Kilmer B. Corbin

Kilmer Blaine Corbin, Sr. (June 18, 1919 – January 7, 1993),^[1] the father of actor Barry Corbin, was a Lubbock, Texas, attorney who served as a Democratic member of the Texas State Senate from District 28 for two terms from 1949 to 1957.

Corbin resided in Lamesa and later moved to Lubbock, where he graduated from Texas Technological College (now Texas Tech University). He obtained a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin and served for a time as a judge. He was married to the former Alma LaMerle Scott (1918–1994). The couple had three children, Barry, Blaine, Jr., and Jane. Corbin had been a school principal early in his career, and his wife was a teacher.^[2]

Corbin's ancestors lived in Virginia and then Mississippi before they relocated to Lampasas County. In the 1920s, the Corbins moved to Dawson County, where Corbin was reared and lived the first part of his life. In the state Senate, Corbin represented twenty-four West Texas counties. He was defeated in the 1956 primary by theater owner and future Governor Preston E. Smith. Barry Corbin said that his father's defeat for a third term in the Senate soured him on elected office. Barry Corbin’s website says that Kilmer Corbin was at twenty-six the youngest state senator in 1949. However, this is disputed because Kilmer Corbin was born in 1919 and hence turned thirty in 1949.^[3]

Corbin was an alternate delegate to the 1944 Democratic National Convention held in Chicago, which nominated the Franklin D. Roosevelt/Harry S Truman ticket.^[4]

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