Editor’s Note: Throughout the year, County Progress has been inviting our retiring officials to reflect on their time in office and share words of wisdom with their fellow Judges and Commissioners. We wish all of these dedicated public servants the best as they finish out their final term.
By Retiring Jack County Judge Mitchell Davenport
Through the years of my life at the close of a decade, I tend to look back and take inventory of my life lived and perhaps my life ahead, as well; I think many of us do.
This year a primary event or change will occur in addition to entering my seventh decade. I will be retiring from the position of County Judge here in Jack County after 28 years of service. I have to ask, as I have, how I got here and what could I tell others that I think would contribute to their success.
As many of you may have heard me say, my roots go deep in county government and in Texas, back to the year 1831 when Elder John Parker first came to Texas. He died in Limestone County in May 1836. Another branch back there had one of only two sets of brothers at San Jacinto, and another of that branch “rangered” in the opening years of the Republic. A third branch included one who signed a petition to form Houston County (the first of the new Republic). More recently, my grandfather on one side served 12 years as a Commissioner, my grandmother on the other side was a county treasurer for 23 years, and an uncle on an aunt’s side was a Commissioner and then a justice of the peace (JP).
I set out to be an attorney and not a county official. However, after losing an election for county attorney to a local son in 1979 and a bid for an appointment to finish an unexpired term as JP, I was eventually successful in a race that could have also netted me the nickname of “Landside” at a measure of only 25 votes.
My 25 votes: In my 28 years after that 25-vote margin, I stood election and won on much larger margins against opponents in my party, the other party, and a write-in. Now as I am still working on my list of projects to finish by the end of this term, I am thinking in terms of transition for my successor, making a special file of things he needs to know ranging from how you turn electricity on in the lampstands around the courthouse to other more important things. There are items I would like to share with you as well as him on how to succeed in this office.
Regarding those 25 votes, I never knew who they were. No one stepped forward…not likely to have made a difference anyway, as I have never looked at the office and my service in that way. I hear officials sometimes say, “Ah, they never voted for me anyway,” but I have never looked at my role in that light. I always tried to serve all the people of my county in all the things I do. I always tried to see my role here as a gift and opportunity to serve and perhaps win them over.
I once heard an old story about President Johnson after he called a congressman in while trying to rally a vote on a bill.
“Now look, son, I know you probably didn’t vote for me, but look, I am the only president you have,” he said. I have always worked hard to try to make all of those voters proud of my election. I look for ways to serve my people every time I leave the house.
Read the Law…first, last, and always. Texas law provides that the County Judge “shall be well informed in the laws of the State” but does not require the person to be an attorney. I personally believe being a lawyer gives me “a leg up,” but I have also known some very fine County Judges who were not attorneys. In our third year of law school we were told that we knew as much law then as we would ever know. Frankly, I didn’t understand that and considered it something of an insult. Like a lot of things in life, I understood better later. An understanding of the law is like nailing Jell-O to a wall. It moves every two years and sometimes by case law every day. Always read it daily in all you do, and that doesn’t mean rely on what you read on the listserv regardless of who wrote it. It’s your reputation every time you make a call. All county officials need to continually learn more and more about the role they play and how it interplays with others. The learning never stops.
“Department of Interruptions.” I have always felt that I should hang a sign on my front door right below where it says “County Judge” that says “Department of Interruptions.” No matter what you put on that daily list, your priorities are subject to change every time the phone rings or someone walks through that door. Sometimes they are good and sometimes they are consuming and stressful taking your day (or perhaps week) in a whole new direction than what you ever intended.
Many years ago, an old man told me his grandfather told him, “Son, you can make you a list of things that you want to get done that day, and most days, if you are lucky, you can at best get one or two of them done.” C.S. Lewis once said in a letter, “The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own,’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is, of course, that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life – the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one’s ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination.” Don’t give up. Keep working that list.
