Jim Reese (Texas politician)

James O’Quinn Reese, known as Jim Reese (born December 14, 1929), is a businessman who served from 1968 to 1974 as the mayor of Odessa, Texas. From the 1960s to the 1980s, he was a leading figure in the development of the two-party system in West Texas. In 1978, he lost the Republican nomination to future U.S. President George W. Bush for Texas's 19th congressional district seat in the United States House of Representatives.

Broadcasting career

Reese’s broadcasting career began at KCBD-TV, Channel 11, the NBC affiliate in Lubbock. He then moved go KFDA-TV, the CBS affiliate in Amarillo, followed by KMID-TV, at the time a combined NBC/ABC outlet in Midland, Texas, wiith studios at the former Air Force building at Midland Airfield. Reese then relocated to Odessa, where he was an anchorman from 1956 to 1964 at KOSA-TV, Channel 7, the CBS station which after a change in ownership relocated its facilities in 2000 to Music City Mall.

Reese was later hired by KMID, where he was not only the sports anchor but did commercials. While at the Odessa Country Club, Reese met the assistant manager, Lew Allen, a musician. The two co-produced a half-hour mid-afternoon daily variety show on KMID which aired after the popular reality show Queen for a Day, hosted by Jack Bailey.

In 1955, Reese left KMID and accepted a longstanding offer in the summer of 1956 from program director and first KOSA station manager, John Joseph Vacca, Jr. KOSA went on the air in Odessa on January 1, 1956.

Civic leadership

Reese left the station after eight years because of his growing involvement with the Junior Chamber of Commerce, a civic organization founded in 1920 in St. Louis, Missouri. After undergoing six months of training, he became a stockbroker and joined the Eppler, Guerin & Turner brokerage firm in Odessa, renamed in 1994 Principal Financial Securities, Inc. He worked to bring the former Harlem Magicians basketball entertainment team to Odessa, an event which filled the Broncos Field House on Whitaker Street. Reese approached the Ector County Commission and proposed the air conditioning of the Coliseum.

In 1964, Reese ran unsuccessfully for state Jaycees president at the state convention in Fort Worth but instead was named first vice president. The next year he became state president by acclamation, resigning from KOSA.

In 1965–1966, before Reese reached the maximum departure age of thirty-six from the Jaycees, he was named vice president of the national organization at the convention in Buffalo, New York. Reese served as president of the Odessa Young Men’s Christian Association. At the time Odessa was the largest U.S. city not to have a YMCA. So a capital campaign was launched to build the modern facility on University Boulevard. The land was donated by the firm Houston Endowment of Houston, Texas.

Mayoral years

In 1968, Reese entered the Odessa mayoral race against one opponent, the Odessa mayor pro-tempore, E. P. "Jack" Rainosek (1906–1984), who later relocated to Cross Plains in Callahan County near Abilene, Texas. The nonpartisan election was held on April 2, 1968; Reese defeated Rainosek, 7,179 (86 percent) to 1,139 (14 percent). Under his leadership, Odessa began the use of dumpsters placed in an alley or along the streets with mechanically embellished trucks lifting the plastic waste receptacle with a forklift and depositing the garbage and trash into the truck bed, usually equipped with a compactor. Odessa created an industrial development district in the southwestern part of the city. On April 1, 1970, Mayor Reese secured for Odessa the first 9-1-1 telephone service in Texas, established through Southwestern Bell.

Reese faced minimal opposition for his second and third terms in 1970 and 1972. He did not seek a fourth two-year term in 1974 and was succeeded in the position by city council member Daniel B. Hemphill (1918–2003), a partisan Democrat who prevailed in a low-turnout nonpartisan municipal election held on April 2, 1974, with 2,970 votes (75 percent) over three opponents.

Challenging George Mahon

Representative George Mahon, a native of the Mahon community near Homer in Claiborne Parish in north Louisiana, was the longtime powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, known for bringing public works projects to West Texas, including Interstate 27, which links Amarillo with Lubbock. He had begun his career as a prosecutor in Colorado City in Mitchell County before relocating with his wife, Helen, to Lubbock, the largest city in the 19th District. John M. Gizzi of the national conservative weekly Human Events later described Reese’s challenge of Mahon as "Herculean" because the House Appropriations Committee chairman had not even faced a nominal Republican opponent since 1964, when he defeated Joe B. Phillips (1925-2012) of Lubbock, 87,555 to 25,243. Phillips was later a leader in the right-to-life movement.

Reese greatly expanded the showing by Joe Phillips a dozen years earlier and finished with 72,991 votes (45.4 percent); Mahon prevailed with 87,908 ballots (54.6 percent) in a nationally Democratic year.

Challenging George W. Bush

After Mahon announced his retirement, 31-year-old George Walker Bush quickly launched his own campaign for the seat. Like his father, the younger Bush drew the support of the Republican “establishment,” with Reese in the role of the “populist” dissenter. In the May 6 primary, Bush led 6,296 (47.5 percent) to Reese’s 5,498 (41.5 percent) and Hickox’s 1,455 (11 percent). Therefore, under Texas law, a runoff election was held on June 3 to nominate a majority winner. Bush then prevailed in the low turnout contest, 6,787 (55.9 percent) to Reese’s 5,350 (44.1 percent).

In his presidential memoirs, Decision Points (2010), George W. Bush refers to Reese as a "smooth-talking former sportscaster and mayor of Odessa . . . who felt entitled to the nomination in 1978. He was very unhappy that I had outpolled him in the first round of the primary. Reese had a hard edge, and so did some of his supporters. Their strategy was to paint me as a liberal, out-of-touch carpetbagger. They threw out all kinds of conspiracy theories."

Reagan and his political team had a rule against making endorsements in contested primaries except for incumbents. Reagan broke his own policy to assist Reese. In the spring of 1978, Reagan came to Abilene, Texas, at the time outside the 19th congressional district, to deliver a speech.

1982 state Senate race

In 1982, the District 28 seat was held by the conservative Democrat E L Short. Short sought a second senatorial term in 1982 but was narrowly unseated in the party primary by John T. Montford, the Lubbock County district attorney. Short won twelve of the fourteen counties in the primary, but Montford’s margin in Lubbock County propelled him to the nomination. Reese defeated a primary opponent but nevertheless lost to Montford in the general election.

Reese in retrospect

In 1981, Reese became a silent partner in Penatek, an iron and steel foundry. He became the company president in 1987, sold the company in 1997, and re-purchased it in 2004. He is a former president of the Texas Association of Mayors, Councils, and Commissioners and the chairman of the Odessa College Development Commission. He is a former president of the Republican Men’s Club of Ector County.