Phil Cates
| Phillip Ray "Phil" Cates | |
 Cates in 1974 | |
Texas State Representative
for District 79 | |
| In office January 12, 1971 – January 9, 1973 | |
| Preceded by | Malouf Abraham, Sr. (redistricted) |
|---|---|
| Succeeded by | Ron Waters |
Texas State Representative
for District 66 | |
| In office January 9, 1973 – January 9, 1979 | |
| Preceded by | George Baker |
| Succeeded by | Foster Whaley |
| Born | January 6, 1947 Pampa, Texas |
| Died | July 13, 2014 (aged 67) |
| Resting place | Texas State Cemetery |
| Political party | Democrat |
| Spouse(s) | Nancy Holt Cates (married 1970–2014, his death) |
| Children | Andrew and John Cates |
| Alma mater | West Texas A&M University (Canyon) |
| Occupation | Lobbyist |
Phillip Ray Cates,[1] known as Phil Cates (January 6, 1947 – July 13, 2014), was an America politician and lobbyist who served as a Texas state representative from 1971 to 1979. He represented some ten mostly sparsely populated counties in the Panhandle.[2]
Background
Cates was born in Pampa in Gray County, the second largest city in the Panhandle, northeast of the most populous city, Amarillo, to Herman Ray Cates (1917–1998), a veteran of the United States Army Air Forces in World War II, and the former Lavern Robertson (1923–2009), a native of Beckham County, Oklahoma. He was reared in nearby Lefors, also in Gray County, where his parents are interred at Memorial Heights Cemetery.[3]
Cates left Lefors in 1965 to enroll at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, then known as West Texas State University. There, he was elected four times to the Student Senate and was a member of the Baptist Student Union and Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. In 1998, West Texas A&M named him a "Distinguished Alumnus."[4][5]
In 1970, the former Nancy Holt (also born 1947), originally from Pampa. Their two sons are Andrew and John Cates.[4]
Career
In 1970, Cates was elected to succeed the two-term Republican Malouf Abraham, Sr., a wealthy businessman from Canadian in Hemphill County, whose District 84 was blended into revised District 79. Abraham instead ran unsuccessfully for the District 31 seat in the Texas State Senate against Democrat Max R. Sherman.[6] Cates won his own primary in the spring by a margin of only two votes.[5]
For his second term, Cates moved to Pampa in reconfigured District 66. Texas Monthly gave him unfavorable reviews in 1973.[7] By 1974, Cates was residing in Shamrock in Wheeler County for his third and fourth terms in the legislature. When he was moved to District 66 with the 1972 election, only Gray and Wheeler Counties were held over from his original District 79.[2]
After his four legislative terms, Cates became a lobbyist and worked in the capital city of Austin, first, with former House Speaker Byron Tunnell from 1980 to 1989. He was a lobbyist for Tenneco of Houston for nine years in nine southeastern states. In Austin in 1989 and 1990, he was a lobbyist for the Texas Association of Business. In 1991, he joined the firm of former Speaker Bill W. Clayton, at which he remained until 1996, when he opened his own firm, Texas Stakeholders. He remained in that capacity until his death of lung cancer[5] in 2014 at the age of 67.[4]
Cates, who had resided in Dripping Springs in Hays County near Austin, is interred at Texas State Cemetery in Austin, where graveside services were held on July 26, 2014, with his former legislative colleague Max Sherman among the speakers.[4]
References
- ↑ Some sources cite "Phillips", instead of Phillip; one used the middle initial "E," instead of "R" for "Ray".
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Phil Cates. Texas Legislative Reference Library. Retrieved on January 8, 2021.
- ↑ Herman Ray Cates. findagrave.com. Retrieved on January 8, 2021.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Phil Cates. cemetery.state.tx.us. Retrieved on January 8, 2021.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Obituary of Phillip R. Cates, The Pampa News, August 1, 2014.
- ↑ Texas Almanac 1972/1973, Election returns from November 3, 1970.
- ↑ "The Ten Best (And, Sigh, The Ten Worst) Legislators," Texas Monthly, July 1973.
