Prominent author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nathan “Nick” Kotz died suddenly on Sunday, April 26th after an accident at his home near Broad Run, Virginia. He was 87 years old.
Mr. Kotz was a grandchild of Nathan and Anna Kallison, one of San Antonio’s and South Texas’ most prominent ranching, retail and real estate families. Mr. Kotz was responsible for helping Texas State Parks acquire a portion of their family’s ranch for inclusion in Government Canyon State Natural Area (GCSNA) in 2002. Since that time he has been a strong supporter of the canyon/natural area and donated significantly to the construction and completion of the Nathan and Anna Kallison Amphitheatre at GCSNA.
In 1968, working for the Des Moines Register, Mr. Kotz won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting “for his reporting of unsanitary conditions in many meat packing plants, which helped insure the passage of the Federal Wholesome Meat Act of 1967.”
He also worked at The Washington Post and as a freelance writer. Mr. Kotz received the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Washington correspondence, the Raymond Clapper Memorial Award and the first Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Award. His study of American military leadership won the National Magazine Award for public service. His book “Wild Blue Yonder: Money, Politics, and the B-1 Bomber” (2006) won the Olive Branch Award.
His most recent book, The Harness Makers Dream: Nathan Kallison and the Rise of South Texas, tells the story of Ukrainian immigrant Nathan Kallison's journey to the United States. He is best known for his 2005 book Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws that Changed America chronicling the roles of US President Lyndon B. Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr. in the passage of the 1964, 1965, and 1968 civil rights laws.