George Phenix, the publisher of Texas Weekly and the last of the three founders still involved with this enterprise, is retiring. In 1984, Phenix, Sam Kinch Jr., and John Rogers launched the newsletter to try to fill a gap between what was happening in politics and government and what was getting reported in the big papers and TV stations. Also, they wanted to make money. Rogers died, Kinch retired, and now Phenix is hanging it up. He wants to work on some writing projects and see if he can make Thursdays -- a regular deadline every week for more than two decades -- feel like any other day of the week. We wouldn't be here without him, and we wouldn't have had nearly this much fun on the trip. Barry McBee will take the in-house lobbying job at the University of Texas System, replacing former Rep. Ashley Smith, who left that gig for a private sector job in Houston. McBee, a former chief of staff to Gov. Rick Perry who is currently the first assistant to Attorney General Greg Abbott, will take the post in June. The government folk don't call these lobby jobs -- they prefer to call it legislative relations. McBee will be the vice chancellor in charge of it. He worked for Gov. Perry, Lt. Gov. Perry, Agriculture Commissioner Perry, and also did a stint at the top of what's now the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Recovering: Sen. Mario Gallegos, D-Houston, checked out of the clinic where he went for a month to get sober. He publicly admitted his alcoholism a little more than a month ago and sought treatment. He says his doctor has given him a clean bill of health, and that he has no plan to get out of politics: "Don't stick a fork in me yet." Ray Martinez III is resigning from his spot on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission at the end of next month. Martinez, a Democrat, was appointed to the bipartisan commission by President George W. Bush on the recommendation of then-U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota. He'll return to Austin and told Bush in his resignation letter he was leaving for family reasons. Pat Wood, the former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Texas Public Utility Commission, is joining the advisory board of Airtricity, a wind energy developer with four projects in the state. Lisa Barsumian, who left Texas for New Mexico a couple of years ago, is reversing course; she'll join Austin-based Strategic Partnerships as a "senior consultant." She was a lobbyist for two decades before the New Mexico stint. Chris Hughes moves from Exelon Generation Co. to Brown McCarroll. He'll work on environmental, utilities and telecom issues for that law firm. Chris Lippincott has left the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault to join the federal lobbying, er, liaison staff at the Texas Department of Transportation Another of the former ERCOT staffers accused of directing agency money to their own companies pleaded guilty. Christopher Douglas is the fourth defendant to plead guilty; he agreed to pay $500,000 stolen from the agency and faces jail time. Deaths: James Douglass Shear, one of the state's real experts on school finance, after a long bout with throat and neck cancer. He worked for the late Bob Bullock for years before signing on with a law firm that specializes in school funding issues. He was 53.