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

2002 Stories by Margaret Downing

• Wake-Up Call

  published November 28, 2002

  Only 2 percent of fifth-grade students who take the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills science test in Spanish will pass it. Ninety-eight... More >>

• Judging Rory

  published October 31, 2002

  Carolyn Casale Taub stood there in her nice black dress, waiting to get through the five-minute formality that she had been assured would go so... More >>

• Power Plays

  published October 24, 2002

  On Tuesday, October 15, Houston school district trustee Jeff Shadwick took time out from his early-morning schedule to visit T.H. Rogers school... More >>

• Basic Truths

  published September 12, 2002

  He took command, grabbing the pulpit, spinning away from it, making and remaking his points in the beautiful rolling tones that spoke to his... More >>

• Myths and Legends

  published September 5, 2002

  For months, Captain Mark Aguirre of Houston's South Central Patrol Division carried around a videotape of late-night drag racing along Westheimer... More >>

• The Old West

  published August 22, 2002

  Virgil Dugan doesn't get around too well anymore. He walks carefully through his house, tethered by a lengthy oxygen cord that wraps around his... More >>

• Reality Check

  published July 25, 2002

  Jesus, Mary and Joseph would feel right at home in Houston these days. The county's mental health agency is turning away new nonemergency... More >>

• Million-Dollar Babies

  published June 27, 2002

  The Houston Independent School District has been keeping children in the alternative schools run by a private company months, even years, after... More >>

• Common Cents

  published June 20, 2002

  Every day, Maverick Chevalier, who seems to be a courtly, gentle man, 41 years of age, fishes his own feces out of the toilet, puts it in a... More >>

• The Big Deal

  published June 6, 2002

  Fat little piggies -- that's who to blame for all this. The children of America have become a non-marching army of Pillsbury Doughboys after... More >>

• A Fixer-Upper

  published May 30, 2002

  When HISD Superintendent Kaye Stripling sent a task force of educators into Jesse Jones High in January to sort through what had become one of her... More >>

• IMAX by Extraterrestrials

  published May 16, 2002

  A narrow tunnel closes in on you. You squeeze your way through an opening that looks no bigger than a doggy door. The tiny room beyond -- that's... More >>

• God Only Knows

  published May 2, 2002

  When Marti and Donna Rickard walked into the Vineyard Church in the Heights for the first time, they knew this was the church for them. "They did... More >>

• Telling Secrets

  published April 18, 2002

  The new white T-shirts are covered with bright colors. Some of the painting is messy and frantic, some exactingly precise. In most cases it's not... More >>

• A Split Decision

  published April 18, 2002

  Last week, Superintendent Kaye Stripling got word to Jones High School Principal Lawrence Allen that he could keep his job, but she was pulling... More >>

• The Great Divide

  published March 7, 2002

  It was a standard high school parents meeting, beginning with a lengthy discussion of senior photos and student yearbooks. Adults, tired at the... More >>

• Otherworldly

  published February 28, 2002

  The camera tracks through the house. It flickers past school desks, blue cereal bowls and a dog kennel. There is no sound as it sweeps down a... More >>

• It's About Time

  published January 24, 2002

  In the last school year, Zoe Bubier was devastated when she got the news that she wouldn't be able to go to kindergarten -- she'd missed the... More >>