(1) Considered a moderate member of the Democratic Party, Farabee worked to secure passage of more than two hundred bills during his thirteen years in the Texas State Senate, including a revision of the mental health code, particularly important to his first wife, Helen J. Farabee.
Austin is the capital of the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. It is the 11th-most populous city in the United States and the 4th-most populous city in Texas. It is also the fastest growing large city in the United States, the second most populous state capital after Phoenix, Arizona, and the southernmost state capital in the contiguous United States. As of the U.S. Census Bureau's July 1, 2017 estimate, Austin had a population of 950,715 up from 790,491 at the 2010 census. The city is the cultural and economic center of the Austin–Round Rock metropolitan statistical area, which had an estimated population of 2,115,827 as of July 1, 2017. Located in Central Texas within the greater Texas Hill Country, it is home to numerous lakes, rivers, and waterways, including Lady Bird Lake and Lake Travis on the Colorado River, Barton Springs, McKinney Falls, and Lake Walter E. Long.
Texas is the second largest state in the United States by both area and population. Geographically located in the South Central region of the country, Texas shares borders with the U.S. states of Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the west, and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the southwest, while the Gulf of Mexico is to the southeast.
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party.
Early years, education, and family
Farabee was born on November 22, 1932,[1] six weeks prematurely in Wichita Falls, the seat of Wichita County in north Texas. His attending physician did not expect him to live through the night of his birth, but he survived.[3] Well into the Great Depression years, he attended Alamo Elementary School and Zundelowitz Junior High School. He graduated in 1952 from Wichita Falls High School. During his junior and senior years of high school, he attended a Young Men's Christian Association youth program called Hi-Y at the Texas state capitol in Austin. The organization trained young people in various aspects of government service. Farabee hence developed an understanding of public affairs more than three decades before he entered the Texas Senate to succeed newly elected U.S. RepresentativeJack English Hightower of Vernon, the seat of Wilbarger County west of Wichita Falls.[4] Farabee has been a high achiever throughout his life but confesses that he failed to make the coveted promotion to Eagle Scout in his youth.[5]
Wichita County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, its population was 131,500. The county seat is Wichita Falls. The county was created in 1858 and organized in 1882.
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place mostly during the 1930s, beginning in the United States. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations; in most countries it started in 1929 and lasted until the late-1930s. It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the Great Depression is commonly used as an example of how intensely the world's economy can decline.
Wichita Falls High School (WFHS) is a public school in Wichita Falls, Texas, United States. It is part of the Wichita Falls Independent School District (WFISD) and is one of the district's three high schools.
Read Granberry, parliamentarian of the Texas House of Representatives, heard Farabee at a youth speech event and urged him to attend the University of Texas at Austin, where he procured Bachelor of Business Administration and Juris Doctor degree from the University of Texas Law School. He managed to procure a small scholarship and lived in a $10-per-month barracks dormitory. He became acquainted with the then Texas Secretary of StateJohn Ben Shepperd and worked thereafter for him when Shepperd served as the state attorney general from 1953 to 1957.[4] Farabee was the UT freshmen class president and later the student body president. He visited the University of Wisconsin at Madison as part of his student political activities. There he met his future first wife, the former Helen Jane Rehbein (1934–1988),[6] who became the mother of his two sons. Helen was the student body president at UW, a rare accomplishment for a young woman at that time. The couple married in 1958 after their graduations and following Farabee's service in the United States Air Force.[6]
The University of Texas at Austin 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.
The Bachelor of Business Administration is a bachelor's degree in commerce and business administration.
The Juris Doctor degree, also known as the Doctor of Jurisprudence degree and sometimes erroneously rendered as "Juris Doctorate," is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The Juris Doctor is earned by completing law school in Australia, Canada, the United States, and some other common law countries. It has the academic standing of a professional doctorate in the United States, a master's degree in Australia, and a second-entry, baccalaureate degree in Canada.
State Senate service
After thirteen years in private law practice in Wichita Falls, Farabee entered the 1974 Democratic primary for the state Senate. He defeated veteran State Representative Charles Finnell of Holliday in Archer County.[7]
Holliday is a city in Archer County, Texas, United States. It is part of the Wichita Falls, Texas Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,758 at the 2010 census. The town is named for nearby Holliday Creek, named in turn for John Holliday, a member of a Republic of Texas military expedition.
