Cattle Raisers to honor Briscoe with ‘Lifetime Steward’ Award

FORT WORTH, Texas, Feb. 26, 2007—Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association will present a Lifetime Steward Award to Gov. Dolph Briscoe Jr. on March 24 during the group’s 130th annual convention in Fort Worth.
         Briscoe is being recognized for “a lifetime of contributions to Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association and the livestock industry in Texas, the U.S. and internationally.”
         Briscoe is an elder statesman of Texas politics and a quintessential Texan. His roots in the land run deep. The Briscoe family settled in Texas in what is now Fort Bend County in 1832. Andrew Briscoe signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, led a company of volunteers at the Battle of San Jacinto and was appointed the first judge of Harris County by Sam Houston. Dolph Briscoe Sr. moved the family to Uvalde in 1910 and established the family’s cattle business.
         Dolph Jr.’s “lifetime” of service to the cattle industry is literal. He was only nine when his father became president of Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association in 1932. He grew up among its rancher-leaders and gained an early understanding of its concerns. Later, as a leader in government and the beef industry, he was able to influence programs that provided ranchers with valuable solutions to some of their biggest problems.
         Briscoe served in the Texas Legislature from 1949 to 1957 and was governor of the state from 1973 to 1979. During the intervening years, he served as president of Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, chairman of the National Livestock and Meat Board and chairman of the Mohair Council of America.
         In 1949 Briscoe passed legislation to establish the farm-to-market road program that helped develop rural Texas. In 1960, as president of TSCRA, he headed a group that raised $3 million to encourage federal and state leaders to establish a screwworm eradication program in Texas and the Southwest.
         Ranchers widely consider this program as the most important in the industry. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that U.S. livestock producers benefit by more than $900 million each year from the program to control the devastating pest.
         Briscoe’s interest and leadership have never waned. He is a constant presence at TSCRA events, his counsel a steady source of wisdom. Although he has branched successfully into other areas of business, he says, “I consider myself not just a rancher first, but a rancher always. Anything else has just been something of...a sideline.”

         Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association is a 130-year-old trade organization whose 14,400 members manage approximately 4.9 million cattle on 66.6 million acres of range and pasture land, primarily in Texas and Oklahoma.

TSCRA-6-2007