West Austinite Shares His Love for History in Podcast

By Anne DeVries

The first episode of the “The History of the Americans” podcsast launched in January 2021. Hosted by Jack Henneman, a resident of Old West Austin, the podcast endeavors to take listeners along with him as he chronicles the captivating journey through the annals of American History.

Jack, a former healthcare executive, is a passionate history enthusiast. The son of a medieval history professor, he was surrounded by books his whole life. Following a road trip to visit his mother in Virginia in the fall of 2020, he extended his travels for three weeks. To enhance his experience, he began listening to “The History of England” podcast by David Crowther. His appreciation of the well-chronicled details of the podcast, coupled with a personal ambition to someday study American History comprehensively from its beginning to the present, sparked the idea of starting a similar podcast about our country. This month, a meet-up for local listeners was held at Better Half Coffee & Cocktails. Austin resident Andrew Wimsatt who attended, began listening to Jack’s podcast in 2022 while recovering from back surgery. He stated, “Jack does a fantastic job with every episode. And as Jack says, his episodes don’t have presentism and political moralizing, which is refreshing and is similar to the experience I had with history classes I attended in high school and college in the 1970s and 1980s”.

Presentism is viewing past historical events under the microscope of modern values. In a February 13, 2022, blog post, Jack said, “There are perhaps two other problems with politicizing history. The first is that using history for political ends impairs the understanding of it. The second problem is that weaponizing makes history boring”.

“The History of the Americans” podcast is certainly not that. One of Jack’s primary goals is to entertain his listeners, and he is succeeding. Having recently released the 121st episode, he finds himself in the top 1% of all podcasts with roughly 9000 weekly listens. His service to chronicle American History from its beginning will serve the general public, budding students of American History, established history buffs, and avid historians for generations to come. Jack’s podcast can be found on all the major podcasting platforms and his website, www.thehistoryoftheamericans.com.

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Hyde Park’s Head of Schools: Chris Coy

By Alana Moehring Mallard

Hyde Park Schools’ grad- uation of the senior class of 2023 on May 25 struck head of school Chris Coy as emotional, tender, and the culmination of four difficult yet strengthening years. “In the fall of 2019,” he said, “who knew that one out of eight of (these graduating seniors’) semesters would be normal? Seven semesters were influenced by Covid – remote learning, in-place learning with masks, distancing. But they just kept on. They did what they had to do.”

Coy was school principal for these 2023 graduates for three years, moving into the head of school position in June 2022. And his heart was touched that the seniors asked him to be the speaker at their graduation ceremony last month. He and their teachers will now see the 70 kids of the class of 2023 off to the University of Texas and to Texas A&M University and to colleges and universities all across the country. Every graduate in the class of 2023 at Hyde Park will go to college, Coy said.

“We prepare the kids academically,” Coy said, “and we provide them with biblical truth. That’s the mission of our school and the mission of our faculty. Yes, we’re college prep,