homes are under construction within a 10-mile radius of the city, according to J.B. Tabor, West Texas Utilities area manager. A 20-home development west of Alpine is on hold because the city's aged sewage system can't handle any more. Growth in Fort Davis and the surrounding canyons is less apparent because not as much land is for sale; still, about 50 new homes and 1 CURRENT STUDY OPPORTUNITIES Men Up to uMMlMB.mnw Fri.

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