ftiiimt Community
Page 1 B/The Battalion/Monday,
Back-to-School Edition
Battalion/Monday, August 31,1987
aperton parlays life into repeating successes
By Robert Morris
Staff Writer
Wit’s a Wonderful Late Part II”
would be the title, Dustin Hoffman
would play the lead and most cer
tainly the story would have some
sugar-coated happy ending. Such
would be the portrayal of Sen. Kent
B)erton’s Midas-ized life.
!y any set of guidelines, Caper-
ton. D-Bryan, is for all intents and
put poses the very model of success.
Tdie boyish looks and mild-man-
n«ed sense of humor belie the in
tensity and confidence that this re
spected attorney/influential
graator/devoted family man pos-
seijes.
fact, getting a handle on exac-
■ what to make of Caperton is
pmbably a difficult task for the man
biliself.
■Born and raised in the giant met
ropolitan area of Caldwell,” Caper-
tonj was much influenced by his
childhood environment.
His father, Judge W.A. Caperton,
was a community leader from whom
the younger Caperton gleaned a
^Bng work ethic and an inclination
folpublic service.
Mlaperton’s own road to success
pad its beginnings on Highway 6.
Ipon entering Texas A&M in 1967,
% i* "
Sen. Kent Caperton, D-Bryan
his future became a series of goals
waiting to be met.
While at A&M he was elected stu
dent body president, a position that
gave him a working relationship
with then LTesident Jack Williams.
Photo by Tracy Staton
Following his graduation with a fi
nance degree, this relationship led to
a two-year student relations job un
der Williams, where Caperton was
afforded the opportunity of seeing
the “nuances of politics” first-hand.
Caperton then started law school
at the University of Texas — an ex
perience he termed “culture shock.”
It was back to Bryan after law
school, and Caperton immediately
opened his own firm.
“I always envisioned that I would
settle here at least for part of my li
fe,” he says. “I liked the community
and I felt I had the opportunity to
start a good law practice here and I
did so.”
It’s Caperton’s “I came, I saw, I
conquered” attitude that makes his
life seem like a prepared script wait
ing to be matter-of-factly acted out.
His first involvement in local gov
ernment came in 1977 when he was
named municipal judge. And al
though he was involved in several
campaigns, such as Lloyd Bentsen’s
senatorial run against Phil Gramm
in 1976, his personal political life
was fairly limited.
However, Caperton felt the Texas
Senate could use some help and he
set out to get there.
So, in 1980, against the advice of
friends, Caperton ran against long
time incumbent Bill Moore. He won
the Senate seat, was eventually
named best freshman legislator by
Texas Monthly magazine and in his
spare time — he got married.
Caperton’s summation of his vic
tory: “There were probably three or
four of us who weren’t surprised.
“I was not supposed to win that
race. I ran against an incumbent
who’d been in office longer than I’d
been alive.” Given Caperton’s his
tory, Sen. Moore might have had a
better chance tackling a hurricane.
And even though Caperton says
he probably would have run again if
he had lost, the confident tone of his
voice makes it clear that was never a
consideration.
Caperton’s accomplishments in
the Senate are numerous. As one of
the leading members of a successful
push to reform Texas’ open meet
ings law, he was effectively able to
bring local government’s policies
into public view.
“I believe that government should
be conducted in the open,” he says.
“I believe that we need to do things
above board and prevail because
we’re right. I don’t think Texas
A&M should get funding simply be
cause I’m a powerful senator.
“Instead, I think we should get
funding because we have the best
programs and because we are a flag
ship university. I believe that we can
justify the funds we seek because we
do the best.”
Caperton was also instrumental in
tort reforms passed by the last Legis
lature and spent much of the special
session trying to preserve funding
for higher education, a priority he
lists high on his agenda.
“I intend to see that the commit
tment to public education and
higher educaton is not compromi
sed,” he says.
Despite all his success in the Sen
ate, Caperton isn’t sure which direc
tion his career will take following the
completion of his current term.