Archer County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, its population was 9,054. Its county seat is Archer City. The county was formed in 1858 and later organized in 1880. It is named for Branch Tanner Archer, a commissioner for the Republic of Texas.
The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they compose the legislature of the United States.
The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major political parties in the United States; the other is its historic rival, the Democratic Party.
Robert Dale Price, known as Bob Price, was a Republican U.S. representative from Pampa, Texas, who served from 1967 to 1975. He was subsequently from 1978 to 1981 a member of the Texas State Senate.
Denton County is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, its population was 662,614, making it the ninth-most populous county in Texas. The county seat is Denton. The 2017 Census Bureau estimate for Denton County's population is 836,210. The county, which was named for John B. Denton, was established in 1846.
Baylor County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, its population was 3,726. Its county seat is Seymour. The county was created in 1858 and later organized in 1879. It is named for Henry Weidner Baylor, a surgeon in the Texas Rangers during the Mexican–American War.
Callahan County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, the population was 13,544. Its county seat is Baird. The county was founded in 1858 and later organized in 1877. It is named for James Hughes Callahan, an American soldier in the Texas Revolution.
Senator Farabee worked for passage of the Texas Natural Death Act, a law which "provides patients the opportunity to make their own end of life decisions... I got interested in medical ethics. There was a lot of technology that would keep people alive, and Texas didn't have a legal definition of death... There needed to be a statutory definition. I carried that legislation."[4] He also supported bills to encourage organ donations.[4]
Farabee sponsored a constitutional amendment to allow garnishment of wages for child support.[4] He secured passage of a bill allowing state agencies to maintain daycare facilities on the premises for the employees.[4] He worked for modernization of juvenile justice policies to guarantee due process and the prevention of young persons from being housed in adult facilities. He attempted to prevent outside groups from dominating state textbook selection through the 15-member elected Texas State Board of Education. He opposed the state's blue laws and advocated industrial development and urban renewal. He sponsored legislation referring to HIV and AIDS cases. He supported the first limitation in Texas on medical malpractice. He worked to accelerate the time that a criminal case reaches the appeal stage.[4]
He failed in his effort to change the partisan election method of choosing Texas appellate court judges, having favored some kind of merit-based system. Farabee said that Texas attorneys often raise money for judicial candidates and can later appear in court before those judges, who may feel beholden to their previous benefactors and thus fail to show impartiality on the bench.[4]
Texas Monthly magazine for five consecutive sessions dubbed Farabee one of the state's best legislators.[8]
Later years
In the spring of 1988, Farabee, already the Democratic nominee for another Senate term in the upcoming November general election, unexpectedly resigned his seat after thirteen years to accept a position as general counsel for his alma mater, the University of Texas System. The new position required relocation from Wichita Falls to Austin. He represented nine academic institutions, four medical schools, two hospitals, and the regents and administration.[4]
Helen Farabee, a prominent civic leader in her own right, was particularly involved with mental health issues, and facilities, which first opened in 1969 in Wichita Falls and Graham, Texas, bear her name.[9] Senator Farabee worked to update the mental health code in line with much of his wife's efforts in the field. Mrs. Farabee died of lung cancer in Austin in July 1988, shortly after her husband had become the UT counsel. Before the decline in her health, she had briefly attempted to run in a special election to succeed her husband in 1988, but Democratic Party leaders anointed another candidate for the slot, state Representative Steve Carriker of Roby in Fisher County, who went on to win the fall campaign against the Republican businessman, Bobby Albert of Wichita Falls.[7] Mrs. Farabee died not long after her attempt to run for the state Senate.
