Polk County Enterprise (Livingston, Tex.), Vol. 132, No. 46, Ed. 1 Sunday, June 8, 2014 Page: 5 of 84
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Sunday, June 8,2014
POLK COUNTY ENTERPRISE
Page 5A
Scenes from June 1989
Speaker's resignation would be bad for Texas
""C "X Then the speaker
\\f of the U.S. House
T Y of Representa-
tives is from your state, you
can expect a little extra help
when it comes to getting
projects through Congress.
Texas lost that extra boost
25 years ago when House
Speaker Jim Wright (D-Ft.
Worth) resigned amidst alle-
gations that he exceeded legal
limits on outside income and
accepted improper gifts.
; Polk County Republican
Party Chairman Tom Klock
and his Democrat coun-
terpart, J.A. McMahon Jr.,
didn’t often see eye-to-eye,
but they shared one opinion
about Wright’s resignation: It
would hurt Texas.
Interviewed for the June
4, 1989 edition of the Polk
County Enterprise, Klock
said, "I only feel sorry for
Texas, America and Con-
gress, I do not feel sorry for
Jim Wright.”
Wright was a Democrat,
so McMahon was a little
more sympathetic. He felt
the speaker’s resignation
was necessary; not because
Wright was guilty of wrong-
doing, but because the debate
over the speaker’s alleged
ethics violations had made
him less effective as speaker.
He worried that Texas-
boosting projects such as the
super-conducting supercol-
lider (which was projected to
become the world’s largest
particle accelerator) proposed
to be built near Waxahachie
ENTERPRISE El EE PHOTO
EXXON ANNUITANTS - Receiving Deed Awards for community service in June
1989 were Exxon Annuitant Club members Lewis Marks, Olga and Robert Franks,
Loyce Woods. Doris Morgan. Bea Crow, Dan and Betty Starr. James and Barbara
Fowler and Velma Atchley.
would be hard to complete
without Wright at the helm to
grease the wheels.
But, alas, it appeared
wheels weren’t the only
things being greased; the
palms of Wright’s hands had
taken on a sheen of their
own. Or, at least, that’s what
the bi-partisan House Ethics
Committee thought.
Or maybe the whole con-
troversy was just another case
of partisan politics. Predict-
ably, McMahon thought it
was; Klock didn’t think so.
When Wright resigned
in 1989 he said he hoped
to inspire an end to a time
when “vilification becomes
an accepted form of political
debate, when negative cam-
paigning becomes a full-time
occupation, when members
of both parties become self-
appointed vigilantes carrying
out personal vendettas against
members of the other party."
That didn't happen.
Wright, now 91, spoke at
an awards ceremony in his
honor just last month in Fort
Worth. He said, in retrospect,
he wished he hadn’t resigned
because it seems to have
marked the beginning of po-
litical cannibalism that has
only gotten worse in the past
25 years. If he had it to do
over again, "1 think I would
have seen it through and gone
through the ignominy of hav-
ing it heard and addressed.”
We’ll never know if that
would have changed any-
thing. We do know Waxa-
hachie’s super-conducting
supercollider was never fin-
ished.
Also in June of 1989:
* Two local boys, fifth
grader Brian Castillo and
fourth grader Patrick Mc-
Clain, received appreciation
awards from Livingston Po-
lice Chief Jim Poss for their
honesty. The boys found a
wallet containing $410 and
turned it in to police.
* Exxon's reputation was
taking a beating in June
of 1989 in the wake of the
Exxon Valdez oil spill in
Alaska, but, locally, the
Exxon Annuitant Club was
building a reputation for
community service. The club
had donated 130 pounds of
food to the Polk County Mis-
sion Center in addition to
pitching in to help the com-
munity in other ways.
The club honored some of
their top volunteers during
a quarterly meeting. Among
those receiving Deed Awards
were Lewis Marks, Olga and
Robert Franks. Loyce Woods,
Doris Morgan. Bea Crow,
Dan and Betty Starr, James
and Barbara Fowler and
Velma Atchley.
* There may have been
scandals on the national
level, but our local state rep-
resentative, Allen Hightower,
was doing what he could
to redeem the reputation of
politicians on the state level.
Hightower was named to the
Dallas Morning News Honor
Roll as one of the 10 most el
fective law makers of the 71st
Texas Legislature.
I M l kl’KIst HI E PHOT!
HONESTY REWARDED - Brian Castillo (left) and
Patrick McClain (right) received certificates from
Livingston Police Chief Jim Poss in June 1989 after
the boys turned in a lost wallet containing over $400.
*5#
4 STAY
ENTERPRISE FILE PHOTO
UNDER THE BIG TOP - Russell Howard, an assistant youth director, leads Vaca-
tion Bible School activities in June 1989 under a big circus tent on a cleared lot next
door to the church. That lot would soon be used for church expansion.
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Peak, Greg. Polk County Enterprise (Livingston, Tex.), Vol. 132, No. 46, Ed. 1 Sunday, June 8, 2014, newspaper, June 8, 2014; Livingston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth660463/m1/5/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Livingston Municipal Library.