What's it like to live in Texas’ biggest oil-producing county? We attended a Friday night football game to find out. The fans described challenges and opportunities: deadly roads, new job offers, transformed landscapes and growing economies. This slideshow is part of our Shale Life project.

The smallest county in Texas may not hold that distinction for much longer. Loving County has about 90 people but swells by hundreds each day due to a flood of oil workers. While some complain about the surge in drilling trucks, others see the oil boom as a lifeline from extinction. This video is part of our Shale Life project. 

As Texas regulators weigh a response to President Obama’s proposal to combat climate change, the operator of the state’s main electric grid says the plan would raise energy costs and threaten reliability – particularly in the next few years.

How many people have moved to the Eagle Ford Shale as a result of its energy boom? That’s a tough question to answer. While thousands of people have flocked to the region for new jobs, the transient nature of the work presents a big challenge for local leaders, who struggle to plan for housing, schools, pipelines and roads. This animation is part of our Shale Life project.

Growing turnover among corrections officers is nothing new in Texas — turnover has been on the rise statewide since 2006. But with the energy boom creating an explosion of high-wage job growth, finding and keeping prison employees has become even more difficult. This story is part of our Shale Life project.

Across West Texas, wages are soaring for oil and gas industry workers — but so is the cost of living. For those who don’t hold top-dollar energy jobs, just paying the rent has gotten tough. In the middle of this multibillion-dollar boom sits Breaking Bread Kitchen, a community center that opens for one hour every night to provide free hot meals to residents who need them. This video is part of our Shale Life project.

Legal wrangling will settle challenges to Denton's newly passed fracking ban, and give Texans a free course on the widely mischaracterized oilfield technique that has put Texas at the forefront a national energy boom.

Advances in hydraulic fracturing have helped drillers unlock oil and gas once thought to be unreachable. That has reawakened Big Lake, a town that in the 1920s helped cement Texas’ reputation as an oil-rich state. What does the town's growth really look like? Soar a few hundred feet above it to see. This slideshow is part of our Shale Life project.

Grant Swartz has spent much of the last decade in the air, as an agriculture pilot dusting crops over rural Glasscock County. That’s been long enough to see the oil and gas boom drastically alter the landscape of his community east of Midland. What was once a simple flight is now an obstacle course peppered with rigs, miles and miles of power lines and crews of oilfield workers on the ground. This video is part of our Shale Life project.

The Southwest Area Regional Transit District, a 33-year-old organization financed largely through state grants, helps shuttle people who cannot otherwise get to their medical appointments. But a rush to the Eagle Ford Shale — the oil-rich fields that have brought prosperity to many — is clogging that lifeline. This story is part of our Shale Life project.

Some Texas towns are welcoming the bars, strip clubs and “man camps” that come along with an oil boom. Not Karnes City, which is pumping its sudden wealth into schools, parks and a convention center, hoping to attract folks who will stick around when the oil is gone. This story and its audio slideshow are part of our Shale Life project.  

At our 11/6 TribLive conversation, Texas Railroad Commission Chairman Christi Craddick reacted to Denton's passage of a ban on fracking.

Full video of my 11/6 TribLive Conversation with Christi Craddick, chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission.

The newly cracked, chipped and crowded roads linking Texas boomtowns have meant more than just traffic jams for local commuters. They've also proved deadly. Each day, as thousands of 18-wheelers travel roads ill-prepared to handle them, drilling regions are seeing an increase in deadly accidents. This slideshow is part of our Shale Life project.

At our 10/31 symposium at the University of Texas at San Antonio on the impact of the shale boom on Texas, I talked economic transformation with Midland Mayor Jerry Morales, San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor, UTSA's Thomas Tunstall and Don Tymrak, the city manager of Karnes City.

At our 10/31 symposium on the impact of the shale boom on Texas, Jim Malewitz talked with state Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, and Texas Railroad Commissoner Barry Smitherman about what it will take to keep the boom booming.

The surge in Texas energy production has brought a new set of hazards to communities facing the bulk of the drilling — including an increase in traffic accidents and chemical spills. That means more work for already understaffed emergency response units across small-town Texas. This video is part of our Shale Life project. 

Visit Custom Touch Village, a workforce lodging facility, or “man camp,” that has popped up to accommodate West Texas' transient oilfield workers. These temporary neighborhoods are common in the regions touched by Texas’ shale boom, where housing is in short supply and hotels are stuffed to the gills. This audio slideshow is part of our Shale Life project. 

Full video of Jim Malewitz's 10/30 TribLive conversation with Steve Brown and Ryan Sitton, the Democratic and Republican nominees for Texas Railroad Commissioner, respectively, in 2014.

While many rural communities have eagerly welcomed Texas’ drilling boom, most of Glasscock County’s 1,251 residents would have been happier if the drillers had passed them by. This story is part of our Shale Life project.

The oil and gas industry almost singlehandedly lifted Texas from the country’s last recession. But such booms come with unsettling questions: How long will the bonanza last? And will an eventual drop in oil prices decimate local economies — as has happened throughout Texas’ history? This story is part of our Shale Life project. 

Hey, Texplainer: I heard that oil prices are plunging – down more than 20 percent since June. Texas boomtowns may not be panicking, but what does the drop mean for the state budget?

The Shale Life project, the culmination of six months of reporting on the people and communities behind Texas' energy boom, launches today. It's our first-ever project that's entirely visual — and also the first we've financed via crowdfunding. 

The legendary oilman reflects on plunging oil prices and the likelihood of another bust for Texas. Also, cranky folks in Denton and silly congressmen who don't understand how the energy industry works. 

Where there’s oil and natural gas, there’s money to be made and jobs to be found. But the challenges these dramatic booms present for communities across South and West Texas are immense. Use our 15-part multimedia series — the result of more than six months of reporting from the state's most active shale plays — to see how surging energy production is changing lives and fortunes across Texas. 

The state's drilling and fracking frenzy is raising questions about safety, earthquakes and water use. That's raising the stakes for this year's race for an open seat on the three-member Railroad Commission.

Texas regulators on Tuesday tightened rules for wells that dispose of oilfield waste, a response to the spate of earthquakes that have rattled North Texas.