Oral History Transcript - Al Lowman - January 14, 2008

Interview with Al Lowman

 

Interviewer: Barbara Thibodeaux

Date of Interview: January 14, 2008

Location: San Marcos, Texas

_____________________

 

 

Interviewee: Al Lowman – A former Texas State student, Al Lowman is a historian, writer and editor who lives in San Marcos.  He is retired from the Institute of Texas Cultures.

 

Topics:  Story told by Dr. Evans, beginning of Nueces County Electric Co-op

 

(This transcript has been edited for nonessential words and conversation for the sake of clarity with additional edits at the request of Mr. Lowman.)

 

 

BARBARA THIBODEAUX: This recording is part of the LBJ Centennial Celebration Oral History Project sponsored by Texas State University.  Today is Monday, January 14, 2008.  My name is Barbara Thibodeaux.  I am interviewing Al Lowman by telephone in San Marcos, Texas.

 

 

AL LOWMAN:  It happened when I was a student up here at the university.  Oh, in the early 1950s when I would have been about twenty years old.   Dr. C.E. Evans had retired as president of the university here in 1942.  The old man was working on a book at that time called The Story of Texas Education, and the book was subsequently published by the Steck Company [Austin, 1955].

 

Well, Dr. Evans had been a family friend for many years.  My family and Dr. Evans both went to the same Methodist Church here in San Marcos. Evans became president of the university here in 1912 [1911]; he succeeded T. G. Harris as president of what was then the normal school. I believe Evans retired in 1942, so he was president of what became the university for a period of thirty years which included the time in the 1920s when LBJ was in school here.

 

Now in those days, the president of the university did not have the stature that presidents do these days.  In fact, Dr. Evans’s wife Allie Evans found it her uncompensated responsibility to prepare meals for visiting regents.  And so back in those days Dr. Evans’s wife, Allie Evans, A-l-l-i-e Evans, kept some chickens in the backyard.  Whenever she got word that a regent was about to visit, she would hasten to prepare a meal.  And she would go out in the backyard, catch one of the chickens, wring its neck, and prepare a meal for the visiting regent. 

 

So one day Dr. Evans told me that word was received by his office that a regent would be visiting.  And so Mrs. Evans had a particularly plump hen that she had her eye on, and that hen was going to be the next offering for a visiting regent.  So Mrs. Evans goes out into the backyard on the morning of the regent’s visit to look for the old hen to wring its neck.  And she looks around the backyard and the old hen is gone!

 

Now at this time LBJ was living in the garage apartment that was also out in the president’s backyard.  And Dr. Evans told me that, “You know, I will be convinced until the day I die that Lyndon beat Allie to that old chicken hen.  (laughs)  I have only repeated this story once to David Conrad who was one of three authors of a book about LBJ, his career at what was then Southwest Texas State Teachers College.  I’ve only repeated that story to David Conrad many years ago just as he was finishing up with his co-authors their book on LBJ.  What is the name of that book?  Is it LBJ: The Formative Years?

 

 

THIBODEAUX: Yes, it is.

 

 

LOWMAN:      I told that story to David Conrad and he said, “Oh darn Al.  I wish you had told that story earlier.  We could have titled the book The Chicken Thief in the White House.”   (laughs)

 

Well let’s see.  There was one other detail I was going to tell you about and it has escaped me for the moment.  I think I said the other day, probably, you know, the greatest thing LBJ ever did was to provide or initiate rural electrification for the Texas Hill Country.  That had a certain spillover effect.  You know in 1935 President Roosevelt signed an Executive Order that created the Rural Electrification Administration.  And the next year, the following year, Congress allowed the REA to make self-liquidating loans to cooperatives that were established by the farmers themselves.  And in 1937 I was living with my family on a farm in mid Nueces County.  And my parents and the neighbors had been involved throughout 1937 with Central Power and Light Company to get power to this rural community where they lived.  And finally they gave up and decided to form a rural electric co-op and try for an REA loan.  Well, this was unchartered territory so to speak.  So they hired a young lawyer named Cecil Burney who had graduated from the UT law school.  Burney had one other qualification, and that is, he knew LBJ.  And LBJ had just finished getting rural electrification in the Texas Hill Country.  And Burney managed to wrangle a $400,000.00 loan for the newly formed co-op.  And that’s how we got rural electrification down in south Texas.  That was the Nueces County Electric Co-op. [It] was possibly the first of rural electric co-ops.  Certainly, in south Texas and it’s also one of the oldest in Texas.  And as I said, LBJ got, I don’t say he got the loan for the Nueces Electric Co-op, but the fact that he had laid the groundwork up here in the Hill Country certainly didn’t hurt the effort down in South Texas, and in fact probably expedited the matter.

 

Now I remember what it was that I was going to tell you about Dr. Evans   a moment ago.  Dr. Evans, in spite of the fact that LBJ had Mrs. Evans beat to the old hen, Dr. Evans was devoted to LBJ.  And in fact, I remember the Senate campaign of 1948 and Dr. Evans made a radio blurb for LBJ urging people, Democrats in Texas, to vote for him in their primary.  So the mere fact that LBJ had beat Mrs. Evans to the old hen didn’t affect their friendship at all.

 

 (Phone ringing and voice in the background)

 

 

THIBODEAUX: Good story.

 

 

LOWMAN:      Anything else?

 

 

THIBODEAUX: Just one question.  You were talking about getting the, I’m sorry, is it Mr. Burney you were talking about, Cecil Burney?

 

 

LOWMAN:  Yes, Cecil Burney.

 

 

THIBODEAUX: My question is if you knew Mr. Johnson was that pretty much a guarantee or at least an opportunity to get an appointment in the government in Texas?

 

 

LOWMAN:      Wait a minute.  Say again.  I didn’t hear you.

 

 

THIBODEAUX: If you knew Mr. Johnson, not necessarily a guarantee, but a fairly good opportunity to you that you would get a government job?  (Voice in background)

 

 

LOWMAN:      Cecil Burney, I don’t think he was ever a student at the local university here.  He was originally from Bishop, Texas which is just north of Kingsville and Burney later had considerable success as a lawyer.  In fact, he became, ultimately became the president of the State Bar of Texas, but so far as I know he never held a government job.

 

 

THIBODEAUX: Okay.  I was just interested.  Well thank you.  That is a good story.  The chicken story will go far.

 

 

LOWMAN:      Well as I say it, it is a story that is not widely known (laugh) at all.  So, okay, well, if that’s it, I’ll hang up.

 

 

THIBODEAUX: Well thank you so much Mr. Lowman.

 

[End of interview]