The nation-state of Texas was forged in the crucible of frontier warfare. From 1822 to 1836, the embattled Anglo-American settlers of Colonial Tejas and the Texas Revolution formed an adaptive mounted arms tradition to facilitate territorial defense and aggression. This evolution incorporated martial influences from the United States, Mexico, and Amerindians, as the colonists first adapted tactically as mounted militia in Anglo-Indian warfare, and then adapted organizationally as nationalized corps of rangers and cavalry during the Texan War for Independence. While the colonial conflicts centered exclusively on counterguerrilla interdiction and expeditions against Native opponents, the revolutionary contest included simultaneous engagement in unconventional and conventional campaigns against tribal warriors and the Mexican Army. These combat experiences resulted in a versatile frontier cavalry tradition based in mobility, firepower, and tactical adaptation, which subsequently served Texas throughout a century of border and wartime conflicts. / text

Thesis (D. Min.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1993. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-126).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1993. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-126).

abstract: ABSTRACT Following the tragic events of 9-11, top Federal policy makers moved to establish the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This massive realignment of federal public safety agencies also loosely centralized all U.S. civilian security organizations under a single umbrella. Designed to respond rapidly to critical security threats, the DHS was vested with superseding authority and broad powers of enforcement. Serving as a cabinet member, the new agency was administered by a secretary who answered directly to the President of the United States or the national chief executive. At its creation, many touted this agency as a new security structure. This thesis argues that the formation of DHS was not innovative in nature. Rather, its formation was simply the next logical step in the tiered development of an increasingly centralized approach to policing in the United States. This development took place during the early settlement period of Texas and began with the formation of the Texas Rangers. As the nation's first border patrol, this organization greatly influenced the development of centralized policing and law enforcement culture in the United States. As such, subsequent agencies following this model frequently shared a startling number of parallel developments and experienced many of the same successes and failures. The history of this development is a contested narrative, one that connects directly to a number of current, critical social issues regarding race and police accountability. This thesis raises questions regarding the American homeland. Whose homeland was truly being protected? It also traces the origins of the power to justify the use of gratuitous violence and the casting of particular members of society as the symbolic enemy or outsiders. Lastly, this exploration hopes to bring about a better understanding of the traditional directionality of the use of coercive force towards particular members of society, while at the same time, justifying this use for the protection of the rights and safety of others. It is hoped that the culmination of this work will assist American society in learning to address the task of redressing past wrongs while building more effective and democratic public security structures. This is of the utmost importance as the United States continues to weigh the benefits of centralized security mechanisms and expanding police authority against the erosion of the tradition of states' rights and the personal civil liberties of its citizens. Because police power must continually be monitored and held in check, concerns regarding the increasing militarization of civilian policing may benefit from an objective evaluation of the rise of centralized policing as experienced through the development of the Texas Rangers and rural range policing. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. History 2012

Contrary to Texas Ranger myth, Stephen F. Austin's settlers were not the first Texas Rangers to ride across Texas. As early as the 1540s, almost three hundred years before Austin arrived in Texas, mounted Spanish subjects on the frontiers of northern New Spain ranged, scouted, pursued, and waged offensive war against Chichimeca enemies. These methods were employed and accepted actions on the hostile frontier, and were also the characteristics Texans so highly revere in Ranger traditional lore. Several of these colonial military and ranching families from Nuevo Leon and Coahuila, settled Texas in the first half of the 18th century. They intermarried and developed kinship bonds and were community leaders. In the 1820s, and 1830s Spanish surnamed descendants of early military men and ranchers became acquainted with newly arrived Anglo-European settlers. Friendships and alliances were forged based on political ideology and even kinship. As the winds of rebellion blew, several of the leading military and ranching families chose to fight for Independence in the Army of the Republic. They also joined the ranks of the Republic of Texas Rangers, and finally the Texas Rangers. Despite their loyalty, they lost political powers as more Anglo-Europeans arrived. Tejanos lost property, status and ultimately their right to be identified as Texas Rangers. The object of this work is to contribute a small piece to the literature regarding the development and evolution of ranging traditions from a southern to northern frontier perspective. The military and law enforcement traditions of colonial era New Spanish soldiers and ranchers were passed on to their Tejano descendants through continuous participation in ranging and ranching activities within their communities. Tejanos participated in the Independence of Texas, the Republic Rangers and the Texas Rangers throughout the 19th century, and based on connections with Anglo settlers may have taught Anglos mounted ranging technique, and how to survive on the Texas frontier.

