A Texas Retrospective · 1940 – 2017
FOR TEXAS
Mark Wells White, Jr. served as the 43rd Governor of Texas from 1983 to 1987 — the first of the post-war generation to hold the office, and the governor who put education first when it counted most.
Biography
Mark Wells White, Jr. was born in Henderson, Texas, on March 17, 1940, to Mark Wells White, Sr. and Sarah Elizabeth White, and raised in Houston’s public schools. At Baylor University he earned a business degree in 1962 and a law degree in 1965, and was a member of the Tryon Coterie Club, now Phi Delta Theta. He practiced law with the Houston firm of Reynolds, Allen & Cook and served in the 36th Infantry Division of the Texas National Guard.
His career in public service spanned four offices: assistant attorney general beginning in 1966, Secretary of State under Governor Dolph Briscoe, Attorney General — where he gave new priority to consumer issues, especially utility rates — and finally Governor. The son of a first-grade schoolteacher, he arrived at the Governor’s Mansion with a young family and a conviction that Texas schoolchildren deserved better than a system ranked at the bottom of the nation.
He got it done — and paid the political price willingly. When falling oil prices collided with his reforms, he told the legislature to pass the funding anyway and “blame it on me.” On inauguration day in 1983, he made his politics plain: he walked from the Capitol to the Governor’s Mansion, took bolt cutters to the chain barring the front gate, and shouted “Come on in” to the crowd of Texans behind him.
His Life
March 17, 1940. The family moved to Houston, where Mark attended public schools — the system he would one day transform.
Earned a business degree in 1962 and a law degree from Baylor Law School in 1965, then practiced law in Houston with Reynolds, Allen & Cook and served in the 36th Infantry Division of the Texas National Guard.
Began his career in public service in the office he would one day lead.
Appointed by Governor Dolph Briscoe. In 1977 he was elected the youngest-ever president of the National Association of Secretaries of State.
Defeated James A. Baker III with 55.1 percent of the vote — 1,249,846 votes to Baker’s 999,431. As the state’s chief enforcement officer he co-chaired the Federal-State Enforcement Coordinating Committee, served on the Governor’s Organized Crime Prevention Council, and in 1981 was elected Chairman of the Southern Conference of Attorneys General.
Defeated incumbent Bill Clements — Texas’ first Republican governor since Reconstruction — with 53.2 percent of the vote: 1,697,870 to 1,465,537, part of a Democratic sweep of every statewide office led by Senator Lloyd Bentsen and Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby.
Sworn in January 18, 1983, as the forty-third chief executive. He walked from the inauguration to the Governor’s Mansion, cut the chains barring public entry with gold-painted bolt cutters, and invited the crowd inside — a signal of the inclusive administration to come. Download the original inaugural invitation →
Appointed an independent commission on public education, called a special session of the legislature, and won passage of the landmark Educational Opportunity Act: higher teacher pay, smaller classes, accountability testing, and the famous “no pass, no play” rule. Its ideas were later emulated by states across the nation.
Championed the Texas seat belt law — “a click of the seatbelt is your best insurance” — and his administration launched the anti-litter battle cry that endures today: “Don’t Mess with Texas.”
Presided over the celebrations of 150 years of Texas independence while steering the state through the oil-price collapse. That November, with the education backlash at its height, he lost his rematch with Bill Clements. The reforms survived him in office.
Sought the Democratic nomination for governor a final time, in a primary won by Ann Richards, then returned to private life as president of GeoVox Security in Houston.
Practiced law in Houston and chaired the Houston Independent School District Foundation. Though he had presided over 22 executions as governor, he came to question capital punishment, supported a posthumous exoneration of Cameron Todd Willingham, and devoted his legal talents to capital defendants whose verdicts and facts did not appear to coincide. Mark White Elementary School opened in Houston in 2016. He died August 5, 2017.
Achievements
Generations have passed since Mark White occupied the governor’s office, but the benefit of his stewardship lingers in classrooms, on highways, and in the make-up of Texas government itself.
House Bill 72 changed nearly everything about Texas public education: teacher salaries rose by an average of $5,000, elementary class sizes were capped, and accountability testing arrived — including “no pass, no play.” SAT scores rose twelve points and first-graders improved on statewide tests.
He appointed more members of minority groups to high positions than all of his predecessors combined, including some 500 appointments of women — among them Elma Salinas Ender, the first Hispanic woman to serve as a district court judge in Texas.
As oil prices collapsed, he laid the groundwork for an economy less reliant on the swings of a single industry — recruiting the high-tech companies that launched Austin’s rise as a center for technology.
Texans travel safer because of the 1985 seat belt law he pushed through, with his enduring advice that “a click of the seatbelt is your best insurance.”
The anti-litter campaign initiated during his administration became a Texas battle cry — and remains one today.
He modernized the Texas highway system from a farm-to-market network into a super-paved grid supporting economic growth, and with Linda Gale White made protective services for children a Texas priority that endures.
He served on the Southern Regional Education Board, the Interstate Oil Compact Commission, and the Border Governors’ Association — and even made a cameo on the CBS drama Dallas.
The Legacy
When Mark White took office, Texas SAT scores had been falling for a decade and teacher pay ranked among the lowest in the country. In his words: “Our goal must be to build the best educational system that the mind of man can devise — from first grade through graduate school.” He built his platform on what his mother, a first-grade teacher, saw in the classroom.
With Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby and a resolved legislature, House Bill 72 became law — and when oil revenues collapsed, he proposed $4.6 billion in new revenue rather than abandon the reforms. The backlash cost him re-election in 1986. The law held. It holds today.
“Pass it — and blame it on me.”
— Gov. Mark White, to the Texas Legislature
Gallery
The Archive
Campaign commercials, debates, TV reports, speeches, PSAs, and audio recordings from Governor White’s career have been preserved and digitized in seven collections.
Campaign Commercials · Debates & Inauguration · TV Reports · Speeches, News, PSAs · Other · Audio Files · In Memory.
Browse the archive → August 2017The family’s memorial video and the 2017 Sam Houston gravesite ceremony — preserved in the archive.
Watch → University of HoustonThe Hobby School of Public Affairs’ remembrance of Governor White’s life and career.
Read →