Good ideas don’t always come from your intellect. A number of times, I have heard an earful from someone about something we were doing and then heard what his or her take was on how to solve the problem. Never be so big or so proud that you cannot recognize a good idea even when it is only half-baked. Just a few weeks back one of my Commissioners seemed to really come down on where we were on an item. My initial reaction was to get all swollen up and take it personally (yes, I can). But then I slept on it, and then I let it ago, and then I began to sift through his words and said to myself, “Now let’s step back and look at what we really have here, and is there something that we can work with and build on.” And there was! So, I have taken that and built our approach to the issue in a whole new direction. I went back to him and showed him my solution, and I think he was very satisfied and will see a real impact by his involvement when we turn in this new direction on the project.
Years ago, we had quail in this area. When I was out hunting behind my dogs, I always looked smarter and was a better handler when I read them and let them use their skills rather than trying to force them somewhere they did not want to go. My game bag usually had more in it, too, at the end of the day, and I probably looked better as a dog handler. There have been some presenting opinions diametrically opposed to most of the other opinions around them. On rare occasion, I was able to work with one fellow with whom I hardly ever agreed with on anything, and I gave him the credit; then the subject would change, but still we had that to build from.
Sometimes a crop is slow to make. Along those lines, if you want quick solutions, you may be in the wrong business. A lot of seeds we sow and projects we may start are very slow to develop and may take different shapes and directions along the way. I have formed advisory groups that never seem to come up with an answer much less a good answer. If you want it quick, do it yourself, but sometimes the depth and detail of these groups are worth the wait. If I farmed, it could be as when I mow or garden. I can look behind me and see where I have been and can look ahead and see what I have left to do. In county government and with legislatures, sometimes it is just slow going.
It’s the way we’ve always done it. Never stop there without going back to the law to see what we are supposed to be doing. I still do it. Sometimes it is okay. Sometimes the law has changed or it has never been that way. Satisfy yourself as to why and how. Sometimes the customary practice and the law are not even the same.
Never let your paths be condemned by that line of thinking in your projects. Thirty years ago, I brought the first desktop computer into my courthouse. Now they are everywhere. As Henry Ford is given credit as saying, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
Change for change’s sake. Don’t change anything in a new position for the first three to four months after you take office. There may be a reason why they do it that way. They may have already tried it the other way. It may be the result of many months of study and/or years of experience. You can always do it differently, but will it be better? We can waste a lot of time (and sometimes paper) to change a system that is not broken.
If you are a County Judge, work closely with your prosecutor on trial management, but do not let your ego or your colleagues ever convince you that this is your court. Call a case for trial without the prosecutor and see if things go anywhere. The prosecutors decide whether to try or not try; they have the burden of proof, not you. Remember, you just sit on the bench. You are the umpire, I often say. You are not the pitcher. I often use baseball as an analogy for being a Judge; the pitcher decides what pitches he will throw, when he will throw them, or if he will throw them. Your job is to call them. Otherwise, you ran for the wrong office.
Listen! Listen to those county officials more experienced than you. They will notice the sign of respect. You will get your chance for input. Who knows? You might learn something such as the fact that county government is a team effort. A lot of this office is about being a cheerleader, not the quarterback, and your ideas will move a lot better if their path is greased with the support of your fellow team members. Also, listen to your citizens when they talk. Remember the following: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,” often attributed to Isaac Newton or earlier by Bernard of Chartres in 1159.
We will all leave our mark on the landscape of county government, good or bad. I am sure that with time our tracks will fade, but I hope that we will have helped move this great state forward toward its destiny through our aspirations and efforts, a wonderful place to raise our great-great-grandchildren as rich in its future as in its past.
In this I am reminded of recent discoveries of trees bent and gnarled by what we once thought were forces of nature or chance. But today we are beginning to understand that some of these trees, shaped by Native Americans, actually pointed fellow travelers to low water crossings or other important places.
The Comanche, in particular, came to this area from a place high in the Great Plains and saw an opportunity and a great land. At their height, they roamed at will from the plains of what is now Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle to the Gulf Coast of Texas. Their page in history has pretty much turned, but behind them today their paths and those trees that marked them are still being identified and are still there pointing the way for those who follow and who would see them.
I thank God for every day in my 28 years, even the tough ones, and for the chance to serve Texas and the people of my county. In doing so I pray I have honored that tough and dedicated stock from which I arose.
God, make my work meaningful in the days to come perhaps in some ways pointing the way like those gnarled old trees. And God Bless Texas!