Early years and education
Formby was born in the same house as his father, Marshall Formby, Sr. (1877–1957), [2] a farmer and school board member, in the Bethel community near rural Como in Hopkins County in East Texas. His mother was the former Rosa Mae Freeman (1882–1971) [1] [3]
Como is a city in Hopkins County, Texas, United States. The population was 702 at the 2010 census.
Hopkins County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, its population was 35,161. Its county seat is Sulphur Springs. Hopkins County is named for the family of David Hopkins, an early settler in the area.
East Texas is a distinct cultural, geographic and ecological area in the U.S. state of Texas.
When Marshall was five years of age, the family relocated to McAdoo in Dickens County in West Texas. As a child, he was nicknamed "Potts" because he frequently played in an iron wash pot. Young Formby attended public schools in McAdoo through his junior year of high school. In 1928, he received his diploma from Spur High School in Spur, also in Dickens County. [4]
McAdoo is an unincorporated community in northwestern Dickens County, Texas, United States.
Dickens County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, its population was 2,444. Its county seat is Dickens. The county was created in 1876 and later organized in 1891. Both the county and its seat are named for J. Dickens, who died at the Battle of the Alamo.
Spur Independent School District is a public school district based in Spur, Texas (USA).
In 1932, Formby received a Bachelor of Arts in government from Texas Tech University in Lubbock. While in college, he worked as a regional correspondent for several newspapers and was a student editor of The Daily Toreador After college, he briefly owned and operated a drug store in McAdoo. In 1936, worked briefly as a police reporter for the Tribune in Miami, Florida. [4]
Texas Tech University, often referred to as Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU, is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on February 10, 1923, and originally known as Texas Technological College, it is the main institution of the four-institution Texas Tech University System. The university's student enrollment is the seventh-largest in Texas as of the Fall 2017 semester. The university shares its campus with Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, making it the only campus in Texas to house an undergraduate university, law school, and medical school.
The Daily Toreador, also known as The DT, is the student newspaper of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. The newspaper was first published in 1925 as The Toreador and later changed its name to The University Daily before arriving at the current name in 2005. All content for The DT is produced by a staff around 40 members including editors, reporters and photographers. The DT has received numerous regional and national awards, including two Columbia Scholastic Press Association Silver crown awards and two Associated Collegiate Press Pacemaker Award finalists. As well, the paper counts five Pulitzer Prizes and four winners amongst its former staff members.
Political career
Returning to McAdoo specifically to run for office, he became at twenty-five the youngest county judge in Texas. [4] He worked to reduce property taxes and brought Dickens County on a cash basis for the first time in some fifteen years. During his last year as county judge, Formby was president of the West Texas County Judges and Commissioners Association. [4] "He loved people and politics. He was for the little guy," said nephew and business partner Clint Formby.
A property tax or millage rate is an ad valorem tax on the value of a property, usually levied on real estate. The tax is levied by the governing authority of the jurisdiction in which the property is located. This can be a national government, a federated state, a county or geographical region or a municipality. Multiple jurisdictions may tax the same property. This tax can be contrasted to a rent tax which is based on rental income or imputed rent, and a land value tax, which is a levy on the value of land, excluding the value of buildings and other improvements.
John Clinton Formby, known as Clint Formby, was a veteran radio broadcaster called the "Old Philosopher" based in the small city of Hereford, Texas, the seat of Deaf Smith County in the Texas Panhandle. His daily broadcast ran continuously on his KPAN AM and FM country-music station since October 10, 1955. Eventually reduced to five minutes in length, Formby's commentary was the oldest continuously running broadcast by a single host in US radio history.
In 1937, Judge Formby received a Master of Arts in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. While at UT, he was a correspondent covering the Texas State Legislature for the Amarillo Times in Amarillo. [5]
The University of Texas at Austin, or simply Texas, is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. The University of Texas was inducted into the Association of American Universities in 1929, becoming only the third university in the American South to be elected. The institution has the nation's eighth-largest single-campus enrollment, with over 50,000 undergraduate and graduate students and over 24,000 faculty and staff.
Amarillo is the 14th-most populous city in the state of Texas, United States. It is also the largest city in the Texas Panhandle, and the seat of Potter County. A portion of the city extends into Randall County. The estimated population was 199,826 as of 2017. The Amarillo metropolitan area has an estimated population of 276,020 in four counties as of 2017. The metro population is projected to surpass 310,000 in 2020.
