Texas State Symbols, Plays

University of Phoenix

Earn your degree, advance your career, secure your future all online. University of Phoenix is a true innovator in distance education. Their Business, Technology, Criminal Justice, Nursing, and Education degree programs are designed specifically for busy professionals. Imagine earning the degree you've always wanted from home, at work, or while traveling.
Click here to learn more.

The Lone Star, Texas, Beyond Sundown and Fandangle

Adopted in 1979.

(1) The Lone Star presented in Galveston Island State Park;
(2) Texas presented in the Palo Duro Canyon State Park;
(3) Beyond the Sundown presented at the Alabama-Coushatta Indian Reservation; and
(4) Fandangle presented in Shackelford County.

The Fort Griffin Fandangle is an annual outdoor musical drama produced in Albany, Texas, on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings of the last two weeks in June. Its focus is the historical and cultural development of the area along the Clear Fork of the Brazos River in northern Shackelford County near Fort Griffin, the military outpost that from 1867 to 1881 provided protection for settlers in the region and gave rise to a community in the flat between the fort on the hill and the Clear Fork. The story is recalled through the memory of an old-timer of the region, a cattleman who sits on the porch of a ranchhouse to reveal the past as he remembers it. The production consists of a series of segments, each based on historical material introduced by the narrators and then interpreted by one or more songs and dancing.

The Fandangle had its inception in 1937 when C. B. Downing, superintendent of the Albany schools, asked Alice Reynolds, a local music teacher, if she would write an outdoor musical play for the senior class to present the next spring. She declined but asked another native of Albany, Robert Edward Nail, Jr.,^qv who responded enthusiastically with Dr. Shackelford's Paradise, produced in 1938. The play was so well received that it was expanded to include adults in the cast and was produced that summer as the Fort Griffin Fandangle. A sponsoring organization, the Fandangle Association, was first incorporated in 1947. Nail established three rules: first, anybody with ties in Shackelford County could be in the show; second, the show would have to be publicized by word of mouth, not by paid publicity; and third, there would be no profanity in the show. Alice Reynolds was active from the beginning in writing songs, in designing sets and the numerous banners associated with the play, particularly the steer-head and fiddle emblem that represents the Fandangle, and in sketching some of the elaborate costumes. For many years she also played the organ for the performances. She died in May 1984

Texas Code
§ 3101.011. State Plays
The following plays are official state plays of Texas:
(1) The Lone Star presented in Galveston Island State Park;
(2) Texas presented in the Palo Duro Canyon State Park;
(3) Beyond the Sundown presented at the Alabama-Coushatta Indian Reservation; and
(4) Fandangle presented in Shackelford County.

Added by Acts 2001, 77th Leg., ch. 1420, § 7.001, eff. Sept. 1, 2001.

Chapter 310 (Senate Bill No. 93), 66th Legislature, Regular Session (1979)