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Created page with "{{Infobox officeholder |name=Preston Earnest Smith |image= |office=40th Governor of Texas |term_start=January 21, 1969 |term_end=January 16, 1973 |predecessor=John C..."
{{Infobox officeholder
|name=Preston Earnest Smith
|image=
|office=40th [[Governor]] of [[Texas]]
|term_start=January 21, 1969
|term_end=January 16, 1973
|predecessor=[[John Connally]]
|successor=[[Dolph Briscoe]]
|office2=35th Lieutenant Governor of Texas
|term_start2=January 15, 1963
|term_end2=January 21, 1969
|governor2=[[John Connally]]
|predecessor2=[[Ben Ramsey]]
|successor2=Benjamin Barnes
|office3=Texas State Senator for District 28 ([[Lubbock]])
|term_start3=1957
|term_end3=1963
|predecessor3=Kilmer B. Corbin
|successor3=H.J. "Doc" Blanchard
|office4=Texas State Representative for from District 119 (Lubbock)
|term_start4=1945
|term_end4=1951
|predecessor4=Hop Hasley
|successor4=Waggoner Carr
|birth_date=March 8, 1912
|birth_place=Williamson County, Texas
|death_date=October 18, 2003
|death_place=Lubbock, Texas]]
|resting_place=Texas State Cemetery at [[Austin]]
|spouse= Ima Mae Smith
|children= One son and one daughter
|alma_mater=[[Texas Tech University]]
|occupation=[[Business]]man
|religion=[[United Methodist]]
|profession=[[Business]]man; [[politician]]
|party=[[Democratic Party|Democrat]]
|footnotes=
}}
'''Preston Earnest Smith''' (March 7, 1912 – October 18, 2003) was the 40th [[governor]] of his native [[Texas]], with service for two two-year terms from 1969 to 1973. He earlier served as the lieutenant governor from 1963 to 1969 and as a member of both houses of the Texas State Legislature.
Smith was born into a tenant farm family of thirteen children in Williamson County near [[Austin]]. The family later moved to Lamesa in Dawson County on the South Plains, at which Smith graduated in 1928 from high school. He thereafter graduated from [[Texas Tech University]] in [[Lubbock]] and launched a theater business in the middle 1940s.
After service in the Texas House from 1945 to 1951, Smith served six more years in the state Senate from 1957 to 1963. He won the Senate position by unseating Kilmer B. Corbin, the father of [[actor]] Barry Corbin. In 1962, Smith won the lieutenant governor's race, securing majorities in all but 16 of the 254 counties to defeat the Republican O.W. "Bill" Hayes.<ref>Charles Ashman, ''Connally: The Adventures of Big Bad John'', New York: William Morrow Company, 1974, p. 22.</ref>
In 1968, Smith was elected governor to succeed the popular Democratic incumbent [[John Connally|John B. Connally, Jr.]], who in 1973 switched affiliation to the [[Republican Party|Republican Party]]. To win the governorship, Smith first defeated fellow Democrat Don Yarborough in the 1968 Democratic runoff election. Eliminated in the primary that year were [[Dolph Briscoe]], a rancher, businessman, and philanthropist from Uvalde and former Attorney General Waggoner Carr, also of Lubbock, who two years earlier had lost the race for the [[United States Senate]] to Republican [[John Tower]].
On January 21, 1969, the day after the swearing-in of [[U.S. President]] [[Richard M. Nixon]] to his first term, Smith took the oath of office. His ceremony, replete with the Texas Tech band, was the first to have been televised in Texas history.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lubbockonline.com/lnb100/2017-01-27/1969-smith-s-inaugural-celebration-have-flavor-south-plains|title=1969: Smith's inaugural celebration to have flavor of South Plains|publisher=''Lubbock Avalanche-Journal''|date=January 27, 2017|accessdate=April 3, 2017}}</ref>
To claim the governorship, Smith twice defeated Republican nominee] Paul William Eggers, a tax [[attorney]] from [[Wichita Falls]] and later [[Dallas]] as well as a confidant of Senator Tower. In the high-turnout general election of 1968, Smith received 1,662,019 ballots (57 percent) to Eggers' 1,254,333 (43 percent). In the low-turnout general election of 1970, Smith received 1,197,726 votes (53.6 percent) to Eggers' 1,037,723 (46.4 percent).
In 1971 and 1972, Smith was caught up in the Sharpstown bank stock fraud scheme, which may have caused him to lose his bid for re-nomination in the 1972 Democratic primary. He lost the nomination to Dolph Briscoe, who then defeated a strong Republican challenger, [[Henry C. Grover]], an intra-party rival of John Tower, who nevertheless won his own third term in the Senate that year. In 1978, Smith again lost a bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, as did Governor Briscoe. Instead John Luke Hill defeated them both but then lost the [[general election]] to Republican [[Bill Clements]].
Much later in his career, Smith was the political liaison officer for Texas Tech University. After his death in Lubbock, the airport was renamed in 2004 Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport.
