Tigers in Print

Steve K. Alexander (1976 PHD SCI)

Exploring Galveston: A Naturalist’s Guide to the Island

Self-Published

Along the upper Texas coast, Galveston Island and Bolivar Peninsula are among the state’s most ecologically diverse areas. The popular vacation spot is not only a beach playground for visitors, but also one of the top birding and fishing destinations in Texas.

In Exploring Galveston, Steve Alexander gives readers a look at the island through the eyes of a marine scientist who has wandered coastal Texas for more than forty years. Through a series of twenty-five stories, 115 photos, and maps to help lead the way, readers get an expert, guided tour of the best natural wonders Galveston has to offer.

After retiring from teaching, Alexander returned to his hometown of Galveston and soon became a Texas Master Naturalist. It was his thirteen years of field experiences as a Texas Master Naturalist that provided the material for Exploring Galveston

The book is dedicated to the memory of Alexander’s mentor and noted oyster biologist, Dr. Sammy Ray, founder of Sea Camp at Texas A&M University at Galveston. To Sea Campers, he was simply known as Papa Smurf. All book proceeds help fund Sea Camp scholarships.

Christopher Myron Claxton (2011 CERT LSUOnline )

Demons of Federal Misconduct: A Chicago Memoir!

Self-Published

Demons of Federal Misconduct:

A Chicago Memoir! is a remarkable story and testimony of God’s intervention into the U.S. justice system on behalf of two Christian businessmen and is based on true events and real people.

The author, an ordained Christian minister, longtime businessman, and Christian/business radio personality, gives a first-person account of how the Lord completely foiled the perceived demonic forces and influences, i.e., Ephesians 6:12 in the Bible, and used angels, spiritual warfare, the U.S. Attorney’s Office (both people of high integrity – and no integrity), and actual FBI transcripts to get the glory from his federal case against a well-known and famous antagonist.

Janis Pardue Hill (1999 PHD HS&E)

Telling His Story: POW #1000

LifeRich Publishing

The Japanese captain said: "You will all die here." The finality of his words was ominous, but they were the words of an enemy the American and Filipino captives had come to know as they were force-marched northward on the Bataan Peninsula. They took hope in the fact they had survived thus far. They had already witnessed the brutality of the Japanese guards on the infamous Bataan Death March as they bayonetted, shot, beheaded, or buried alive any who fell. But then came the camps where the POWs lived and walked with Death.

Such was J. C. Pardue's nightmare. In Telling His Story: POW #1000, Janis Pardue Hill, as primarily a compiler and editor, provides the details of his story. This memoir covers both his entry into the U.S. Army Air Corps and his experiences in, and after, World War II – the battle to hold Bataan; the surrender of Bataan; the brutal, inhumane treatment on the Death March and in the POW camps; as a slave in Japan, and as a survivor determined to live a Christian life.

Most prominent among her father's memories was the miracle of his Bible. Surviving a direct hit from a fragmentation bomb, confiscation in a POW camp, and disposal on a Hell Ship, his Bible always returned. His most treasured possession, that Bible came home with POW #1000, who attributed his survival to the faith acquired and absorbed from the weapon he considered the most valuable of all – his Bible.

Brian Holers (1989 BACH H&SS) Here on Earth Girl Friday Books

Fresh out of prison and looking to make amends to his son, Tommy Turner finds himself tangled up with a New Orleans mafia boss hell-bent on revenge and a past that just won’t leave him be.

After a two-year stint in a Louisiana prison for drug dealing, recovering addict and gambler Tommy just wants to reconcile with his ex-wife and young son, Jamey, and get himself right with God. Haunted by how his father’s destroyed football career, failed marriage, and untimely death affected his childhood, Tommy vows to do better by Jamey.

Enter Tommy’s childhood friend: Glenn Rosen. Glenn has stepped up to serve as surrogate father to Jamey in Tommy’s absence, and it’s brought joy and meaning to Glenn’s empty life. Now, fiercely protective of Jamey, Glenn sees Tommy as a deadbeat who will never amount to anything. But Glenn is also facing his own personal reckoning. A lifelong gay man, he has unexpectedly fallen for a woman. But Glenn has bigger fish to fry when Tommy’s bad choices impact Glenn’s orderly existence and threaten to destroy the life he has built.

When ailing New Orleans mafia boss Carlo Bianchi comes looking for Tommy with a bloody vendetta, chaos mounts, and Tommy and Glenn are forced to depend on each other to protect Jamey from an unsettling future. With a lifetime of disappointments behind him, can Tommy save his son from his own father’s legacy of a broken childhood?

Michal L. Ryan (1964 BACH BUS)

The Cook’s Night Off Carolina Cajun Publishing Company

An inexperienced cook’s step-bystep manual for the preparation of one special meal every week for fifty-two weeks. I started thinking about writing this book when reflecting on the many meals my wife and I have eaten since we were married almost sixty years ago. Some quick math says that totals about 65,700 meals. Okay, most breakfasts weren’t that big a deal, and lunch was often skipped or eaten away from home, so that leaves us with about 21,900 evening meals. Allow for some dining out occasions, and we’re down to 18,780. Meals all lovingly prepared by my devoted wife! Well, about fifteen years ago, I decided to give my “cook” the night off. This “how to” manual is to show you how I did it. This step-by-step process is to allow you to give your cook the night off. This is to say that at least one night a week, you will prepare the meal while your wife takes a welldeserved break.

Joe Trussell (1995 BACH H&SS)

Vanagon to Louisiana – A TwoLane Reckoning Through Past and Present Sleeping Pigeon Publishing

Joe Trussell moved to Colorado nearly three decades ago, though he’s always proudly proclaimed himself a Louisiana man. But devastating news from an old friend brings an invitation to New Orleans – and the realization he hasn’t stepped foot in his home state in the last seven years . . . not since his mother’s cataclysmic death.

As he embarks on an overdue journey back to the Louisiana he unwittingly abandoned, Joe is challenged to reconcile his present with his once beloved past, all from behind the wheel of his trusty but temperamental 1986 Volkswagen Vanagon.

What has become of the people and places he turned his back on?

What happens when “Louisiana’s proudest representative and biggest fan” discovers he no longer belongs in the home at the core of his identity? And is a 3,000-mile round trip from Denver to New Orleans in a thirty-five-year-old Volkswagen really the best way to find out?

In a sincere, vulnerable, and occasionally comical memoir, Joe drives the backroads of the Bayou State attempting to reconnect with all that he once held dear, come to terms with enduring grief, and find out if he is still the Louisiana man he once was.

Edward J. Walters, Jr.

(1969

Ipse Dixit: Ruminations on a Career at Law

Full Court Press

Not just a book for lawyers. Why do lawyers do what they do?

What’s it like to be a lawyer?

What’s right about lawyers?

What’s wrong with lawyers?

What does it take to win? Why do they lose? And why do they call it a profession?

Written throughout a long career in the courtroom, this collection allows the reader to take a deep look inside the legal profession and many of its prominent members. This book is not only relevant to lawyers and judges, regardless of where they practice, but it is also relevant to non-lawyers interested in what lawyers do, people who aspire to be lawyers, and people who have lawyers in their family and have to deal with them. Contained herein are many moving moments that may bring a tear to your eye, many humorous moments that may make you laugh, and pieces of advice, designed for lawyers, but applicable to all of us.

Proceeds from this title will be donated to the LSU Foundation – LSU Law School Classroom to Courtroom Project.

By Presley Tyler