Dick Hervey

James B. Hervey, known as Dick Hervey (June 2, 1920 - February 19, 2014), was an official of Texas A&M University and a savings and loan president who served as the sixth mayor of his adopted city of College Station, Texas.

Until his death at the age of ninety three, Hervey had been the oldest living mayor of College Station, the sister city of neighboring Bryan, Texas. He won a special election in 1971 called after a ruling that employees at Texas A&M University could not serve on city councils or school boards. The decree was later reversed. Hervey was instrumental in the development of College Station during the 1960s and 1970s through his presidency of Community Savings and Loan.^[1]

Hervey was the last surviving of five children of Oney and Elizabeth Hervey. He was born in Greenville in Hunt County some forty-miles east of Dallas. He graduated in 1942 as the president of the TAMU senior class. He and his late wife, the former Nedra Scott, had three sons, Richard Scott Hervey (deceased), James Dickson "Dick" Hervey of Houston, and Robert Ray "Bob" Hervey of Sugar Land, Texas.^[2]

Upon graduation, he was immediately called to serve during World War II in the United States Army Air Forces, the forerunner to the Air Force, in which he attained the rank of lieutenant colonel. When the war ended and after a brief period in Dallas, he returned to College Station in 1947 to become the third executive secretary of the Association of Former Students, a position he filled through 1964.^[2] During Hervey's tenure, the association established its first computerized database, the university archives, and launched the "Distinguished Alumnus Award".^[1]

Upon leaving the Association of Former Students, he became the president of Community Savings & Loan, where he remained until his retirement in 1982. He was a member and then president of the College Station Independent School District, which oversees A&M Consolidated High School. For three years he was the mayor of College Station and worked to expand the city.^[2] He did not seek reelection in 1974.^[3] In 1988, he received the "Distinguished Alumnus Award" that he had earlier worked to establish.^[2]

Hervey died in 2014 in Houston. Services were held at the A&M United Methodist Church in College Station. He is interred at College Station Cemetery.^[2] On Hervey's death, the Association of Former Students lowered flags at the alumni center, named for Clayton W. Williams, Jr., to half-staff to honor Hervey for his role in the modernization of the association.^[1]

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