Former Texas Governor Preston Smith Dies at 91

Preston Smith, Texas' 40th governor, who graduated from Lamesa High School and owned movie theaters in Lubbock, died Saturday in University Medical Center three days after being admitted with pneumonia.

Longtime friend Otice Green said Smith's family was with him when he died at 4:45 p.m. He was 91.

"It was a very sudden at tack," Green said. "He was feeling fine Monday, recovering, and he was with his daughter, then he began feeling bad. Other factors began to set in, and he experienced one failure after another."

Services are scheduled for 10 a.m Monday at St. John's United Methodist Church in Lubbock

In Austin, viewing will be from 8 a.m. to noon Tuesday in Senate chambers in the Cap itol. Burial with state honors will be at 2 p.m. Tuesday in the Texas State Cemetery.

Smith was injured Sept. 2 in a single-car accident and was briefly hospitalized. In February, he was hospitalized at UMC with pneumonia.

Smith, born March 8, 1912, in Williamson County near Austin, is remembered for overcoming Depression-era poverty to become a successful businessman and popular politician.

One of 13 children of a tenant farmer, Smith worked his way through Texas Tech with a job at a service station while earning a business administration degree.

He graduated in 1934 and married Ima Smith, who passed away in 1998. They had a son, Preston Michael, and a daughter, Jan Lauren.

Smith entered the Lubbock business community in 1936 by opening Tech Theater in a partnership with W.O. Bearden. Smith later opened more theaters in Lubbock. In 1957, he merged interests with Video Theaters, operating theaters and drive-ins in Lubbock and Oklahoma City.

It began in 1944 when the Democrat was elected to his first of three straight terms as state representative from the nine-county 119th District.

He lost his first try for the state Senate in 1952 but won in 1956 and was re-elected in 1960.

In 1962, Smith was elected lieutenant governor. He was re-elected in 1964 and 1966. Smith was elected governor in 1968 and re-elected in 1970.

"Politically, you don't find many people with the kind of experience he had," Green said. "He was probably the most experienced governor we've had."

"I think those who have positions of public trust should do the things they think necessary to move this area forward and not ever think of future political consequences or honors they might have," Smith told The Avalanche-Journal last year.

"That never occurred to me. I was just grateful for the opportunity. ... A public official is nothing more than a public servant. Unfortunately, some of our elected officials take the position that they own the office, which they don't."

As governor, Smith was the driving force behind establishment of a medical school at Tech, which altered the university's landscape and put Lub bock on the map as a major player in Texas health care.

"I had no idea what the future held," Smith said. "I knew that we needed a medical school and we needed medical facilities out in this area. That sort of a concern was the priority that I had."

He also signed the bill that authorized the Texas Tech School of Law, further stretching the university's mission.

His administration, however, was tarnished by the Sharpstown Scandal, which, during the early 1970s, reached into the upper echelons of the state's political power apparatus.

Stung by the bank and stock fraud case, roughly half the state's incumbent legislators either were defeated or chose not to seek re-election in 1972. Among the casualties was Smith, who was ousted from the governor's mansion by Dolph Briscoe. Smith lost another gubernatorial bid in 1978.

"I had some feelers about running for vice president," he said. "That was about 1971 or 1972. I told them I was not interested in national politics."

"I think I'm the best fly fisherman that I was ever around," he once said with a laugh. "I never found anybody that I couldn't catch more fish than."

Former Gov. Preston Smith dies
08:33 PM CDT on Saturday, October 18, 2003
By MATT STILES / The Dallas Morning News

Preston Smith, the unassuming and accessible former Texas governor known for his polka-dot ties and focus on the state’s higher education system, died Saturday in a Lubbock hospital. He was 91.
Mr. Smith had been in the Texas Tech Medical Center intensive care unit since Wednesday, suffering from pneumonia.
The plain-spoken son of a poor tenant farmer, Mr. Smith capped a more than 20-year political career as the state’s 40th chief executive from 1969 to 1973.
“For more than a quarter century, Preston Smith served the people of Texas with a commitment to public service that made our state a better place,” Republican Gov. Rick Perry said in a statement.
Called “plain old Preston” by those who perceived him as colorless, Mr. Smith lost in the 1972 Democratic primary in a bid for his third term following the Sharpstown stock affair, one of Texas’ worst political scandals.
A conservative Democrat who said he voted for President Ronald Reagan twice, Mr. Smith’s administration was credited with establishing more new state universities and medical, dental and vocational training facilities than any other.
“Preston was a true friend and a self-made man,” Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said in a statement. “The Governor made unprecedented and lasting contributions to improve education in the Lone Star State and he will be missed.”
Mr. Smith was widely known for his accessibility, holding frequent news conferences and becoming known as the “people’s governor.” Friends said he always returned every phone message and regularly greeted Capitol visitors.
“He knew politics and how it worked,” said former assistant press secretary Jerry Conn , author of Preston Smith: The Making of a Texas Governor. “He felt like if people wanted to talk to him, he might be able to help them.”
The gray-haired, bespectacled governor was known as a hard-working politician with a vigorous sense of humor. From 1962 onward, he only wore ties with polka dots because former Gov. Price Daniel told him he needed something that made him stand out on the campaign trail.
Preston Earnest Smith was born on March 8, 1912, in the Williamson County town of Corn Hill.
At age 11, two years after he has said he began dreaming of the governorship, his family moved to a 320-acre tenant farm on the Dawson-Gaines County lines. The family was so poor, said Mr. Smith, the 7th of 13 children, that they barely noticed the Great Depression.
He worked and attended high school in Lamesa before moving to Lubbock in 1930 with his life savings of $50 and enrolling at what is now Texas Tech University.
It was there that he met his wife, Ima, who died in 1998.
After 10 years managing a theater chain, he ran for state representative in 1944. He served three terms as a state representative (1944-50), three terms as a state senator (1956-62), three terms as lieutenant governor (1962-68) and two two-year terms as governor.
Mr. Smith had a hand in the creation of the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, the Texas Tech Medical School in Lubbock, a University of Texas dental branch and a nurses training school in San Antonio, a new undergraduate nursing school at El Paso, and an expansion of the University of Texas medical branch at Galveston.
He signed a bill that brought liquor by the drink back to Texas on a local referendum basis. He also was influential in establishing a permanent building fund for state colleges, increasing teacher salaries and expanding vocational education.
He also pushed and signed the state’s first minimum wage law.
The Sharpstown scandal involved quick-profit stock sales for lawmakers and state officials in the early 1970s. Half the Texas House was voted out of office or didn’t seek re-election after the scandal became public. Mr. Smith lost the governorship after it was disclosed that he profited from a stock sale arranged by an investment partner.
A 1978 comeback bid failed.
He moved to Lubbock in 1973, working in real estate, banking and oil and gas investments. He served on what is now the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and in recent years worked for Tech’s Chancellor, helping raise about $500 million.
He is survived by a son, Preston Michael “Mickey” Smith and a daughter, Jan Smith Taylor; and several grandchildren. He died had been hospitalized and slipping in and out of consciousness since Wednesday, relatives said.
“He was comfortable and in no pain. He lived a great life, a full life and was an honorable man, a true public servant,” said Robert Schmid, Mr. Smith’s grandson. “I can’t think of any man who loved Texas more than he did.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

E-mail mstiles@dallasnews.com
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/tsw/stories/101903dntexobit_art.13979.html

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