Winds Over Bolivar
In September 2008, Hurricane Ike wrecked havoc on the Texas Coast leaving the Bolivar Peninsula nearly decimated. Ike killed more than 100 people and caused $24.9 billion in damages, earning the awful title of the third costliest storm to ever hit America's shores. Virtually erased from the map, Bolivar was bent...but not broken.  Brenda Cannon Henley artfully weaves her own tragic story of life-changing loss with the untold stories of the people of Bolivar. Winds over Bolivar is a resounding tale of devastation, triumph, and the prevailing winds of the indomitable human spirit. About the Author An award-winning, investigative journalist, living on the beautiful Southeast Texas Gulf Coast, Brenda Cannon Henley writes of her first-hand experience in discovering her dream built retirement home completely destroyed by Hurricane Ike's ravaging wind and water.  Henley was attending her mom's visitation, funeral, and burial in Atlanta, when the massive storm struck. She and her husband did not get to evacuate one shred of their lives. Henley shares her vast writing talent, personal experience, heartache, ability to help others, and joys in this real-life book about a true disaster in America.  Henley has written for an international newspaper with a paid circulation of over 200,000 and the "Independent Voice of Southeast Texas," The Examiner, published in Beaumont, Texas. Awarded for her writing by the Press Club of Southeast Texas, the American Cancer Society, and the National Newspaper Association, of which she is currently a member, Henley took home first place in the nation in 2007 from the NNA. Her work was chosen out of 4,700 member newspapers for a timely series she wrote on "Consensual Teenage Sex in Texas." The Examiner received more than 800 emails, letters, telephone calls, and visits during the publishing of these important stories that took the writer and a group of mothers before the legislators in Austin, the state's capitol, where three district attorneys testified in an effort to get the statutes changed.  Having spent thirteen hours on Texas Death Row, Henley became friends with "the Grandfather of Texas Death Row," Walter Bell, and told his story in several articles. Seeing Bell removed from the row after three trips down the long green mile is a milestone in Henley's journalistic career. She was married to her husband, Ted J. Henley, in a dress purchased for her by Bell and his mom, Bessie Brown.  Henley is the founder of Bolivar BLUE (Beach Lovers United Effectively), a Yahoo Internet Group and The Bolivar Peninsula, a FaceBook group for residents and friends of the peninsula.  She is rebuilding her home on the coast where she lives with husband, Ted, grandson, Steven Brown, and Anchor, her white Siberian Samoyed dog. Henley continues to write a weekly column and other articles from time to time as well as maintains an active blog about her life on the beach. "Once you feel that Bolivar sand between your toes, and enjoy the Gulf breezes, there is just nowhere else to live," said Henley.