Jim Granberry

James Harlan "Jim" Granberry, Sr.
The Granberrys in their earlier years
Mayor of Lubbock, Texas, USA
In office April 23, 1970 – 1972
Preceded by	W. D. "Dub" Rogers, Jr.
Succeeded by	Morris "Moe" Turner
Lubbock City Councilman
In office 1966–1970
Born	June 23, 1932 Red Springs, Smith County near Lindale, Texas
Died	March 5, 2021 (aged 88) Hideaway, Smith County
Resting place	Hopewell Cemetery in Swan in Smith County
Nationality	American
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Edwina Brown Granberry (married 1955-2021, his death)
Children	Leslie Granberry Hamilton James "Jay" Granberry, Jr. Zachary Granberry Timothy Edwin Granberry Susan Jane Granberry Mitchell Parents: Thomas Henry and Mary Lee Carter Granberry
Residence	Hideway, Smith County, Texas
Alma mater	Lindale High School Tyler Junior College North Texas State University (Denton) Baylor College of Dentistry
Occupation	Dentist from 1961 to 1983 Businessman
Religion	Southern Baptist
Military Service
Service/branch	United States Air Force
Years of service	1950-1955
Rank	Staff Sergeant Managed bookstore at Randoloph Air Force Base (San Antonio)

James Harlan Granberry, Sr., known as Jim Granberry or as Hoosey Granberry (June 23, 1932 – March 5, 2021), was an orthodonitst-turned-businessman remembered as the mayor of Lubbock, Texas, who guided the city through a series of tornadoes that shattered the region on May 11, 1970.

Background

Nicknamed "Hoosey," Granberry was the eighth of twelve children of Thomas Henry Granberry (1894-1977) and the former Mary Lee Carter (1900-1977). He was born in the small community of Red Springs in Smith County, near Lindale and Tyler, Texas. He outlived all but one of his siblings.

In 1950, he graduated from Lindale High School as the class president and captain of the varsity football and basketball teams. He enlisted in the United States Air Force and managed the medical book store at Randolph Field in San Antonio, Texas. He also played baseball for Randolph Air Force Base, having once competed against Brooklyn Dodgers great Don Newcombe. Upon receiving an honorable discharge as a staff sergeant in January 1955, he enrolled as a pre-dental student at Tyler Junior College. After just a few months, he began to date Edwina Brown of Hopewell in Smith County, and they soon married on December 17, 1955. The next year Edwina was chosen as “Most Beautiful” at Tyler Junior College in a competition judged by film star Tab Hunter. He was inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa scholastic fraternity. He later established an annual pre-dental scholarship at Tyler Junior College.

In 1957, Granberry completed his pre-dental studies in at North Texas State University in Denton, since known as the University of North Texas. In 1961, he received his D.D.S. degree from the Baylor College of Dentistry in Dallas, at which he was the president of the Psi Omega fraternity, founder of the Baylor Orthodontology Honor Society, and president of the Student Clinicians Association of America. Following dental college, he and Edwina moved to Lubbock, where he worked for three years under pioneer orthodontist Dr. Grover Turner. He purchased Dr. Turner's practice and soon developed one of the largest orthodontic operations in Lubbock. The Granberrys lived in Lubbock until 1994, when they returned to Smith Council to engage in business. In Lubbock, Granberry was a Sunday school teacher, deacon, and lay speaker for the Second Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation.

Granberry formerly was the chairman of the regents of East Texas State University, now Texas A&M University in Commerce, Texas. He was a trustee for both the Baylor College of Dentistry and the Methodist Hospital of Lubbock. He was president of the Lubbock Visitors and Conventions Bureau and vice-president of the Texas Municipal League.

Political career

In 1970, he was handily elected as Lubbock’s youngest mayor in history. Only nineteen days in office, Lubbock was struck by a devastating tornado which struck the heart of the citya and left twenty-six person daead and thousands injured or homeless. Because of his management of tornado reconstruction, U.S. President Richard Nixon appointed him to serve on the Peruvian Earthquake Voluntary Assistance Group, in which capacity he traveled four times to Peru to help in the recovery from the 1970 earthquake there.

Granberry said that he and a united city council mobilized to direct the rebuilding of the city. He said that he was was given more credit for the reconstruction than he deserved. He termed Mayor Pro Tempore Deaton Rigsby his "right-hand man" in the rebuilding. As mayor, he also worked triple time to care for his city, his family, and his dental practice.

Granberry did not seek reelection as mayor in 1972 and was succeeded by Morris "Moe" Turner. Earlier from 1966 to 1970, he was a member of the city council. Mayors and council members in Texas are all officially nonpartisan, but Granberry was known to be a Republican.

Granberry was a member of the Texas State Republican Executive Committee and a delegate to the 1972 Republican National Convention, which met in Miami Beach, Florida, to re-nominate the Nixon-Agnew ticket for a term that neither man would complete. He served on the Lubbock City Council from 1966 to 1970 and was mayor pro tempore in 1966.

1974 gubernatorial race

In 1974, Granberry was the GOP nominee for governor of Texas but carried only 7 of the 254 counties and hence lost the general election by a wide margin to incumbent Democratic Governor Dolph Briscoe, Jr., of Uvalde. Granberry was opposed for the Republican gubernatorial nomination by Odell McBrayer, the candidate of what later became known as the "Religious Right." Granberry handily defeated McBrayer, an attorney and like Granberry a United States Air Force veteran, Granberry polled 53,617 votes (77.6 percent) to McBrayer's 15,489 ballots (22.4 percent) in a low-turnout primary election.

Granberry was the choice of Republican U.S. Senator John 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 affair, which had forced the resignation of President Nixon. Voters even punished Republican candidates who had nothing to do with Watergate. Briscoe defeated Granberry, 1,016,334 votes (61.4 percent), compared to Granberry's 514,725 (31.1 percent) and 93,295 for the Hispanic Raza Unida Party nominee, Ramsey Muñiz, who had also been the La Raza candidate in 1972 against Briscoe. Another approximately thirty thousand ballots were cast in the 1974 contest 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. Briscoe polled 617,159 fewer votes against Granberry than he had with his initial election in 1972 against the conservative Republican Henry C. Grover, a state senator from Houston, because of a much lower turnout in 1974.

Granberry in his later years

Later years

In 1989, William Perry "Bill" Clements, Jr., the first Texas Republican governor since Reconstruction, appointed Granberry, who was still living in Lubbock at that time, as chairman of the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole. He resigned in the summer of 1991.

Granberry and his surviving widow, the former Edwina Brown (born 1937), have five children: Leslie Granberry Hamilton (formerly Lesie Meeks) (born 1961), James H. "Jay" Granberry, Jr. (born 1965), who practices law in Bryan in Brazos County, Zachary T. Granberry (born 1967) of Houston, Timothy Edwin "Tim" Granberry (born 1968) of Plano, and Susan Granberry Mitchell (born 1970). In 1993, Granberry returned to his native Smith County in East Texas and was living in Hideaway in Smith County at the time of his death at the age of eighty-eight.

Former Lubbock Mayor Dan Pope said that Granberry, the youngest mayor to lead city, was "led us through the aftermath and rebuilding of our city following the tornadoes. We honor his life and will never forget his service to our city.”