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John Ben Shepperd (October 19, 1915—March 8, 1990)^[1] was a reform-oriented Texas Democratic politician who, as his state’s attorney general from 1953-1957, fought corruption in high places. A versatile lawyer and businessman, Shepperd maintained residences in his native Gladewater in East Texas and also in Odessa, the center of Permian Basin petroleum in West Texas.

In 1950, Governor Allan Shivers named Shepperd as secretary of state, an appointed position in Texas. In 1952, Sheppard was elected to the first of two then two-year terms as attorney general. He did not seek further office in 1956 or thereafter. As attorney general, Shepperd spearheaded an investigaton of longstanding corruption in Duval County, a political machine province of George Parr (also known as “The Duke of Duval”), located in the barren dusty area east of Laredo in south Texas. Shepperd’s work produced some three hundred indictments of county and school officials. After his tenure as attorney general ended, Shepperd moved to Odessa, where he was active not only in law but also in insurance, banking, petrochemicals, public relations, and historical preservation. He was a political adviser and personal friend of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson. In the middle 1960s, Shepperd was named trustee for the acquisition of land for the creation of Lyndon B. Johnson State Park and Historic Site along the Pedernales River in Gillespie County in the Texas Hill Country.^[2]

Early years

Shepperd was born in Gladewater, a small town in Gregg County near the more populous county seat of Longview to Alfred Fulton Shepperd and the former Berthal Phillips. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1938 and an LL.B. in 1941. He was made a partner in the law firm of Kenley, Sharp, and Shepperd in Longview. During World War II, Shepperd served for two years in the United States Army. In 1946, on his release from the military, Shepperd was appointed to complete the term of his father, who had resigned, on the Gregg County Commissioners Court. In Texas, such appointments are made by the county judge.^[3]

Shepperd rose to the top ranks of the Jaycess, or Junior Chamber of Commerce, having served as both state and national presidents of the organization. On three occasions, he was named one of the “Outstanding Young Men in Texas”. In 1949, he was named among the “Outstanding Young Men in America”, along with future U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, Jr., of Michigan and later U.S. Senator Charles H. Percy of Illinois. Shepperd was allied with Governor Shivers and the conservative wing of his state’s then dominant Democratic Party which clashed with the liberal wing headed by later U.S. Senator Ralph W. Yarborough of Austin. In 1949, he served briefly under appointment from Governor Shivers on the elected Texas State Board of Education. As secretary of state, Shepperd organized an elections law task force and promoted measures to insure economy in government.^[3]

As attorney general

As his state’s chief legal officer, Shepperd struggled with the ramifications from the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation case. He was involved in the investigation of communist infiltration of organized labor and in jurisdictional disputes between state and national governments. In addition to his work against the Parr regime in Duval County, which had rallied on behalf of Lyndon Johnson in the 1948 U.S. Senate primary runoff, Shepperd exposed a scheme to defraud his state of tobacco taxes. He also defended Texas from questions raised by other states regarding the 1953 congressional act, signed by Texas-born President Dwight D. Eisenhower. which allocated revenues from the tidelands in Texas up to a ten-mile limit to state ownership. In 1956, Shepperd was elected by his forty-seven peers as president of the National Association of Attorneys General.^[3]During his tenure of office, Shepperd hired Ray Farabee, a UT law student in the attorney general's office; Farabee was later a state senator, Senate president pro tempore, and the general counsel for the University of Texas at Austin.^[4]

In 1954, the Veterans' Land Board scandal shook the Shivers administration when it was revealed that certain corrupt land speculators tried to enrich themselves at public expense. Bascom Giles, the elected state land commissioner, was indicted, convicted, and served a prison term for his role in the scandal. Neither Shivers nor Shepperd was implicated in the wrongdoing, but both as ex officio members of the land board had missed meetings where the abuses had occurred. Another scandal involved insurance companies accused of fraudulent activities. Shepperd had been expected to seek the gubernatorial nomination in 1956, but he left elected politics to become general counsel of Odessa Natural Gasoline Company, later El Paso Products Company, and to establish a new law firm there called Shepperd and Rodman.^[3] The governorship went to U.S. Senator Price Daniel, who secured a narrow runoff victory over Ralph Yarborough. Yarborough in 1958 was elected to the first of two terms in the Senate, holding the seat that Daniel had vacated to become governor. Ironically, Daniel had also been Shepperd's predecessor as attorney general.

Civic leadership

From 1963-1967, Shepperd headed the renamed Texas Historical Commission and supported the placement of more markers along highways to promote historical preservation. He served too on the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. He pushed for the establishment in the late 1960s of the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. In 1989, a thoroughfare near the UTPB campus was named the John Ben Shepperd Parkway. One of his later accomplishments was the creation of the John Ben Shepperd Leadership Forum at UTPB, which assists students in developing the techniques to become effective leaders.^[3]

He was also involved in the planning and expansion of the Presidential Museum and Leadership Library, an institution on the UTPB campus dedicated to the office of the presidency, rather than individual chief executives. The "Library of Presidents" at the museum is named in Shepperd’s honor.^[5] In 1984, Shepperd was named “Texan of the Year” by the state Chamber of Commerce, and three years later, the West Texas chamber named him “Outstanding West Texan”.^[3]

On October 6, 1938, Shepperd married the former Mamie Strieber of Yorktown in DeWitt County in southeastern Texas. The couple had two sons and twin daughters, including John Ben, Jr. (November 13, 1942—June 17, 1970).^[1] Shepperd was a member of the Christian Church. He died of cancer at the age of seventy-four at his ranch in Gladewater. Shepperd and his son are interred at his private family cemetery near Gladewater.^[6] In 1992, the Texas Historical Commission placed historical markers on Shepperd's gravesite and also in Gladewater. Another historical marker was erected in his honor in Odessa in 1991.^[7]

References