Jim Granberry

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James Harlan "Jim" Granberry, Sr. (born 1932), is a former mayor of Lubbock, Texas, who guided his city through a series of tornadoes that shattered the region on May 11, 1970. He imposed a curfew to restore order after the storm. Granberry had just become mayor when the storms occurred. He served only one two-year term from 1970-1972. He was a member of the Lubbock City Council from 1966-1970. He did not seek a second two-year term in 1972. Mayors and council members in Texas are all officially nonpartisan, but Granberry was known to be a Republican.

In 1974, Granberry was the Texas Republican gubernatorial nominee. He lost the general election by a wide margin to incumbent Democratic Governor Dolph Briscoe of Uvalde.

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[edit] Gubernatorial race

Granberry, a dentist, was opposed for the Republican gubernatorial nomination by Odell Lavon McBrayer (born 1930), the candidate of what later became known as the "Religious Right". Granberry defeated McBrayer, an attorney, handily, 53,617 votes (77.6 percent) to 15,489 ballots (22.4 percent) in a low-turnout primary. McBrayer used the campaign poster "Texas Must Have Odell McBrayer as Governor." He is a member of the board of directors of the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International. A native of Clarendon, the seat of Donley County in west Texas, McBrayer practices law in Amarillo. He formerly practiced in Fort Worth.

Granberry was the choice of Republican U.S. Senator John G. Tower, the nominal head of the Texas GOP at the time. He would carry his party's tattered banner in the year in which the national party was dragged down by the Watergate scandal, which had forced the resignation of U.S. President Richard M. Nixon. Many Republicans across the nation who had no connection to Watergate were defeated by irate voters, who also opposed President Gerald R. Ford, Jr.'s pardon of Nixon for any Watergate-related crimes that he may have committed.

Briscoe hence swamped Granberry in the strongly Democratic year nationwide. Briscoe polled 1,016,334 votes (61.4 percent), compared to 514,725 (31.1 percent) for Granberry, 93,295 for the Hispanic La Raza party, and another approximately 30,000 votes for other candidates. Briscoe, who had served the last two-year gubernatorial term in Texas, therefore became the first Texas governor to win a four-year term since the establishment of the Texas Constitution of 1876. Yet, Briscoe polled 617,159 fewer votes against Granberry than he had with his initial election in 1972 against the conservative Republican Henry Cushing Grover of Houston, because of a much lower turnout in 1974.

[edit] Bush "Beer Bash"

In 1978, Granberry advised congressional candidate George W. Bush, who was seeking to succeed the retiring veteran Democrat George Mahon of Lubbock. Bush said that Granberry urged him to "go negative" against then Democrat Kent Ronald Hance, but Bush declined to do so. An advertisement appeared in the Texas Tech University newspaper in Lubbock which invited students to a "beer bash" at Granberry's home to drum up support for Bush. Hance, who defeated Bush in that election, attributed his victory more to the endorsement by Mahon than from public outrage over the "beer bash."

[edit] Later years

In 1989, William Perry "Bill" Clements, Jr., the first Texas Republican governor since Reconstruction, appointed Granberry as chairman of the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole. He resigned in the summer of 1991.

Granberry has a son, James H. Granberry, Jr. (born 1965), who practices law in Bryan, the seat of Brazos County.

[edit] References

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