b'left to right top to bottom : Sissy Farenthold with Gov. Preston Smith whom she would help unseat; 1972 campaign brochure; on a campaign stop in Port Aransas weeks before her stepson would be found murdered a few miles away; girls in Corpus Christi at a campaign table; outside the capitol in Austin while serving in the State House; in a 2013 television interview from Houston. Rep. Frances Farentholds entry into 1969swestFree-ultimate good ole boys club in no way went un- way,allowing noticed, not by the statewide press, the capitolfasteraccess press, nor the national pressand certainly nottodowntown by her fellow legislators. In her first year in of- fromhis fice, hers was the lone vote against a proclama- new,master tioninsupportofPres.Johnsonshandlingofplannedcom-the Vietnam War. She introduced the first billmunityofsingle-toreducethechargeforsimplepossessionoffamily homes, apart-marijuana from a felony that could be punishedmentcomplexes,parks, with up to a life sentence, to a misdemeanor. Aschools,andevenacountry self-described bleeding heart liberal, Farentholdclub. In 1961, PlazAmerica, later known as Sharp-stood by a boycott of imported lettuce in sup- stown Mall, would become the first indoor, air port of Texas farm workers; she supported theconditioned, shopping mall in Greater Houston.federal policy of public school bussing in pursuitAn aggressive power broker in Houston pol-of diversity and education equality following de- itics, Frank Sharp was used to getting his way segregation, and; she railed against the fact thatat city hall, at the county courthouse, and at the Texas, at the time, did not regulate public util- Texas Capitol. Sharp hatched a scheme to artifi-ity rates statewide. From the perspective of onecially inflate the value of stock in his insurance woman in a chamber with 149 men who were notcompany, National Bankers Life, by successfully used to, nor particularly fond of, her presence,pushing a bill through the Texas Legislature that Sissy Farenthold was witnessing one of the ugli- would favor the company financially. Sharp guar-est, and most ground-shaking political scandalsanteed the success of the bill by bribing a number in Texas history happening before her eyes. of high-ranking state officials with $600,000 in Whenever you travel to Houston, especiallyloans from Sharpstown State Bankmoney that from Corpus Christi, you have surely seen Sharp- was used by those officials to purchase shares stown, the exit and the old mall, plus a numberin National Bankers Life. Sharp and his cohorts of car dealerships, along the route that used toin state government sold their shares at a profit beknownasU.S.59,nowInterstate69.Thebefore the bill ever had a chance to become law, community north of the freeway has grown andalthough a Catholic Jesuit school in Houston lost changed over the past five decades or so, and isover $6 million.today home to one of the most vibrant and larg- Atthedawnofthe1971legislativeses-estVietnamese-Americancommunitiesinthesion, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commis-country. sion brought civil and criminal charges against Bankerandinsurancecompanyowner,Sharp, the former attorney general of Texas, the Frank Sharp, donated a three-hundred-foot wideformer insurance commissioner and a handful strip of land for the construction of the South- of others. Alleged conspirators and enablers of TheCooasastalBend.c 45TheC talBend.comom THE COASTAL BEND MATHE CGAOZINEASTAL BEND MAFEATURED: The StGAZINEories that MattMarch/April 2018ered 75'