The Stock Show & Rodeo’s veteran head honcho Keith Martin and his power-packed executive committee (including big wheels Tres Kleberg, Fred Petmecky, Fully Clingman and Tom Frost) have some innovative changes in the works this year. Our favorite: the 33rd annual Go Western Gala, that bodacious pre-rodeo bash. This year’s gala, coming up Jan. 16, has a new home, a new glow and a new urban cowboy theme: Wine & Rodeo. Yup, really.

The new venue is a fancy new building with an incredibly clunky name—the Multi-Use Facility, out back of Freeman Coliseum. The new theme (and possible source of the new glow) is a tribute to the booming Texas wine biz.

Dozens of top American wines (including Texas vintages) chosen at the First Annual San Antonio Livestock Exposition (S.A.L.E.) Wine Competition last October will be featured at the gala, along with great grub from the culinary champs of the RK Group. Hot new country crooner Rodney Atkins headlines the dance with S.A.’s rockabilly greats, Two Tons of Steel. And best of all is a brand new entry in the annals of S.A.L.E.’s legendary livestock sales—the first Champion Wine Auction, where the Champion, Reserve Champion, Best All-Around and Best of Herd winners—the wines, that is—will be auctioned off. Like Grand Champion steers—but so much easier to take home. And consume.

Speaking of stylish, a world of cowgirl chic will parade down the catwalk at the Cowgirls Live Forever Style Show and Luncheon at the Pearl Stable Jan. 19. With upscale Texas duds from Julian Gold and an impressive $250-a-plate ticket price, the luncheon last year netted more than $100,000 for the S.A.L.E. scholarship fund, the main cause the Stock Show & Rodeo folks work for all year long. Want a ticket? Call (210) 225-0612, or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

From catwalk to cattlewalk—this year’s final pre-rodeo public event is free to all. It should make great memories and classic photos for folks fond of S.A.’s real Wild West history. At 11 a.m. Jan.30, the days of Texas cattle drives return, as Stock Show & Rodeo cowpokes lead a longhorn parade through the heart of downtown, from Christus Santa Rosa Hospital all the way to the Alamo. Call it the ambling of the bulls, Texas style.

This year’s hottest rodeo musical headliner is superstar Tim McGraw, whose last gig at the Stock Show & Rodeo was more than a decade ago. McGraw and his wife Faith Hill were already big names back then, and these days Tim is even bigger. He’s on movie screens nationwide as Sandra Bullock’s hubby in the blockbuster movie The Blind Side. And last month he was featured in People mag as one of the "World’s Sexiest Men." If his Feb. 6 shows aren’t sold out already, get in line. If you’d rather see a rising star at the rodeo, check out Selena Gomez, the 18-year-old phenom from Grand Prairie who’s currently starring in the Disney series The Wizards of Waverly Place. She’ll be here with her band, The Scene, for the Feb. 7 afternoon rodeo gig. Check ’em out.

A high-powered luncheon for a low-key legend was the inaugural event for the Coliseum’s new multi-purpose facility. The occasion: the Greater S.A. Chamber of Commerce’s 50th annual Freeman Award luncheon, honoring leaders who have given much to Texas’ vital farm and ranch economy. This year’s event, sponsored by Dolph Briscoe’s Briscoe Ranch, honored Christopher "Kit" Goldsbury. Goldsbury is best known as the genius behind the success of Pace Picante Sauce, the visionary impresario behind Silver Ventures and the fabulous renovation of the Pearl Brewery complex, and a generous but publicity-shy philanthropist. The Freeman Award spotlighted a side of Goldsbury’s life that city slickers often miss—his deep, lifelong involvement with farming. The new building was the perfect site for an unusual and very apt lunch extra—several regular vendors from the Pearl’s popular Saturday Farmers Market set up their sales tents inside the hall, where guests browsed and bought from booths featuring fresh produce, native honey, orchids and more. The table decorations—glass vases full of luscious little Nature Sweet cherry tomatoes from Goldsbury’s Desert Glory produce line—were almost as sweet as the dessert. That led chamber prez Richard Perez, who was seated at Goldsbury’s table, to urge attendees to eat the centerpieces. (They did.) Filmed tributes hailed Goldsbury’s lifelong love of farming and ranching. "He’s a farmer. You can see his passion for the land," Fully Clingman declared. "An unassuming visionary," Ken Halladay called him. The "visionary" tag was echoed by several speakers, from ranch employees to business barons. But one of the most heartfelt tributes was an impromptu one, when Cora Lamarr, president of the Pearl Farmers Market group, stepped up to the podium. "Kit started the farmers market at Pearl just in time for the worst drought in history—the worst possible time to do something like this," she said. "The fact that we’re going strong is a tribute to what he can do." And all that he keeps on doing. Cheers!

