Soy de Duval

  POSTED BY: CARDENAS.AE@GMAIL.COM JUNE 30, 2018   Getting the goods on Parr   Archer Parr   The investigations began to bear fruit resulting in the indictment of George Parr who, in typical fashion, resigned his post as sheriff and appointed his nephew Archer Parr to the office. The Freedom Party again had their hopes of electoral success raised. In 1954, Benavides resident J.L. McDonald announced he was running for sheriff on the Freedom Party ticket. Donato Serna, the party’s standard-bearer in the previous election expressed hope for “a great deal more success” than in 1952.   George B. Parr   Shortly after this announcement the two Parrs engaged in a scuffle with a couple of Texas Rangers at the Jim Wells County Courthouse. George Parr spent less than 10 minutes in jail after a court hearing and the court released him on a $1,500 bond posted by Oscar Carrillo and J.B. Garza. George Parr was in the Jim Wells County Courthouse responding to an accusation...

POSTED BY: CARDENAS.AE@GMAIL.COM JUNE 21, 2018 Enter the Freedom Party In was into this scenario that the Freedom Party came to be. In an interview with Jesenia Guerra who was working on a master’s thesis at Texas A&M University, Kingsville, Donato Serna provided a look at one of the reasons why the party may have gotten traction. In early 1952, Guerra wrote that Carlos Barrera, a Duval County Deputy Sheriff, awoke Serna at 11 p.m. with a message from Barrera’s boss, Sheriff Daniel Garcia. The sheriff wanted Serna to meet him at Arnulfo Farias’ grocery store. Upon his arrival at the store, Serna found a number of his fellow veterans with Sheriff Garcia, a longtime Parr confidante. To their amazement, Garcia informed the group that he had decided to challenge Parr in the next election. Garcia, however, formally resigned on April 4, 1952, declaring he was finished with politics and would tend to his ranch and other personal interests. He said his only role in politics was to cast hi...

POSTED BY: CARDENAS.AE@GMAIL.COM JUNE 13, 2018 Parr’s untold story George B. Parr George Parr’s historical narrative stopped short, leaving out the last quarter century when he had exercised control over Duval County politics. And things were not quite so hunky-dory as he portrayed them, although he had his supporters who agreed with him. After speaking with Anglo and Tejano, rich and poor, the Laredo Times’ reporter concluded that Duval County had one of the best road networks in South Texas and schools that rated as good or better as any other in the region. Parr himself had financed the education and business ventures of many local young men, including veterans. But his detractors were many, and they held a different opinion entirely than did the enamored reporter. José Tomás Canales, famed Tejano political leader from Brownsville, wrote in La Libertad of Corpus Christi “Duval County…citizens are still living in the Dark Ages when they had dukes and bad dukes at that.” The Free...