Jim Mangum:  

would have it, babies started showing up. As Mangum says, "Before we figured out what was happening we already had four of them." Mangum re-joined the Feds, this time as a Special Agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, otherwise known as a “federal game warden.” The job required him to be away from his family for months at a time, so after three years, he joined his father and brother in a small oil and gas gauging business in South Texas. The tiny town they worked in was the basis for Dos Cruces in DEAD AND DYING ANGELS. When his father died suddenly, Mangum and his brother were left with the business and started buying gas wells that were too anemic for big companies to deal with. They amassed ten "pretty crappy" wells , but did okay for a couple of years. As Mangum puts it, "It beat working for a living." Then the price of natural gas plummeted 50%, then 60%, finally 80%. So it was back to the Feds "uno mas tiempo," this time working as an investigator with the Office of Federal Investigations doing national security background investigations at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Easter Washington state. Hanford was one of the three original sites of the “Manhattan Project” which resulted in the invention of the atomic bomb. (More about this in the enclosed Q&A.) After a year, Mangum and his family returned to Texas. There he worked as an investigator with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission “which was as boring as its name sounds,” Mangum says. He moved on to being a City Administrator (Manager) in three Texas towns – Devine, Castroville and Eldorado – and then officially "retired" from public service. Mangum now lives in Shiner,“the cleanest little city in Texas,” home of the Shiner Brewery. He is a writer, “rescuer of wayward homes,” and professional folk artist, making carved and painted patron saints, angels, Nativities, Noah’s Arks, and carousel animals which he creates and displays in his gallery/garage.