Albert Bel Fay
| Albert Bel Fay, Sr. | |
| In office 1960 – 1969 | |
United States Ambassador to
Trinidad and Tobago | |
| In office 1976 – 1977 | |
| Born | February 26, 1913 New Orleans, Louisiana, USA |
|---|---|
| Died | Feburary 29, 1992 (aged 79) Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico |
| Resting place | Glenwood Cemetery in Houston, Texas |
| Nationality | American |
| Spouse(s) | Homoiselle Randall Haden Fay (married 1935-1990, her death) |
| Children | Three children, including
Albert Fay, Jr. |
| Residence | Houston, Texas |
| Alma mater | San Jacinto High School (Houston) |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Religion | Presbyterian |
Military Service
| |
| Service/branch | United States Navy |
| Rank | Ensign; then First Lieutenant |
| Battles/wars | World War II, including service in Okinawa |
Albert Bel Fay, Sr. (February 26, 1913 – February 29, 1992), was an American businessman who served briefly as the United States Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago and was a Republican politician, whose involvement with the party began in 1952 with the first presidential campaign of Dwight D. Eisenhower.[1]
Contents
Background
Fay was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Charles Spencer Fay and the former Marie Dorothy Bel, hence his middle name.[2] His father was an officer of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The family relocated to Houston, where Fay graduated from San Jacinto High School. In 1935, he married the former Homoiselle Randall Haden (August 26, 1908 – February 6, 1990). They were the parents of three children, including Albert Bel Fay, Jr. (born 1945), of Houston, an active Republican donor.[1]
In 1936, Fay obtained a bachelor's degree in geology from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. At Yale, he was commissioned an ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve. During World War II, he commanded a submarine chaser in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Later in the war, he was advanced to the rank of first lieutenant while serving in Okinawa.[1]
Business interests
In 1938, Fay and his brother, Ernest Fay (1914–1986), founded Seabrook Shipyard, which built submarine chasers and rescue boats during World War II. After the war, Fay operated various businesses in Texas and Louisiana, including shipbuilding and his Bel Oil Corporation.[1]
By 1972, his petroleum interests included holdings in several states as well as Canada and New Zealand. He also had real estate interests in Nicaragua and the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean Sea. At the time of his death, his business interests had diversified to include ranching, timber, marinas, and banking.[1]
Republican national committeeman, 1960 to 1969
In 1952, Fay began precinct level work for the Republican Party of Texas. He supported Eisenhower,[1] a native Texan, having been born in Denison in 1890. Eisenhower was only the second GOP nominee since Reconstruction to have won the electoral votes of Texas.
By 1960, Fay had become Republican national committeeman and an automatic member of the Republican National Committee. At the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco, California, Fay served on the Credentials Committee.[3] In 1969, Fay lost his national committeeman's position about the time that the attorney William Merritt Steger (1920-2004) was elected state party chairman to succeed Peter O'Donnell of Dallas. Steger had been the unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate in 1960 and was later a long-serving U.S. District Court judge based in Tyler in Smith County in east Texas.
Opposing Jerry Sadler for land commissioner
In 1962 and 1966, Fay was the unsuccessful Republican nominee for Texas land commissioner. In the latter race he won the endorsement of the AFL-CIO executive board. He lost both races to popular Democrat Gerald Anthony "Jerry" Sadler (1907-1982), who once had gubernatorial ambitions. In the 1962 campaign, Fay hailed U.S. President John F. Kennedy for signing into law the establishment of the Padre Island National Seashore north of Brownsville.[1]
In 1966, Fay supported President Lyndon B. Johnson in the establishment of the Guadalupe Mountains National Park in West Texas near the New Mexico border. Both acquisitions had long been strongly promoted by Democratic U.S. Senator Ralph Yarborough. Previously, Texas had only one national park: Big Bend along the Rio Grande in the southwestern part of the state. Fay found himself allying with liberal Democrat Yarborough, whereas his opponent, Sadler, and the Texas Republican U. S. Senator John Tower were opposed to the additional park lands. Sadler took the view that the acquisition of lands from private individuals would mean less property tax revenues needed to provide the local share of financing of public schools as well as declining funds to the Texas Permanent School Fund. In the 1966 race, Fay won endorsements from the AFL-CIO executive board and the Political Association of Spanish-Speaking Organizations.[1]
No Republican was elected land commissioner until 1998, when David Dewhurst of Houston, later the lieutenant governor, won the position. Dewhurst succeeded long-time Land Commissioner Garry Mauro of Bryan in Brazos County, who had first been elected in 1982.