Another high-powered and low-profile philanthropist swung through town with barely a media mention recently. But even sans publicity, Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton’s visit to our town was a boon for the S.A. Museum of Art.

Walton, whose fortune has been estimated at some $18 billion bucks, has some long-established ties here. She earned a B.A. in economics and finance at Trinity, and has an impressive career in finance, along with her philanthropic and political work. She’s what we call a Texan by choice, with a big horse ranch near Mineral Wells. The equine connection introduced her to King Ranch descendant Helen Groves, a long-time friend.

As if all her other interests aren’t enough, Walton is now pursuing the grandest vision of her life – Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, a $50 million museum with a growing, priceless collection of American art, smack in Bentonville, Arkansas – the home, of course, of her family’s empire.

The Crystal Bridges project, now expected to open next year, made Walton the ideal guest of honor for an evening that SAMA folks hoped would both reward big donors and bring new members to the elite SAMA Circle. You know the old saw "It’s who you know…"? S.A.M.A patron Patricia Ruiz-Healy met Walton through Groves – then with SAMA jefe Marion Oettinger. Early last summer they started planning the late fall event, which brought old and new patrons out to meet Walton in force.

The SAMA Circle evening was also an unexpected homecoming for a former S.A. arts standout. In August, long after plans for the dinner were made, Walton hired a new director for Crystal Bridges – former SAMA contemporary art curator Don Bacigalupi, who was a happy added attraction at the dinner. Great party, great guests, great cause.

The late, great Tom Turner’s family business, TETCO, is going great guns, and the Turner family, employees and friends celebrated the season of giving last month with a Texas Hill Country Christmas Party at the Westin La Cantera Resort. Hundreds of guests, including Nelson and Tracy Wolff, Congressman Charlie Gonzalez, D.A. Susan Reed, Police Chief William McManus, Charles and Melissa Barrett and Frost Bank’s Dick and Jimmie Ruth Evans, were on hand to welcome the jolliest guy on S.A.’s police force, Blue Santa. The TETCO folks and their guests put together a gift to make any Santa’s heart glad—an antique ranch wagon packed with Christmas toys the Blue Santa program volunteers will give to many of this city’s neediest children. (That came on top of a $10,000 check the Turners’ family foundation gave the Blue Santa program earlier in December.) At the party, Jon Turner presented another big gift—a $50,000 check, to Steve Huffman, developer and board chair of the non-profit Returning Heroes Home center at BAMC, to help brighten the lives of injured troops and their families living there. Merry Christmas indeed.

The venerable Greater S.A. Chamber of Commerce, the "big dog" on the local chamber block, hailed its 115th year with its Legends of Business Gala—a glittering black-tie bash at the Convention Center, chaired by Southwest Texas Business Corporation honcho Charlie Amato, honoring Broadway Bank leader and 2009 board chair Jim Goudge, and welcoming Carri Baker Wells as the group’s chair for 2010. The bash was definitely December’s biggest no-miss scene for the necktie-and-networking crowd.

Another of the Greater Chamber’s signature annual events is coming up Jan. 10—the 39th annual Economic Outlook Conference. This year the forum features former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani as star speaker, with a stellar cast of state and local economy-watchers making predictions and pitches for the year ahead. Guiliani should feel right at home with the Greater Chamber crowd; new chairwoman Wells happens to be married to S.A. attorney Tullos Wells, the managing director of the S.A. office of Rudy Guiliani’s law firm, Bracewell and Guiliani. How many degrees of separation?

Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I could swear that the competition between the Greater Chamber and the S.A. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce—the two giants among S.A.’s several separate chambers—has been escalating recently. Both groups have high-profile executive officers—former City Councilman Richard Perez leads the Greater Chamber, while economic development guru Ramiro Cavazos heads the Hispanic Chamber.

This fall, the Greater Chamber was the first in town to roll out a Spanish-language version of its web site. "We’re working on one, but it’s much more than a mechanical translation" one Hispanic Chamber member sniffed when I mentioned the Greater Chamber’s online "first". We’re told the Hispanic Chamber site should be up and running by the end of this month. In October, the Hispanic Chamber got lots of press after becoming the first Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in the nation, and the only chamber in S.A., to win a "four-star" rating from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (The Greater Chamber, which does not belong to the massive U.S. Chamber of Commerce, noted the Hispanic Chamber’s honor a few weeks after the fact on its own web site—in English and Spanish).

Jan. 12, just two days after the Greater Chamber’s Economic Outlook conference, the Hispanic Chamber is holding its own "outlook" event. The group’s Inaugural Economic Forecast meeting will feature Henry Cisneros, Dallas Federal Reserve banker Keith Phillips and Steve Nivin, who heads the SABER (Strategic Alliance for Business and Economic Research) Institute, which is co-funded by the chamber and St. Mary’s University. And Jan. 29, Hispanic Chamber folks will put on their glitz for their biggest bash of the year—their annual installation banquet and gala, where AT&T exec Norma Martinez Lozano will step up as new board chair. And talk about a coup – the chairs for the gala are Berto Guerra Jr., H-E-B honcho Craig Boyan, and (ta-da!) GM Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre.

Today, with Hispanics well-represented among the city’s business leaders—and in both the Hispanic and Greater S.A. chambers—the real distinctions between the groups have blurred to some extent. Still, the ramped-up competition for membership dollars is very real. Some folks have suggested a merger might be in the works. Um, don’t hold your breath.

San Antonio’s colleges and universities are blessed with many excellent teachers. Cheers to two from UTSA who won very special honors last fall. UTSA Institute for Law and Public Affairs co-founder and director Richard Gambitta and hi-tech thinker and engineering prof Chunjiang Qian were the only UTSA teachers to win prestigious Outstanding Teaching Awards from the UT Board of Regents this past fall. While many UT profs, including Gambitta and Qian, have won other teaching awards, the Regents’ recognition comes with a very special extra—a $30,000 check to each winner. So much nicer than a framed certificate and an apple, don’t you think?

And speaking of teachers, kudos to St. Mary’s School of Law prof Lee Teran, honored with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) 2009 Excellence in Legal Service Award at the national group’s 25th annual banquet in S.A. Teran wasn’t the only San Antonian honored at the gala—longtime S.A. activists and educators Joe and Mary Esther Bernal received MALDEF’s Lifetime Achievement Award. High praise for jobs well done.

City Manager Sheryl Sculley says she’s not about to give up the effort to make San Antonio more humane. But she’s not expecting miracles, either. A "no-kill" city pound is still a distant dream, Scully said recently—but there has been some progress. Four years ago, she said, the city’s Animal Control facility was euthanizing 50,000 animals a year. "Now," she said, "it’s down to under 30,000 a year." In other words, we’ve got a long way to go before we can call S.A. a pet-friendly place. Fortunately, there are animal advocates and groups helping to change the disposable-pet culture. This month you can support one such group at a cool fund-raising bash. "Pets and Their People" is set for Jan. 16 at the Witte Museum. The party, chaired by animal-friendly S.A. attorney Travis Headley and his mom Joan, will feature celebs and their pets, and benefit SARA, the non-profit, no-kill Society for Animal Rescue and Adoption. Founded by Seguin’s passionate humanitarian Tracy Frank back in 1996, SARA is a 120-acre haven for abandoned animals of all kinds. See more of SARA here. To go to the party or give, call (210) 822-2741. Animal lovers, this one’s for you.