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Preston
[[Category:Texas]]
[[Category:Texas Governors]]
[[Category:Democratic Governors]]
[[Category:State Senators]]
[[Category:Politicians]]
[[Category:Business People]]
[[Category:Democrats]]
[[Category:United Methodists]]
|name=Preston Earnest Smith
|image=
|office=40th [[Governor]] of [[Texas]]
|term_start=January 21, 1969
|term_end=January 16, 1973
|predecessor=[[John Connally]]
|successor=[[Dolph Briscoe]]
|office2=35th Lieutenant Governor of Texas
|term_start2=January 15, 1963
|term_end2=January 21, 1969
|governor2=[[John Connally]]
|predecessor2=[[Ben Ramsey]]
|successor2=Benjamin Barnes
|office3=Texas State Senator for District 28 ([[Lubbock]])
|term_start3=1957
|term_end3=1963
|predecessor3=Kilmer B. Corbin
|successor3=H.J. "Doc" Blanchard
|office4=Texas State Representative for from District 119 (Lubbock)
|term_start4=1945
|term_end4=1951
|predecessor4=Hop Hasley
|successor4=Waggoner Carr
|birth_date=March 8, 1912
|birth_place=Williamson County, Texas
|death_date=October 18, 2003
|death_place=Lubbock, Texas]]
|resting_place=Texas State Cemetery at [[Austin]]
|spouse= Ima Mae Smith
|children= One son and one daughter
|alma_mater=[[Texas Tech University]]
|occupation=[[Business]]man
|religion=[[United Methodist]]
|profession=[[Business]]man; [[politician]]
|party=[[Democratic Party|Democrat]]
|footnotes=
}}
'''Preston Earnest Smith''' (March 7, 1912 – October 18, 2003) was the 40th [[governor]] of his native [[Texas]], with service for two two-year terms from 1969 to 1973. He earlier served as the lieutenant governor from 1963 to 1969 and as a member of both houses of the Texas State Legislature.
Smith was born into a tenant farm family of thirteen children in Williamson County near [[Austin]]. The family later moved to Lamesa in Dawson County on the South Plains, at which Smith graduated in 1928 from high school. He thereafter graduated from [[Texas Tech University]] in [[Lubbock]] and launched a theater business in the middle 1940s.
After service in the Texas House from 1945 to 1951, Smith served six more years in the state Senate from 1957 to 1963. He won the Senate position by unseating Kilmer B. Corbin, the father of [[actor]] Barry Corbin. In 1962, Smith won the lieutenant governor's race, securing majorities in all but 16 of the 254 counties to defeat the Republican O.W. "Bill" Hayes.<ref>Charles Ashman, ''Connally: The Adventures of Big Bad John'', New York: William Morrow Company, 1974, p. 22.</ref>
In 1968, Smith was elected governor to succeed the popular Democratic incumbent [[John Connally|John B. Connally, Jr.]], who in 1973 switched affiliation to the [[Republican Party|Republican Party]]. To win the governorship, Smith first defeated fellow Democrat Don Yarborough in the 1968 Democratic runoff election. Eliminated in the primary that year were [[Dolph Briscoe]], a rancher, businessman, and philanthropist from Uvalde and former Attorney General Waggoner Carr, also of Lubbock, who two years earlier had lost the race for the [[United States Senate]] to Republican [[John Tower]].
On January 21, 1969, the day after the swearing-in of [[U.S. President]] [[Richard M. Nixon]] to his first term, Smith took the oath of office. His ceremony, replete with the Texas Tech band, was the first to have been televised in Texas history.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lubbockonline.com/lnb100/2017-01-27/1969-smith-s-inaugural-celebration-have-flavor-south-plains|title=1969: Smith's inaugural celebration to have flavor of South Plains|publisher=''Lubbock Avalanche-Journal''|date=January 27, 2017|accessdate=April 3, 2017}}</ref>
To claim the governorship, Smith twice defeated Republican nominee] Paul William Eggers, a tax [[attorney]] from [[Wichita Falls]] and later [[Dallas]] as well as a confidant of Senator Tower. In the high-turnout general election of 1968, Smith received 1,662,019 ballots (57 percent) to Eggers' 1,254,333 (43 percent). In the low-turnout general election of 1970, Smith received 1,197,726 votes (53.6 percent) to Eggers' 1,037,723 (46.4 percent).
In 1971 and 1972, Smith was caught up in the Sharpstown bank stock fraud scheme, which may have caused him to lose his bid for re-nomination in the 1972 Democratic primary. He lost the nomination to Dolph Briscoe, who then defeated a strong Republican challenger, [[Henry C. Grover]], an intra-party rival of John Tower, who nevertheless won his own third term in the Senate that year. In 1978, Smith again lost a bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, as did Governor Briscoe. Instead John Luke Hill defeated them both but then lost the [[general election]] to Republican [[Bill Clements]].
Much later in his career, Smith was the political liaison officer for Texas Tech University. After his death in Lubbock, the airport was renamed in 2004 Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport.
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Preston
[[Category:Texas]]
[[Category:Texas Governors]]
[[Category:Democratic Governors]]
[[Category:State Senators]]
[[Category:Politicians]]
[[Category:Business People]]
[[Category:Democrats]]
[[Category:United Methodists]]