Preston Smith, 91, ex-governor of Texas

By Associated Press, 10/20/2003

LUBBOCK, Texas -- Preston E. Smith, the former Texas governor known for his assortment of polka-dot ties and his old-fashioned electioneering, died Saturday of pneumonia. He was 91.

Mr. Smith, a Democrat who was elected governor in 1968 and served two terms, relied on personal contacts, face-to-face campaigning, and direct mail.

The governor focused on education and criminal justice, pushing for the first comprehensive drug abuse program in Texas. He was also instrumental in passing the state's first minimum wage law.

"We didn't have any money," Mr. Smith said in a 2002 interview. "People. That's how we got elected."

Mr. Smith grew up one of 13 children of a poor tenant farmer.

"We didn't know any different," he said. "We were just as happy as we could be."

He worked his way through high school and college at Texas Tech during the Depression. He ran a gasoline service station in Lubbock before he opened a movie theater near the university, which by 1944 had become part of a successful chain of six in town.

When he ran for lieutenant governor the first time, then-Lieutenant Governor Price Daniel encouraged him to do something to be a little different, Mr. Smith said. He was staying at a downtown Dallas hotel and saw a sale on ties across the street. He bought three black-and-white polka-dot ties for $1. The design became his trademark.

He estimated he had at one time as many as 2,500 such ties, as people sent them to him from all over the world.

Mr. Smith's second term as governor was dominated by fallout from an influence-peddling scandal that resulted in the defeat of many long-term officeholders in the 1972 election.