Email Author Margaret Downing

Awards

• 2012 - Maggies: The Magazine Awards of Western Publishing, published December 22, 2011

  "Mistaken Identities"

• 2011 - Maggies: The Magazine Awards of Western Publishing, published December 23, 2010

  "Children of God"

• 2011 - Lone Star Awards, published December 23, 2010

  "Children of God"

• 2011 - Lone Star Awards, published December 30, 2010

  "The Whipping Boy"

• 2011 - Lone Star Awards, published June 3, 2010

  "Homeless High"

• 2010 - Lone Star Awards, published June 4, 2009

  "Let the Record Reflect"

• 2009 - Education Reporting Awards/National Education Writers Association, published April 10, 2008

  "Exit Exams"

• 2009 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published May 8, 2008

  "Mental Anguish"

• 2009 - Lone Star Awards, published November 13, 2008

  "Bad Faith"

• 2008 - Maggies: The Magazine Awards of Western Publishing, published May 31, 2007

  "Killing Fences"

• 2008 - First Amendment Awards/The Fort Worth Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, published October 25, 2007

  "Death in a Box"

• 2008 - Lone Star Awards, published October 25, 2007

  "Death in a Box"

• 2008 - Lone Star Awards, published August 23, 2007

  "Judging Books and Their Covers"

• 2007 - Education Reporting Awards/National Education Writers Association, published October 5, 2006

  "Opt In, Opt Out'

• 2007 - Lone Star Awards, published October 5, 2006

  "Opt In, Opt Out"

• 2007 - Lone Star Awards, published May 11, 2006

  "Diary of a Mad Man"

• 2006 - Lone Star Awards, published August 11, 2005

  "Who Cares?"

• 2006 - Lone Star Awards, published February 17, 2005

  "Mind Reading"

More

2001 Stories by Margaret Downing

• Unfunding a Mandate

  published December 20, 2001

  A kid gets expelled from school. Or he's been incarcerated for a crime, serves his term and can move back to his home school, except that it's a... More >>

• Gangstas in Paradise

  published December 6, 2001

  I was eight years old when I first got directed into the Crips gang, the 29th Street Crips gang. First I started off running drugs for them... More >>

• Hail to the Chiefs

  published October 25, 2001

  Terry Abbott, the masterful public relations guru for Rod Paige when Paige was superintendent of the Houston Independent School District, resigned... More >>

• But Who's Counting?

  published October 18, 2001

  The parent was insistent. The dropout problem at his school was huge. Between ninth grade and graduation day, roughly half the class had... More >>

• Stepchild?

  published September 6, 2001

  Ivy Levingston was flying high May 18. Returning from an educators' conference in Kansas City, the Houston Independent School District principal... More >>

• Letting Go

  published August 23, 2001

  Brenda Jones wasn't supposed to have a chance. When her son was arrested last February for having marijuana on campus, Bellaire High School... More >>

• Stupid Pet Tricks

  published July 26, 2001

  Corey Ledwell plops down in the light gray sandy dirt, drawing lines to nowhere with a twig. His German shepherd Hilda is nearby, squeezed into a... More >>

• Lost His Place, Lost in Space

  published June 7, 2001

  Jose spends his days inside a dark two-bedroom apartment in Irvington Village across the street from Moody Park. When he gets up in the morning he... More >>

• Learning How to Survive (at) CEP

  published May 31, 2001

  At 5:53 p.m. the phone rings. Joseph Flores picks it up and puts it right back down. A recorded message says Joseph wasn't at school today. This... More >>

• 180 Days in the Hole

  published April 19, 2001

  Drew Fulk should be sitting in his second-year German class at Bellaire High right now, perfecting his accent along with the rest of the Guten... More >>

• Road Hog

  published March 22, 2001

  The news was disturbing. A nice Jewish couple in their fifties living in the Westchester subdivision in far west Houston woke up Sunday morning,... More >>

• Getting Wrecked

  published March 15, 2001

  Act 1, Scene 1: It's late at night in Woodlake Square, a small strip shopping center at Westheimer and Gessner. J. Michael Douglas, the... More >>

• The Comeback Kid

  published March 8, 2001

  Beatrice Gonzales wrecked her life on New Year's Eve 1995, not that she can remember much about it. She knows that she and her husband had been... More >>