Gubernatorial primaries, 1972
In 1972, Fay ran against five other candidates for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. He made it into the second primary but lost the nomination to then state Senator Henry C. Grover, also of Houston and a staunch conservative. Grover was thereafter defeated in the general election by Democrat Dolph Briscoe. A third candidate was Ramsey Muñiz, nominee of the since-disbanded Hispanic Raza Unida Party. In the low-turnout runoff election, Grover received 37,842 votes (66.4 percent) to Fay's 19,166 (33.6 percent), according to Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections.
In the primary campaign, Fay argued for another national park, this time in the Big Thicket of east Texas, a state park onMustang Island in the Gulf of Mexico, and a recreational area along Armand Bayou. He also urged the development of a comprehensive water plan and advocated reducing property taxes on the homes of the elderly. The state does not collect property taxes in Texas, but cities, counties, and school districts depend heavily on such revenues.[1]
Party financier and U.S. ambassador
Fay served as chairman of his state's Republican finance committee, as a member of the national Republican finance committee (1968–1976), a member of the Texas Republican Executive Committee, and a member of the executive committee of the Republican National Committee. He was a delegate to three consecutive national conventions: 1960 in Chicago, 1964 in San Francisco, and 1968 in Miami Beach, Florida; he served as co-chairman of the state delegation in 1960 and vice chairman of the state delegation in 1964.[1]
In October 1969, U.S. President Richard M. Nixon appointed Fay to the 13-member board of governors overseeing the former Panama Canal Company. He retained that position until February 1976, when President Gerald Ford, named him ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago.[2] He served in that capacity for over a year, until April 1977, some months after Democrat Jimmy Carter assumed the presidency.[4]
Civic leadership and sportsmanship
The Handbook of Texas lists Fay as a former director and president of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, a director of the American Brahman Breeders Association, a vice president of the Houston Branch of the English Speaking Union, and a member of the Yale University alumni board.[1]
According to The Handbook, he was also a licensed pilot and a yachtsman. He won the 5.5-meter world championship in Norway, in 1983, when he defeated twenty-five other helmsmen from around the world. He was also a three-time winner of the Scandinavian Gold Cup and the United States Nationals. Fay served on the United States Olympic Yachting Committee, the United States Naval Academy Sailing Advisory Council, and the board of trustees of the Yale University Sailing Association.[1]
Fay is honored by the Albert Bel Fay Commodore's Trophy through the Texas Corinthian Yacht Club in Kemah, near Houston.
Death
Fay died at the age of seventy-nine in Cuernavaca, the capital of the state of Morelos, Mexico. He and Mrs. Fay are buried at Glenwood Cemetery in Houston. He was a Presbyterian.[1]
Then President and Mrs. George Herbert Walker Bush issued the following statement on Fay's death:
Albert was a close personal friend, and we will miss him greatly. He was a Texan through and through. He was a leader in building the Republican Party in Houston, starting in the early 1960s. Albert was a mentor who helped guide me in my early years in Texas politics, when getting Republicans elected was next to impossible. His service to the Republican Party has been invaluable."[5]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 Mary Smith Fay. Fay, Albert Bel, Sr.. The Handbook of Texas on-line. Retrieved on October 25, 2019.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Fay, Albert Bel. The Political Graveyard. Retrieved on October 25, 2019.
- ↑ Jack Crichton, The Republican-Democrat Political Campaigns in Texas in 1964, self-published, 2004, p. 24.
- ↑ Albert Bel Fay (1913-1992. Office of the Historian: U.S. State Department. Retrieved on October 25, 2019.
- ↑ Bush statement on death of Albert Bel Fay. George Bush Presidential Library and Museum (March 2, 1999). Retrieved on January 4, 1992; no longer on-line.
See also
- John R. Knaggs, Two-Party Texas: The John Tower Era, 1961-1984 (Austin: Eakin Press, 1986).
- Roger M. Olien, From Token to Triumph: The Texas Republicans since 1920 (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1982).
- Who's Who in America, 1980-1981.