In 1991, Ray Farabee remarried after more than two years as a widower. His second wife is the former Mary Margaret Albright (born 1939), a divorcee with two children, David (1964–1996) and Patricia (born 1968). She worked with Texas First Lady Laura Bush to found the Texas Book Festival. The first event opened a month after her son David overdosed.[10] In 2000, Farabee retired from UT but remained for two years as executive assistant to the chancellor. He also served on the state board of Blue Cross Blue Shield. In retirement, he is a volunteer for public television and sits on the board of the interest group, the Equal Justice Foundation, which funds up to $20 million annually in legal services for low-income Texans. Farabee and his wife also travel extensively. In 2006, while in New Zealand they came across a former classmate from Wichita Falls Senior High School and a state representative from Midland, Frank Kell Cahoon.[4] In the 1965 legislative session, Cahoon was the only Republican in the 150-member Texas House.[11]
In 2009, Ray and Mary Margaret Farabee were presented by former CBSanchormanDan Rather the annual Clara Driscoll Arts Award, named for the Austin artist Clara Driscoll[14] Farabee published his autobiography in 2009, basing the title on his premature birth: Ray Farabee: Making It Through the Night and Beyond: A Memoir.[3]
On their deaths, Ray and Mary Margaret Farabee will be interred at the historic Texas State Cemetery in Austin. Any Texas legislator and spouse qualify for burial there.[15] On November 20, 2014, Farabee died at his home in Austin, two days before his 82nd birthday.[16]
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William Pettus Hobby Jr. is an American Democratic politician who served a record eighteen years as the 37th Lieutenant Governor of Texas. He held that office from January 16, 1973 to January 15, 1991 for five unprecedented terms, he was the last lieutenant governor to serve a two-year term and the first elected to a four-year term when the Texas Constitution was amended to lengthen terms for statewide elected officeholders to four years beginning with the 1974 elections. The principal duty of the Texas lieutenant governor is to preside over the Texas State Senate.
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Will Reid Wilson, Sr., was a prominent Democratic politician in his native Texas best known for his service as attorney general of Texas from 1957-1963. In 1968, he joined the Republican Party to support the election of Richard M. Nixon as U.S. President. Nixon thereafter named Wilson an assistant U.S. attorney general under John Newton Mitchell. Wilson left the federal post a year before the Watergate burglary began to shatter the Nixon administration.
Paul Walter Eggers was an Indiana native who was the Republican nominee for governor of Texas in both 1968 and 1970, when the state still had two-year gubernatorial terms. Eggers' races for governor were his only attempts at elected office. At the time, he was a largely unknown tax attorney in Wichita Falls in North Texas.
David Lee Farabee is a Democratic former member of the Texas House of Representatives from District 69. His father, Ray Farabee, was an attorney in Austin, Texas, and a Democratic former state senator for the Wichita Falls and West Texas area, having served from 1975 to 1988.
Helen Jane Rehbein Farabee, known as Helen J. Farabee, was a 20th-century advocate of improved mental health and human services in Texas. She was the first wife of State Senator Ray Farabee, an attorney originally from Wichita Falls. Their younger son, David Lee Farabee, a Wichita Falls businessman, is a former member of the Texas House of Representatives. An older son, Steven R. Farabee, resides in Austin.
John Nesbett Leedom, Sr., was an engineer, businessman, and lobbyist from Dallas, Texas, who served from 1981 to 1996 as a Republican member of the Texas State Senate from District 16. He is best known as the author of the law which established the Texas "Rainy Day Fund." From 1989 to 1991, he was one of several members designated as Senate President Pro Tempore in the 71st legislative session.
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Orville Bullington was an attorney and businessman in Wichita Falls, Texas, who was the unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial nominee in 1932 against former Governor Miriam Wallace "Ma" Ferguson, who won the second of her two terms in the office.
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Kent Allen Caperton is an attorney and political consultant in Austin, Texas, who served from 1981 to 1991 as a Democratic member of the Texas State Senate from District 5, encompassing twenty-one counties from The Woodlands, to Crockett, and Caperton's then city of residence, Bryan, Texas.
Franklin Marian "Frank" Kell, along with his brother-in-law Joseph A. Kemp, was one of the two principal entrepreneurs in the early development of Wichita Falls, Texas.
Charles J. Schwertner is an American orthopedic surgeon and politician from Georgetown, Texas. He has served in the Texas State Senate since November 6, 2012, after having represented House District 20 in the Texas House of Representatives for a single term beginning in January 2011. He is a Republican.
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