50 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • Late Summer 2018 TheCoastalBend.com When we published our story on the death of a 10-year-old boy at Schlitterbahn Kansas City [I Could Die Going Down this Ride—Early Summer 2018], we were not sure how our readers would respond to such a sharp turn in our editorial content. Aside from two or three critical comments from folks who hap- pened to be personal friends of Jeff Henry, consum- ers of the story came away as shocked as we were when we chose to publish it—but they also under- stood the allegations that led to the indictments. The August edition of Texas Monthly featured their take on the same subject, written by famed, veteran journalist, Skip Hollandsworth, that was amazingly similar to our story in much of its visual content. I can declare without equivocation that readers of The Coastal Bend Magazine are infinitely better informed. Hollandsworth was more persistent than I was in se- curing an interview with Jeff Henry, which he grant- ed against his attorney’s advice. In the TM piece, Henry emoted,“If I really believed I was responsible for the death of that little boy, I’d kill myself right now.”In addition to pleas for sympathy, Henry posed a ridiculous-sounding defense related to video evidence that rafts were flying off Verrückt during its testing, claiming that Rollerblade wheels were fitted on rafts to make them fly for sake of Xtreme Water- parks cameras. He also astonishingly said,“the ride that was built by John Schooley and Jeff Henry is not the same ride that that boy was on the day he died,” that all his safety concerns on camera was“acting,” and he declared the death of Schlitterbahn, saying, “We were a Texas tradition, and now it’s over.” Unflattering, personal details about Jeff Henry that TM chose to include, I saw as gratuitous and off- subject and left out, a point I made in my letter to their editor, in addition to other criti- cism, reprinted below. For our part, we will keep working to make our readers the best informed magazine audience in Texas. Follow Up’s I eagerly opened the link from my inbox when I saw the tease on Skip Hollandsworth’s story on Schlit- terbahn and Jeff Henry. I am the editor of The Coastal Bend Magazine [thecoastalbend.com] in Corpus Christi, and I wrote a strikingly similar story on the same subject that was published in our Early Summer (mid-May) edition. While I made only single attempts to contact Schlit- terbahn’s corporate communications department, as well as Jeff Henry via his cell phone, I was not persis- tent enough to secure an interview, as Skip did. At the end of my story, absent a direct comment, I published their entire press statements unabridged. My story was based primarily on the 47-page indict- ment handed down by the grand jury in Kansas, which I saw as making a complex and detailed case for what many consider, on its surface, to be outra- geous charges of second-degree murder against Henry, Schooley, and companies, Kansas City Schlit- terbahn and Henry and Sons Construction. I was surprised to see that Jeff’s personal indiscre- tions were included in the piece, which I intentionally chose to leave out, as I saw it as unnecessarily piling- on outside the subject matter. What really struck me, however, was the lost chance to ask Jeff about the actual allegations made in the indictment. From the contractors who repeatedly warned him that Verrückt was a danger—to his manager, Tyler Miles, rounding up of the“daily ops” reports three months after Caleb Schwab’s death, and driving them to New Braunfels after telling police that they did not exist—to the corporate attorney who at- tempted to question a lifeguard (a minor) associated with the J.J. Groves incident, while lying to a police detective in the process. So much detail existed in the indictment that a serious journalist should have asked about, given the opportunity. And herein rests the overall problem with the story, and what strands of journalism remain on the skeleton of Texas Monthly—and that is the painfully obvious, personal relationship Skip seems to have with Jeff Henry, and how multiple calls over four days amounted to three short paragraphs that had the feel of a Trump/Hannity interview, rather than anything that should be taken seriously by a diminishing audi- ence of readers who once respected your magazine as Texas’one bastion of statewide journalism—me included. I chose to work in the publishing world largely inspired by Texas Monthly. And while I’m sure readers of Skip’s piece will take it as it is, a plea for sympathy for the flawed genius, Mr. Henry, our audience of 1/20 yours, down here is good ole’Corpus Christi, was served the full story on the subject—from both perspectives plus analysis—without getting personal. We consider licensing opportunities, so when a big one comes up again, you know…give us a buzz. All the best, The Editor—The Coastal Bend Magazine TO: Roar of the Crowd, Texas Monthly [roar@texasmonthly.com] THE BEST INFORMED READERS IN TEXAS? THE ONGOING BATTLE OVER BARISI VILLAGE In the winter we took a close look at the legal battle over the fate of the abandoned and overgrown Pharaoh Valley Golf Course [The Barisi Village Chal- lenge—January/February 2018], and Corpus Christi’s long history of lost development projects at the hands of a few well-funded naysayers. Since that time, the homeowners who voted to allow the sale of the course to Dallas developer Jeff Blackard, who plans a $300 million, Italian themed village com- munity, won a victory in court over the small band of fellow homeowners who are against the project. The plaintiffs have appealed, and the long legal process, now six years-in, will continue for at least another year. In our next edition, we will take an open-eyed look at who is really behind the resistance to Barisi Village, which 97% of Pharaoh Valley homeowners have voted to support—and why some local news media outlets don’t want to tell us who it really is. SHOCKED BY GOOD NEWS This spring we published an expansive story on the new Harbor Bridge, and what will be done on the land that the current bridge occupies [Bridging the Future—March/April 2018]. In it we addressed the dilapidated 1914 Nueces County Courthouse, and what looked like dashed hoped, once again, to restore it, when we found that the partnership assembled to purchase the landmark had forfeited its corporate charter. Hope returned when Nueces County Courthouse Partners, LLC, com- pleted the purchase on May 24th, and announced plans for a 190-room luxury hotel. This could be a historically positive development. More to come.