First GOP black to win election in Lubbock dies BY JOHN REYNOLDS AVALANCHE-JOURNAL McKinley Shephard, who made local electoral history as the first black Republican to win office in Lubbock County, has died. He passed away Tuesday at Covenant Medical Center. He was 58. In 1982, Shephard was elected Precinct 6 Justice of the Peace. Two years earlier and at the relatively tender age of 33, he had run unsuccessfully for the state House. The political pioneer served 12 years as judge before springing another surprise by leaving the public sphere completely to become a priest in the African Orthodox...