Jim Granberry

Jim Granberry
Jim Granberry
23rd Mayor of Lubbock, Texas
	In office; 1970–1972
Preceded by	W.D. "Dub" Rogers, Jr.
Succeeded by	Morris W. Turner
Lubbock City Council member
	In office; 1966–1970
Personal details
Born	James Harlan Granberry; June 23, 1932; Lindale, Texas, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Edwina Brown Granberry (born 1937)
Children	5 Leslie Granberry, Jay Granberry, Zack Granberry, Tim Granberry, and Susan Granberry
Residence	Hideaway, Texas, U.S.
Occupation	Orthodontist

James Harlan Granberry Sr. (born June 23, 1932) is an American politician who served as the mayor of Lubbock, Texas from 1970 to 1972. He guided the city through a series of tornadoes that shattered the region on May 11, 1970. He imposed a curfew to restore order. He had just become mayor when the tornadoes occurred. He served only one two-year term from 1970-1972. He was a member of the Lubbock City Council from 1966–1970. He did not seek a second two-year term in 1972 and was succeeded by city councilman Morris W. Turner. Mayors and council members in Texas are all officially nonpartisan, but Granberry was known to be a Republican.

In 1974, Granberry was the Texas Republican gubernatorial nominee. He won only 7 of the 254 counties and hence lost the general election by a wide margin to incumbent Democratic Governor Dolph Briscoe of Uvalde.

Gubernatorial race

Granberry was opposed for the Republican gubernatorial nomination by Odell McBrayer, the candidate of what later became known as the "Religious Right". Granberry handily defeated McBrayer, an attorney, 53,617 votes (77.6 percent) to 15,489 ballots (22.4 percent) in a low-turnout primary.

Granberry was the choice of Republican U.S. Senator John G. Tower, the nominal head of the Texas GOP at the time. He would carry his party's tattered banner in the year in which the national party was dragged down by the Watergate scandal, which had forced the resignation of U.S. President Richard M. Nixon.

Dolph Briscoe hence defeated Granberry in the strongly Democratic year nationwide. Briscoe polled 1,016,334 votes (61.4 percent), compared to 514,725 (31.1 percent) for Granberry, and 93,295 for the Hispanic Raza Unida Party nominee, Ramsey Muñiz, who had also been the La Raza candidate in 1972. Another approximately thirty thousand ballots were cast for other candidates. Briscoe, who had served the last two-year gubernatorial term in Texas, therefore became the first Texas governor to win a four-year term since the establishment of the Texas Constitution of 1876. Yet, Briscoe polled 617,159 fewer votes against Granberry than he had with his initial election in 1972 against the conservative Republican Henry Cushing Grover of Houston, because of a much lower turnout in 1974.

Bush "Beer Bash"

In 1978, Granberry advised congressional candidate George W. Bush, who was seeking to succeed the retiring veteran Democrat George Mahon of Lubbock. Bush said that Granberry urged him to "expose Hance's ownership" of a Lubbock bar across the street from Texas Tech that sold beer to Tech students. But Bush declined to do so. An advertisement appeared in the Texas Tech University newspaper in Lubbock which invited students to a "beer bash" at Granberry's home to drum up support for Bush. Hance, the Democratic candidate who defeated Bush in that election, attributed his victory more to the endorsement by Mahon than from public outrage over the "beer bash".

Later years

In 1989, William Perry "Bill" Clements, Jr., the first Texas Republican governor since Reconstruction, appointed Granberry as chairman of the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole. He resigned in the summer of 1991.

In his later years, Granberry, an orthodontist, returned to his native Smith County. He was born in Lindale, Texas and resides in Hideaway, Texas.

References

Party political offices
Preceded by W.D. "Dub" Rogers, Jr.	Mayor of Lubbock, Texas James Harlan "Jim" Granberry, Sr. 1970–1972	Succeeded by Morris W. Turner
Preceded by Henry Grover	Republican gubernatorial nominee in Texas James Harlan "Jim" Granberry, Sr. 1974	Succeeded by William Perry "Bill" Clements, Jr.

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