About Beauford H. Jester, 36th Governor of Texas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauford_H._Jester
Beauford Halbert Jester (January 12, 1893 – July 11, 1949) was the 36th Governor of Texas, serving from 1947 until 1949, when he died of a heart attack. He is the only Texas governor ever to have died in office. Jester was the son of George Taylor Jester.
History
He won the governorship in the Democratic primary in a run-off election in 1946 by defeating Homer Rainey, who had been discharged by the regents as the president of the University of Texas at Austin in 1944 in a dispute over academic freedom.
As governor Jester created the Board of Texas State Hospitals and Special Schools, the Texas Youth Development Council, and reformed the state prison system. He also increased funding for state hospitals and orphanages, enacted strong right-to-work laws, and supported an anti-lynching law.
Jester was easily re-elected to a second term in 1948. He then helped implement the most extensive education reforms the state of the time through the 1949 Gilmer-Aiken Act, the first comprehensive system for Texas school funding.
Jester was born in Corsicana, the seat of Navarro County in east Texas, attended the University of Texas at Austin and was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He later studied law at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His studies were interrupted by the First World War. In 1919, he resumed his law studies at the University of Texas, from which he received his LL.B a year later. He returned to Corsicana to practice law, and was president of the Navarro County Bar Association for many years. Jester also served as director of the state bar association from 1940-1941. Jester was elected to statewide office in 1942 as a member of the Texas Railroad Commission serving until 1947.
For many years, Jester was a member of the University of Texas Board of Regents, and from 1933-1935 was the youngest man to ever serve as president of that body. In honor of his service, the Jester Center on the University of Texas campus was named after him in 1968. This contains Jester Dormitory, the largest residential facility on campus, housing just under 3,000 students, as well as classroom and faculty space. Also, a Texas Department of Corrections complex of prisons, the Jester Prison Farm, was named after Jester—featured in the 1974 movie, The Sugarland Express.
In 1964, Jester Park was dedicated by the City of Corsicana in memory of Beauford Jester. The 24-acre (97,000 m2) park is home to the Lefty Frizzell Memorial and the Pioneer Village, which recreates the lives of the city's pioneers with replicas of historic buildings.
Jester is interred in Oakwood Cemetery in Corsicana.
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Beauford H. Jester, governor, was born in Corsicana, Texas, on January 12, 1893, to Frances (Gordon) and George Taylor Jester. His father was lieutenant governor of Texas for two terms (1894–98) under Governor Charles A. Culberson. Jester attended public schools in Corsicana, received an A.B. degree from the University of Texas in 1916, and entered Harvard Law School, where his studies were interrupted by World War I. Commissioned as captain, he commanded Company D, 357th Infantry, Ninetieth Division, in action at St. Mihiel, Meuse-Argonne, and served with the American Army of Occupation in Germany. In 1919 he entered law school at the University of Texas, where he earned an LL.B. degree in 1920. Afterward he moved back to Corsicana to practice law. Much of his work as an attorney involved representing the oil business and included arguing court cases up to the United States Supreme Court. Jester also managed the land, cattle, and cotton holdings of the family ranch and was president of the Navarro County Bar Association from 1925 to 1938 and director of the state bar in 1940–41. From 1942 to 1947 he was appointed, then elected, to the state Railroad Commission.
Jester was a member of the University of Texas Board of Regents from 1929 to 1935 and from 1933 to 1935 was the youngest person ever to chair the board. During his tenure he promoted a UT building program that resulted in the acquisition of construction funds for a general building plan developed in 1933. The tower of the Main Building, Hogg Auditorium, the Texas Union, and Gregory Gymnasium, as well as the expansion of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, were products of the plan Jester supported. In 1968 Jester Center, an $18 million classroom and residence complex, was named for him.
In 1946 Jester ran for governor as a middle-of-the-road Democratic candidate in a field of fourteen. Governor co*ke R. Stevenson is reported to have secretly favored him and to have delayed announcement of his plans not to run, in an effort to bluff other candidates out of the race. Jester defeated the more liberal Homer Price Rainey, his major opponent, in the Democratic primary before defeating the Republican candidate in the election. He proved to be a popular states'-rights Democrat and easily won a second term in 1948. As governor, he presided over the longest legislative session in the state's history to that time, the Fifty-first Legislature, which met from January 11 to June 6, 1949. This legislature passed the first state appropriations bill of over $1 billion, providing funds for prison improvements, for educational reform under the Gilmer-Aikin Laws, for rural-road and state-park expansion, for a youth development council, and for a separate Board for Texas State Hospitals and Special Schools. Although Jester opposed President Harry Truman's national civil rights program, he supported state civil rights legislation, including an antilynching law and a proposed constitutional amendment to repeal the poll tax. He lobbied for higher teachers' salaries and statewide college and university building programs, including the establishment of a major university for African Americans. In 1947 he supported the passage of a right-to-work law that abolished the union shop. His other labor legislation included an anti-checkoff law forbidding the automatic deduction of union dues from paychecks and a law against mass picketing. Jester also advocated state arbitration in contract disputes. His policies earned him an antilabor reputation among union leaders and liberal Democrats.
He married Mabel Buchanan of Texarkana on June 15, 1921. They had three children. Jester was a Methodist and member of a number of fraternal, business, and community organizations. He died of a heart attack on July 11, 1949. He was the first Texas governor to die in office.
