Johnny Anders

John Earl Anders, Jr., known as Johnny Anders (born July 14, 1950), is an automobile body shop owner who engages in the unusual hobby of metal artwork and also serves as the mayor of Stamford in northern Jones County in West Texas. Stamford is north of Abilene and straddles the boundary with Haskell County to the north. Anders was also a member of the Stamford City Council from 1997 until his election as mayor in the spring of 2005.

Anders was elected in 2005, when the incumbent, Oscar Armstrong, did not seek another term. On May 12, 2007, Anders was reelected to a second two-year term, having defeated opponent Gwen Baker, 336-127. Texas municipal elections are nonpartisan, and Anders considers himself an Independent. However, in 2006, he endorsed the Republican Jim Landtroop^[1] of Plainview in Hale County, who fell short in a highly publicized bid to succeed the retiring Democrat Pete Laney, a former Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. Landtroop rebounded to win the seat handily in the November 2, 2010, general election.

As mayor, Anders in 2006 embraced the "Reclaiming Stamford" project, which seeks to rid the community of dilapidated homes, vacant businesses, and overgrown lots. Anders cleaned up his own property, Anders Paint and Body Shop, and then participated in the removal of litter and debris throughout the city.^[2] Reclaiming Stamford is the idea of former city councilman Gary Decker and his wife, Connie. The program gets citizens involved in working together to clean up the city. It has been adopted in Breckenridge in Stephens County, Seymour in Baylor County, and Anson, the seat of Jones County.^[2]

Mayor Anders successfully pushed for the appointment of the Stamford police chief, instead of the past practice of election. The appointed chief has issued in a year more than $60,000 worth of fines, instead of the fewer than $1,500 by the past elected chief. Anders said that Stamford had too much drug abuse and other infractions, and the appointed chief has been essential to bringing the crime rate under control.^[3]

Anders' paternal grandfather came to Stamford in a covered wagon in 1928 and went into the automobile business in 1932. Anders took over the family business on the death of his father, John Anders, Sr. (1932–1994). Anders is a native and lifelong Stamford resident who lives no more than a hundred yards from his birthplace. His mother is the former Bonnie Franklin (born ca. 1934) of Odessa, the seat of Ector County in West Texas. Anders dropped out of Stamford High School without graduating with his Class of 1968 but later procured a GED diploma and has taken some college courses in law enforcement. In 1998, Anders married the former Cindy Albus (born 1957). He has a son from a previous marriage, John William Anders (born 1970) of Breckenridge, and two stepdaughters, Tammy Lindley of Abilene and Kathryn McKeever. Anders and family are members of St Johns Methodist Church in Stamford.^[3]

Anders received statewide recognition in 2007 when he was the focus of a segment of Bob Phillips' syndicated television series, Texas Country Reporter. Anders, as an avocation, makes model dinosaurs and other unusual items from scrap metal and leftover car parts available at his body shop. His dinosaur exhibit was based on the idea that some large automobiles in the 1960s and 1970s were called "dinosaurs" because of their size and use of large amounts of fuel. One of his dinosaur exhibits is in Harmon Park in Stamford; the other, 22 feet tall, which took two years to construct, is located at Anders' body shop.^[4]

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