Research describing conservation agencies has generally been exploratory and limited in the use of theory. Similarly, organizational theories can provide an understanding for how organizations change and adapt to their given environments, but they have not been applied to conservation agencies with unique challenges and strains from other public bureaucracies or private corporations. In expanding this body of literature, not only were these theories applied conservation agencies, but they were also explored in what Powell and Colyvas (2008, p. 276) called "microfoundations" of organizations, which focuses on the interplay between individuals and organizations. To explore this, a convergent mixed-methods design was conducted. Within the quantitative strand, anonymous online surveys (n = 183) were distributed to rangers within the Association of National Park Rangers and several social media groups as well as publicly available secondary data. For the qualitative strand, Zoom interviews (n = 11) and a participant observation of a Ranger Rendezvous conference was conducted. Through bivariate analyses, differences were found between law enforcement and non-law enforcement rangers; ordinary least squares regression indicate that role ambiguity and job satisfaction are important in predicting organizational commitment, and an interaction effect was found between type of ranger and job satisfaction on organizational commitment. Qualitative data finds several themes associated with rangers' perceptions of their organizations, including the variability of the implementation of policies, the importance of training in shaping ranger identity, and the variety of ways they perceive effectiveness and legitimacy. These strands are combined to describe how role ambiguity is important in organizational commitment as well as discussing the impacts of organizations on individual rangers. Theoretical and policy implications, limitations and future research are also discussed.

This thesis explores how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted wildlife rangers with an emphasis on the influences of tourism rates. Two sets of data are used: one is a survey of rangers around the world and the other looks at global governmental tourism data. While coming from a routine activities perspective, the problem of decreased capable guardianship becomes apparent in the form of massively decreased tourism arrivals and troubling ranger perceptions. This data allows for the establishment of tourism trends and changes during COVID. The findings of this thesis link the downturn in tourism with impacts on formal and informal guardianship within protected areas. Recommendations and discussions include potential ways to preserve guardianship in future pandemic settings.

During the United States Civil War, southwestern Virginia was mired in a bloody guerrilla conflict that involved Confederate irregular combatants defending the region from invading or raiding Union Army forces. Simmering for the entirety of the war, this conflict revolved around the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad (VandT), a critical railway that ran through southwestern Virginia and connected the southwestern Confederacy with Richmond and the rest of Virginia. As the war progressed, this railway moved increasingly large amounts of foodstuffs and minerals vital to the Confederate war effort, and by the later stages of the war it was the most important railway in the South. Union Army commanders in West Virginia recognized the incredible importance of the VandT to the Confederacy, and launched a multitude of major and minor invasions and raids into southwestern Virginia with the intent of crippling the railroad. Confederate partisan rangers, bushwhackers, and home guards played separate roles in weakening, distracting, and hampering Union Army operations in southwestern Virginia, thereby helping to defend the VandT from attacks. Their actions played a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the railroad until nearly the end of the war, and thus Confederate guerrillas had a strategic effect on the course of the war in southwestern Virginia. / Master of Arts

Facebook is today a phenomenon that has connected the whole world. With millions of users this has become an attractive place for soccer clubs to connect with their fans. But in what ways are they using Facebook as a tool to connect with their fans?This essay aims to answer the question if it’s a difference in the way English and Swedish teams communicate with their fans on Facebook. The study was conducted with the use of telephone- and mail interviews. Too analyze the material the main theories I´ve used was public relations theory and the public sphere.The result of this study shows that it´s a difference in the way the Premier league teams Arsenal and Queens Park Rangers communicate in comparison with the Swedish teams Helsingborgs IF and IF Elfsborg. The Swedish teams are looking to create relationships by a two-way communication with their fans while the English teams are looking to create relationships with their fans thru pictures, interviews etc. Arsenal is also unique in this study by using Facebook as a tool for commercial purposes.

The Road Ranger program is a freeway service patrol (FSP) designed to assist disabled vehicles along congested freeway segments and relieve peak period non-recurring congestion through quick detection, verification and removal of freeway incidents in Florida. It consists of approximately 88 vehicles in fleet and provides free service to about 918 centerline miles. The program is funded by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and its partners, and is bid out to private contractors. The objective of this study is to examine and evaluate the benefits of the Road Ranger service against their operating costs in five of the seven FDOT Districts and Florida Turnpike Enterprise. The five Districts were chosen due to the availability of Road Ranger program data and activity logs for analysis. The Road Ranger program provides direct benefits to the general public in terms of reduced delay, fuel consumption, air pollution and improved safety and security. The benefits would be expected to be more significant during the peak period when demand reaches or exceeds capacity than in the off-peak and the mid-day period where capacity may not be as significant an issue. The costs considered in this analysis include costs of administration, operation, maintenance, employee salaries, and overhead costs. Incident data were obtained from the daily logs maintained by the Road Ranger service provider containing important information about the time, duration, location, and type of service provided. Other data collected for this study include average daily traffic volume, geometric characteristics of the freeways, unit cost of Road Ranger service, etc. The Freeway Service Patrol Evaluation (FSPE) model developed by the University of California-Berkley was calibrated and used to estimate the benefit-cost ratio for the Road Ranger program. The estimated benefit/cost ratios based on delay and fuel savings indicate that the Road Ranger program produces significant benefits in all the five Districts and Turnpike. The range of benefit-cost ratio of the Road Ranger program in different districts is from 2.3:1 to 41.5:1. The benefit -cost ratio of the entire Road Ranger program is estimated to be in excess of 25:1.