Friends, supporters back Walls

Star-Telegram ^ | Apr. 08, 2004 | Jay Root;Martha Deller

[Dubya]

CLEBURNE - In the heart of the Texas Bible belt, where a woman is being prosecuted for selling sex toys, a man with a cross-dressing past might seem like more fodder for a sermon full of fire and brimstone.

But folks in Johnson County -- staunch conservatives at that -- don't seem to be rushing to criticize Sam Walls, who has acknowledged dressing up like a woman but has declined to say much else about it.

Days before he faces voters in a hotly contested Republican runoff for a state House seat, Walls continued to shoo away the media, but his friends and supporters rushed to his defense, highlighting a lifetime of philanthropy and brushing off the controversy as irrelevant. The election is Tuesday.

"It's not like he murdered somebody," said Peter Svendsen, a country music record promoter in Cleburne who has been a friend and neighbor to Walls since the 1970s.

Svendsen notes that Walls has given thousands of dollars to a charity that helps abused kids, that his family founded Harris Methodist Walls Regional Hospital and that he was a Republican activist back when the party could hardly fill a church pew in Cleburne.

"He's never been profane. I'd say the worst thing I've seen Sam Walls do is chew on a cigar," Svendsen said. "I've never seen him drunk. He's always been a gentlemen, a class act."

The Sam Walls who appears in photos wearing dresses, earrings and lipstick is not the Cleburne investor and philanthropist his supporters say they know.

But rather than condemn Walls, they are expressing anger at his critics and blame his Republican opponent, Rob Orr, a real estate agent, for helping fuel the effort to get Walls to withdraw from the race.

Orr's campaign denies any involvement in the controversy.

"When you're a giant, people try to cut you down," said Cleburne Mayor Thomas Hazlewood, who has known Walls for more than 20 years. "They're not going to kill the giant Sam has made of himself."

Walls, whose family made a fortune selling mens' work clothing, is the kind of guy who "makes things happen" in Johnson County, Hazlewood said.

"He can call George Bush. He can call [U.S. Sen] Kay Bailey Hutchison," Hazlewood said. "He has access across the board."

Campaign records show he has given generously to a variety of candidates, including the state representative he wants to replace, Rep. Arlene Wohlgemuth, R-Burleson, who is running for Congress.

Walls' wife, Kay, who appears smiling in one of the photos of her cross-dressing husband, was appointed by Gov. George W. Bush in 1999 to the North Texas Tollway Authority. She gave Bush's presidential campaign $1,000 that year, and Sam Walls gave the Republican National Committee $2,000 a year later.

His supporters say they knew nothing of Walls' cross-dressing and accept his explanation that it happened "long ago." What "long ago" means is not clear.

The photos came from a mobile home, registered in Walls' name, that was repossessed in 2002.

And Walls campaign consultant Craig Murphy said he could not confirm nor deny that Sam Walls is the "Samantha Walls" who was described as treasurer -- from Texas -- of the Alpha Omega Society in a June 2000 newsletter.

The Alpha Omega Society's Internet site says the group is "committed to the cause of the heterosexual crossdresser, family and friends."

Walls' repossessed single-wide trailer was once anchored at Chalet City, a subdivision of modest mobile homes off Farm Road 731 in Crowley.

While Walls' supporters are circling the wagons in his southern Johnson County stronghold, voters in Burleson -- the home of opposing candidate Orr -- appear less accepting. District 58, which includes both Johnson and Bosque counties, is one of the most conservative House districts in Texas.

Jim, a farmer in his late 60s who would give only his first name, said he couldn't vote for a cross-dresser.

"You couldn't get a dress on me if you hog-tied me, and I might hold a woman's purse for a minute but I wouldn't carry it around very long, and most men feel the same way," said Jim, who lives just south of Burleson.

But in a town made famous for its prosecution of Joanne Webb -- awaiting trial after selling sex toys to undercover cops -- what's striking is the tolerance voters are showing.

"Everybody has their past. Clinton smoked pot. Bush had his problems with the military," said Casey King, a Burleson mother watching her toddler, Caleb, play in the McDonald's play area Wednesday. "But if I thought he was still cross-dressing, I wouldn't vote for him."

Even the Republicans who want Walls out of the race go out of their way to describe Walls, a former GOP county chairman, as a pillar of the community.

Bob Alford, the Republican sheriff who urged Walls to withdraw, choked back tears when he described how he told a man he described as a mentor that he could no longer support him.

"I've lost a lot of sleep. I've been praying over this thing," Alford said. "Sam has a moral issue that he's got to deal with."

[Dubya]

Sam Walls wears a wig and a dress in a photo provided to the Star-Telegram.

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[Screaming_Gerbil]

So, he's a Cross-Dresser. They're mostly married Heterosexuals. Better that than a lying adulterer like Clinton.

For more information:

Crossdressing Myth and Fact

Out & About - The Emanicipated Crossdresser

[Dubya]

I dont vote in Johnson County. If I did I wouldn't vote for him. His money want buy my vote.

[No Blue States]

Walls lost!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1117463/posts?page=3