Soon a state senator, his legislative service was interrupted by World War II, in which he served in Europe in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He was discharged as a captain. Formby married the former Sharleen Wells (born September 30, 1918), later Sharleen Rhoads of Midland after Formby's death. The couple, who met in Austin, had two children, Frances Formby Seales of Lubbock (born 1955) and David W. Formby (born 1957) of Plainview, and two grandchildren. A native of Barberton, Ohio, Sharleen graduated as an English major from a junior college. She married Formby on September 8, 1946, in Seale, Alabama. (Ironically, their daughter married a man named "Seales".) Sharleen taught at the Army War College in Washington, D.C., and later attended the University of Texas Graduate School, where she studied radio communication. In August 1947, the Formbys moved to Plainview. [6]
For a time he operated the weekly Aspermont Star in Aspermont in Stonewall County in West Texas and later the Plainview Tribune. [3] In the late 1940s, he pursued his Juris Doctor degree, which he received in 1951 from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. [7]
After his admission to the bar in 1952, Formby returned to Plainview to join the firm of LaFont and Tudor, founded by Judge Harold M. LaFont and later known as LaFont, Formby, Hamilton, LaFont, and Hamilton [3] In 1953, he was appointed to the Texas Highway Commission, since the Texas Transportation Commission, by Governor Allan Shivers. [4] From 1957 to 1959, he was chairman of the commission and worked particularly to bring highway improvements to West Texas. [8] During his time on the commission, he visited all but 3 of Texas's 254 counties. [3]
Clint Formby, a radio broadcaster from Hereford and a cousin of Senator Robert Duncan, described his uncle Marshall as a person who "swam upstream . . . and had his mind set on what he wanted to do." Duncan's mother was Formby's sister, the former Mae Robena Formby (1921–2009), who was named by Marshall Formby and his brother, John C. Formby (1902–1989), Clint's father. [9] Clint Formby's wife, the former Margaret Clark, was the founder of the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, which began in Hereford and was subsequently relocated to Fort Worth. [10]
He owned or co-owned radio stations KPAN-AM&FM in Hereford, KFLD in Floydada, KTVE in Tulia, KSML in Seminole, KACT (AM) in Andrews, and KLVT in Levelland in Hockley County. [7] KPAN had first been considered for establishment in Canyon in Randall County south of Amarillo. It bills itself as "the only radio station in the world that gives a hoot about Hereford, Texas". By the middle 1950s, Clint Formby had become a partner in the station, and later the sole owner of KPAN and other outlets. Clint Formby was known for his "Old Philosopher" program (the longest running radio program hosted by a single individual in radio history, 1955–2011). Clint Formby's son, Larry "Chip" Formby (born 1953) still works at the station, along with Clint's grandsons, Jonathan and Lane Formby. [11]
From 1967 to 1971, he was a member of the Texas Tech regents under appointment of Governor John B. Connally, Jr. In 1962, Formby had been among the intraparty rivals defeated by Connally for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Time termed Formby "a conservative" in the primary contest but did not elaborate on what were his slim chances of winning the nomination. The other contestants were sitting Governor Marion Price Daniel, Sr., who sought an unprecedented fourth two-year term; Don Yarborough, a liberal lawyer and supporter of organized labor from Houston; former Attorney General Will Wilson, later a Republican convert, and retired Army General Edwin A. Walker, known for his staunch anti-communism. Connally went on to defeat the Republican Jack Cox, himself a former Democratic member of the Texas House of Representatives and an oil-equipment executive from Houston. [12] [13] John Connally, meanwhile, served three two-year terms as governor from 1963 to 1969, the only office to which he was ever elected.
Death and legacy
Formby died in Plainview, his principal city of residence since 1947. [7] He was a deacon of the First Baptist Church there, a member of the advisory council of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, and served on the public relations board of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. He was active in Rotary International and the Masonic lodge. He was the president of the Texas Tech Ex-Students Association. While serving on the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Formby made the recommendation to rename "Texas Technological College" as Texas Tech University. [14]
The Marshall Formby State Jail in Plainview is named in his honor. [15] Under a state Senate bill introduced by Formby's nephew Robert Duncan, Interstate 27 between its intersection with United States Highway 84 in Lubbock and its intersection with Interstate Highway 40 in Amarillo, was in 2005 named the Marshall Formby Memorial Highway. [16] There is also a Marshall Formby Foundation in Plainview. [17] In 1997, the auditorium at the Southwest Collection/Special Collections at Texas Tech, where Formby's papers are housed, was named in his honor. [14] In 2005, Formby was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Texas Broadcasters Association. [18]
The historical plaque at Formby's grave in McAdoo says that he "exemplifies the hard working, never say quit character of West Texans whom he so vividly portrayed in . . . These Are My People (1962). . .in politics, in business, and in community affairs. Formby represented the small town, rural character of Depression-era Texas west of the one hundredth meridian, a place where it seldom rained, the wind always seemed to blow, and settlers met obstacles head on with a gritty spirit and a will to succeed." [4]
