196. Why Kids Need to See Themselves in Books: Literature Matters’ Dr. J. Desiree Rodriguez on San Antonio’s Reading Gap

Robert “Bob” Rivard is a veteran American journalist whose 46-year career has taken him across Texas, Latin America, and beyond. He co-founded the Rivard Report (later named the San Antonio Report) with his wife, Monika Maeckle, in 2012, building it into the city’s leading nonprofit news organization before retiring in 2022.

Bob has worked for five Texas newspapers, beginning his career on the border at the Brownsville Herald, then moving to the Corpus Christi Caller, the Dallas Times-Herald, and later serving as a foreign correspondent and chief of correspondents for Newsweek. He returned to Texas as senior editor of the San Antonio Light before becoming executive editor of the San Antonio Express-News (1997–2011).

His journalism has earned widespread recognition, including being named Editor & Publisher’s “Editor of the Year” in 2000 and receiving the prestigious Maria Moors Cabot Award from Columbia University for his reporting on Latin America and the U.S.-Mexico border.

He is the author of Trail of Feathers, a nonfiction book chronicling the disappearance and murder of journalist Philip True in Mexico’s Sierra Madre. The book, published by Public Affairs in 2005, was widely reviewed, excerpted in Esquire, and selected by People magazine as one of five recommended nonfiction works that year.

Bob now hosts bigcitysmalltown, a podcast featuring the people shaping San Antonio’s future. He and Monika live in Southtown, where she runs the Texas Butterfly Ranch blog and previously founded the annual San Antonio Monarch Butterfly and Pollinator Festival. They have two adult children, Nicolas, a designer and artist, and Alexander, director of education for the Alamo Trust.

Cory Ames is a San Antonio writer, naturalist, and filmmaker building community-driven media that helps Texans find out where they live. His YouTube channel, followed by nearly 40,000 people, tells the stories of Texas plants, places, and the people restoring them, and he writes the weekly Texas Field Notes and San Antonio Something letters. In 2026, the Native Plant Society of Texas gave him its Digital Media Award. Cory has produced hundreds of interviews, including as host of The Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast, and co-hosts bigcitysmalltown with Bob Rivard, sharing conversations with the people who make San Antonio go and grow.