Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/996851
50 M ister McKinney is a model for the self-made and civic-minded. In less than 20 years, he has turned theater studies at the University of Houston and facility- manager gigs at the Alley Theatre and Theatre Under The Stars into a widely hailed role as an educator and scholar — the dapper resource for Houston history, its personages and kingmakers, landmarks and palatial residences. For any neighborhood, he can adroitly spin anecdotes from vanished decades. Take a drive with him through Memorial Park, for example, and you'll learn what wonder of the world was planned for the site by Judge Roy Hofheinz, before city fathers and a feisty Ima Hogg intervened. He's visible as lecturer at Rice University's Glasscock School of Continuing Studies, where he's been paired with architectural historian Stephen Fox, whom he cites as inspiration. He serves on the boards of nonprofits spanning the historic (including Bellaire Historical Society and La Porte Bay Area Heritage Society) to the thespian (Miller Outdoor Theatre and Talento Bilingüe de Houston). This impassioned mission is financed largely by McKinney himself, augmented by occasional corporate sponsorships and modest tour fees, for his brand is not (yet) a nonprofit. But it's McKinney's turn as ringleader of the jaunty tours in a yellow open-air 1988 International school bus — the Houston History Bus — that piqued our interest. Last December, we went on the Merry Mansions trek through River Oaks, with narration by Mister McKinney and unforgettable bus driver/personality Miss Alice behind the wheel. We learned who BY CATHERINE D. ANSPON. PORTRAIT MAX BURKHALTER. ART DIRECTION MICHELLE AVIÑA. THE SHERPA TO OUR PAST MEET MISTER MCKINNEY CROSS OBSESSIVE HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE ABOUT HOUSTON'S PAST WITH THE SHOWMANSHIP OF P.T. BARNUM, TOSS IN AN OPEN-AIR SCHOOL BUS, AND YOU HAVE R.W. MCKINNEY. OR, AS HE IS MORE WIDELY KNOWN, MISTER MCKINNEY — THE FOUNDER AND BRAND AMBASSADOR OF MISTER MCKINNEY'S HISTORIC HOUSTON. PHOTOGRAPHED AT THE AFRICAN AMERICAN LIBRARY AT THE GREGORY SCHOOL.