“At the end of this term I will be
40 years old,” he says. “I will have
devoted 10 years of life to public
service and I must confess that the
option of being a full-time lawyer is
not an unattractive one.
“At the same time there will be a
large turnover in 1990 and I don’t
deny that the office of attorney gen
eral would be a great honor and
challenge, as would serving as lieu
tenant governor of this state.”
While Caperton makes veiled
hints at his intentions, he vacillates
on committing to any certain path.
“I’ve never had a grand scheme,”
he says. “I prefer to take it one day at
a time.”
One successful day at a time.
batho/ic church responsible for much of Texas’ heritage
DALLAS (AP) — Much of Texas’ history
ind heritage is rooted in the Catholic
h||rch of Spain, and its inlluence continues
)day, centuries later.
ghe Roman Catholic Church was the
rst Christian denomination in Texas, and
:t was a Catholic who was the first European
Hsit what would become Texas four cen-
:uries later.
joday the Texas Catholic Conference es-
imates there are 3.5 million to 4 million
tholics in the state, most of them His-
nk.
In 1528, Cabeza de Vaca, a Spaniard, was
ipwrecked on the Texas coast and lived
ng the Indians for several years before
ireturning to Mexico. A decade later, Span-
h conquistadors led by DeSoto and Coro-
and accompanied by missionary
priests explored Central Texas and the
Panhandle.
The missionaries built frontier churches
around which the Indians would be gath
ered, converted and civilized.
The Rev. James Moore, a Catholic histo
rian, says the Indians often ended up as
little more than slaves. That prompted a pa
pal edict condemning the harsh practices
and giving the Indians equal status with Eu
ropeans as “creatures of God.”
An uprising by the Pueblo Indians in
northern New Mexico in the 1690s forced
the Spanish to abandon their 80-year-old
settlements around Santa Fe and fall back
to El Paso, where they established several
missions. The Ysleta mission there is gener
ally recognized as the oldest continuously
habitated site in Texas, says Gilbert Cruz, a
mission historian.
Over the next century, numerous mis
sions were established in South Texas, and
they served as hubs of the villages and
towns that grew up around them — like San
Antonio, Victoria, Goliad and Refugio.
And the people who lived there were al
most all Catholic, Cruz says.
Anglo immigrants from the United
States began arriving in large numbers dur
ing the 1820s, and they found one of the re
quirements for settling in Texas was to con
vert to the state religion — Catholicism.
Eight Catholics signed the Texas Decla
ration of Independence, and about 50 were
among the defenders of the Alamo.
Although Texas was free of Mexican
rule, its Catholics were part of the Diocese
of Monterrey until 1839, when all of Texas
except El Paso was detached and declared a
prefecture apostolic in the first step toward
becoming a diocese, Moore says.
The Catholic heritage broadened with
the influx of Czech, German, Polish and
Belgian immigrants who arrived in the
1850s and 1860s, building many Catholic
communities that endure today. Panna
Maria, established in 1354 south of San An
tonio, is built around the oldest Polish Cath
olic church in the United States.
In 1874, the diocese of San Antonio was
formed as the second in Texas, and in 1891
the Diocese of Dallas was created. The 20th
Century has seen 11 more Texas dioceses
designated, four in the 1960s and three in
the 1980s.
Twenty-eight Catholic hospitals in Texas
now treat more than a million patients an
nually. Texas Catholic schools enroll hun
dreds of thousands of students in kinder
garten through college, second only to the
state’s public schools in numbers of stu
dents.
Formed in the early 1960s, the Texas
Catholic Conference, a statewide organiza
tion of bishops, clergy and church workers,
presents a unified church voice on a variety
ol internal, ecumenical and secular matters.
The conference has successfully lobbied
state government on a variety of issues, in
cluding minimum wage, abortion and paro
chial school accreditation, said Callan Gra
ham, its first director.
“I don’t think any other state has done it
quite to the extent we have,” says Graham, a
Junction lawyer and rancher who was a
state representative and later a lobbyist.
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