Fort Worth Business Press, May 12, 2014 Vol. 26, No. 18 | Page 12

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cover story

May 12 - 18, 2014 | fwbusinesspress.com

for his role as a congressional benefactor but also for
a litany of other “golden deeds” throughout his life.
Among them: influencing hundreds of young people
by teaching a class on Congress and the presidents at
Texas Christian University from 1991 until 2010.
“I did not expect it at all,” Wright said of the award. “I
appreciate it deeply.”
Wright said he plans to bring much of his family with
him when he receives the award, including his wife Betty,
his son, two of his three daughters, and a sister. At least
two of his five grandsons will also be there, he said.
Wright’s two successors as representatives of the 12th
Congressional District – Democrat Pete Geren and
Republican Kay Granger – will be the principal speakers.
Fort Worth attorney Dee Kelly Sr., a long-time friend of the
former speaker, will serve as emcee.
Geren, who also served as U.S. Army Secretary and
is now president and CEO of the Sid W. Richardson
Foundation, acknowledged that he had “big shoes to fill”
when he took over the 12th district congressional seat
after Wright left Washington in 1989.
In many ways, Geren said, Wright was effectively
congressman for the entire state by “helping to build the
infrastructure that made Texas what it’s become since the
end of the Second World War. He rose to the position of
speaker but remained connected to the lifeblood of Texas
and was a partner in building the Fort Worth and North
Texas that we know today.”
Granger, who served as Fort Worth mayor before
succeeding Geren in Congress in 1997, said two of
Wright’s “greatest” achievements were his efforts to create
the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and his work
to secure job-creating Pentagon contracts for local defense
giants such as Bell Helicopter and General Dynamics, now
Lockheed Martin.
“It’s undeniable that he had an enormous impact on
Fort Worth,” said Granger. The venerable Fort Worth-made
F-16 fighter, which went into production on Wright’s
watch, is still being built for overseas sales, Granger noted.
Kelly said he and Wright have shared a friendship that
began when Wright was a young congressman and Kelly
was a clerk for then-speaker Sam Rayburn while attending
law school in Washington.
“He’s always been well-intended in everything he’s
done,” said Kelly. “He’s been involved in a lot of good
things for Fort Worth, no doubt about that.”
The awards program citation said that the former
speaker’s “golden deeds started at an early age.”
Wright was 19 when he volunteered for military service
barely three weeks after Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl
Harbor. At 20, he was flying combat missions in the
Pacific.
As a congressman, Wright helped secure needed floodcontrol projects and downtown revitalization initiatives
that included Sundance Square and the Worthington
Hotel. After two large meat-packing plants closed on the
North Side, resulting in 30 percent unemployment in a
large area of the community, Wright stepped in to get the
area included in a program for restoration of depressed
areas.
Wright sponsored construction of the Fort Worth
Federal Center, which houses federal agencies serving an
11-state region. The award will also commend Wright’s
volunteer service as a former scoutmaster, Sunday school

Jim Wright will be honored by the Exchange Club as the latest recipient of its Golden Deeds Award on May 13. This photo was taken in November 2013 at the
JFK memorial in downtown Fort Worth.

teacher and boxing coach.
Geren will point out in his speech at the award ceremony
that after leaving Congress Wright could have stayed in
the nation’s capital to make “millions of dollars” as a
Washington consultant. Instead, Geren notes, the former
congressman “chose to move back to Fort Worth and be a
teacher at TCU.”
“He was an extraordinary teacher and worked hard to
share with these kids his 50 years of public life,” Geren
said. “That goes right to the heart of the man. I think that
says a lot about his character.”
Though slowed by health problems and advancing age
in recent years, Wright still maintains a relatively vigorous
schedule at his TCU office and with occasional speaking
appearances.
He and Betty live about a mile from campus in the
Overton Woods neighborhood and Wright typically
rides to work with Norma Ritchson, who has been his
administrative assistant since 1980.
“He’s a hard worker,” Ritchson says. “He makes his
telephone calls, he makes a few speeches, and does
interviews, and talks to young people who are doing
research and all those sorts of things. He’s not happy
if he doesn’t have a plan for the day. He makes his list
and has an agenda for every day, things we are going to
accomplish.”
Wright served in the Texas House and as mayor of

Weatherford before being elected to Congress in 1954,
upending an established Democratic incumbent by
winning 60 percent of the primary vote to represent the
12th District. At that time, the district encompassed five
counties but 75 percent of the population was in Fort
Worth.
While distinguishing himself as a tireless steward for his
district, Wright rose through the ranks to become House
majority leader for 10 years before ascending to speaker
in 1987. His 12th District constituents re-elected him 17
times.
Wright was regarded as one of the most skillful orators
in the House, an adept legislative negotiator and an expert
on foreign policy.
One of the proudest moments of his career, he says, was
when he had the opportunity to deliver a television address
to the Russian people while leading a congressional
delegation to the Soviet Union.
Wright resigned during his second term as speaker in
June 1989 after an ethics inquiry that roiled the House
with fierce partisan infighting.
He steadfastly denied wrongdoing but said that political
bitterness had created an atmosphere of “mindless
cannibalism” that made it impossible for him to lead
effectively. n

“He rose to the position of speaker but remained connected to the
lifeblood of Texas and was a partner in building the Fort Worth and
North Texas that we know today.”
– Pete Geren, president and CEO of the Sid W. Richardson Foundation

fort worth business press file photos/kenneth perkins

uwright from the cover