High Expectations
Public Servant
Wright graduated from Weatherford College in 1941, having studied
government and journalism. He
when I got up there I called Conrad
Russel and said, ‘If you will send me
a copy of that filing declaration, I’ll
sign it and mail it to you.’ So I filed
for mayor from Chicago.”
At 26, he ran for mayor, won and
served the unexpired term, becoming
one of the youngest, if not the youngest mayor in the state. He was elected to two more terms, serving from
1950 to 1954. One of the hallmarks
of his tenure was the building of
Lake Weatherford, today a vital water
source for the city. A severe drought
gripped the area in the early- to mid1950s and although it was projected
that the lake would take at least five
years to fill, Wright saw the wisdom
of creating a permanent water supply
for the future.
Although several farms had to be
seized to make way for the lake which filled in just a year, thanks to
unusually heavy rains- Wright’s decision to build the lake and to install
larger-than-necessary pipes to handle
future capacity has been hailed as
visionary.
Also under his leadership, the
city built a new waste water disposal
plant and bought from the T&P
Railroad Sunshine Lake, another
small water source. Sherry Watson,
who was elected mayor in 1986, says
the connections Wright made and
the groundwork he laid made future
improvements easier for mayors who
succeeded him.
While serving as mayor, Wright
divided his time between handling
city business and working at the
company he co-owned with this
father. At the end of his second term,
he realized that if he were to provide
for his family, he must choose
between private business and public
service - and do it full-time. He
decided to run for Congress.
“Making money to me was always
more a means to an end; simply to
have wealth was not a motivating
force for me. We made a little bit of
money, Dad and I, when we were in
business together. For that day and
time it was a lot of money,” he says.
“I experienced a substantial loss of
income when I went to Congress but
that’s OK. That’s what I wanted to
do ever since I was in high school. I
had never had any other professional
DECEMBER 2015 PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
At the knee of a father who taught
memorable lessons about trying
to understand people’s differences
and treating everyone with respect,
Wright grew up with desire to help
people. Blessed with a keen intellect
and nurtured by diligent parents, he
became a problem-solver early on.
The walls of the family home
were lined with books — more books
than Bodiford had ever seen, she
said. Wright’s mother, Marie, had
been a teacher of English literature
and poetry before her marriage, and
Wright says he believes his mother
nurtured in his father a similar love of
poetry.
“My mother and father were both
bibliophiles; they loved books, they
loved poetry. My father was particularly fond of Kipling poems and he
would quote them to me. I grew up
loving to read and recite poetry and
that sort of thing,” he says.
Wright also learned to draw and
paint, simply from being exposed to
art, just as he learned to plant and
grow things by working alongside
his father and grandmother. Opal
Bowden, another longtime friend
who styled Wright’s mother’s hair,
says the children were expected to be
prepared to recite assigned lessons by
dinner time each evening.
“Because of the way he’d been
brought up, he didn’t know anything
but smart. He had the personality, but
besides that, he was very wise for his
age,” Bowden says. “I think his father
had great goals for him when he was
born. That was the impression I got
from his mother.”
It was the impression Wright got,
too.
“I guess from the time I was 12 or
so he was telling me it wasn’t good
enough for me just to be as good
as he was; if each generation didn’t
make some progress over the generation before, there wasn’t much point
in posterity,” Wright says. “I never
thought I’d be better than he; I didn’t
think I could. But I tried. I wanted
him to think so.”
enrolled at the University of Texas at
Austin that fall. He was with some
buddies on December 7 when they
heard over the car radio that Pearl
Harbor had been attacked.
Wright turned 19 on Dec. 22, and
on New Year’s Day, he was at the
Cotton Bowl game with his father as
usual - but this time in uniform.
“My mother was there; she never
went to a football game in her life,
but she went with my sisters to see
me off,” he says. “I was already
sworn in; I couldn’t go home. I
had to be there in Dallas, and in a
couple of days they sent us to Camp
Wolters in Mineral Wells, and then to
Shepherd Field in Wichita Falls, then
to California.”
Wright served as a second lieutenant, a bombardier in the 380th heavy
Bomb Group of the Army Air Corp,
where he earned a Distinguished
Flying Cross. After his service, he
returned to Weatherford where he
sold memberships for the National
Foundation of Independent Business
and worked with his father. He
had not abandoned his political
ambitions, however, and at 23, he
was elected to the Texas House of
Representatives. (1947-1949)
After his term, he went back into
business with his father full-time; the
company his father had been trying
for years to get off the ground had
expanded to 40 states and the two
were making more money than they
ever had before when the mayor of
Weatherford resigned. Conrad Russel,
a former Weatherford mayor and
close family friend visited Wright and
urged him to run for the unexpired
term. Many others approached him,
too.
He thought about it and consulted
his father. Being mayor was a parttime job that paid about $75 a
month, Wright recalls. He issued a
statement, declaring he wouldn’t run
for mayor but would instead devote
his energies to his business.
“Right after that we got on a plane
and went to Chicago, where we were
having a meeting of the national sales
force. On the way up there I began to
realize, ‘I just had a chance handed
to me on a silver platter to get into
political life, and I kicked it in the
face and threw it away,’” he says. “So
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