W E Pete Snelson

Background

The sixth of seven children, Snelson was born in Grandfalls in Ward County, south of Odessa, a community named for the "grand falls" of the Pecos River. He was the salutatorian of his graduating class from Grandfalls-Royalty High School. He then became the news editor and advertising manager for the Grandfalls Gazette. In 1940, he enrolled in the journalism department at the University of Texas at El Paso, then known as the Texas College of Mines in El Paso. While in college, he was a full-time sports editor for the El Paso Times. In 1943, Snelson entered Army basic training and was sent to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska, to study the German language, history, and culture. He joined the 44th Infantry Division, Company B of the 324th Infantry Regiment, which was dispatched to Cherbourg, France. On November 13, 1944, Snelson was wounded when his company attacked the German line in the Vosges Mountains. After recuperation requiring three months, he was named a Special Agent in the 307th Counter Intelligence Corp detachment at 7th Army Headquarters. He received the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and Combat Infantryman Badge and was thereafter discharged as a technical sergeant, commissioned as a lieutenant, and named a commander of the Counter Intelligence Corps at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.

Snelson finished his degree at the Texas College of Mines and taught journalism there briefly. In 1948, he enrolled in the Masters of Journalism program at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. With his advanced degree in hand, he moved to Midland, having been named a vice-president of nearby Odessa College, a community college in Odessa in Ector County. He was elected president of the statewide Jaycees and named the outstanding state president of that organization. He left Odessa College in 1955 and established Snelson Advertising in Midland, which he operated until 1990. On May 31, 1959, he married the former Susan Sutton of Denver, Colorado.

Political career

In 1960, he was elected to the state House of Representatives when he unseated three-term fellow Democrat Louis H. Anderson of Midland. He left the House after one term. Beginning in 1963, Midland was removed from District 102 to the newly established District 77, to which a Republican, William S. "Bill" Davis, was elected for a single term in 1962, preceding a second Republican, Frank Kell Cahoon, the only member of his party in either house of the legislature in the 1965 session. A separate District 72 encompassed Brewster County, Snelson's native Ward County, as well as Crane, Pecos, and Upton counties, which were also in the previous District 102. In 1964, Snelson was elected to the Senate District 29 seat (Culberson, Ector, El Paso, Hudspeth, Loving, Midland, Reeves, Ward, and Winkler counties) and served for two years. He switched to District 25 beginning in 1969 and served until 1983. There were two-year gaps between his House and Senate District 29 service and again between Senate District 29 and District 25 tenures.

In the 1968 Democratic primary in District 25 (Bandera, Brewster, Coke, Comal, Crane, Crockett, Culberson, Edwards, Gillespie, Glasscock, Irion, Jeff Davis, Kendall, Kerr, Kimble, Kinney, Llano, Loving, Mason, Midland, Pecos, Presidio, Reagan, Real, Reeves, Schleicher, Sterling, Sutton, Terrell, Tom Green, Upton, Uvalde, Val Verde, Ward, and Winkler counties), Snelson unseated veteran State Senator Dorsey B. Hardeman of San Angelo; that Fall he defeated the Republican nominee, Ernest Angelo, later the mayor of Midland and a leading figure in the Ronald W. Reagan campaigns in Texas.

At times Snelson was the chairman of the Senate Education, Oil and Gas, and Intergovernmental Relations committees. He also served on the Legislative Budget Board and the Sunset Advisory Commission. In 1971, he was elected Senate President Pro Tempore and served as governor for a day on December 4 of that year, when both governor Preston Smith and Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes were out of state. On September 1, 1981, he began a four-month stint as the Dean of the Senate.

Snelson considered his sponsorship of the Early Childhood Intervention Program as the most successful work of his legislative career. Snelson's program, which includes those under the age of three years, became the national model to assist developmentally-delayed children. Upon leaving the Senate, Snelson operated the Six-S Properties, an oil company, as well as Snelson Advertising. In 1989, he became a legislative consultant for education, an activity in which he engaged for nineteen years until his retirement in 2008.

Snelson was affiliated with the Masonic lodge, Lions Club, and the Southern Regional Education Board, which administers a compact among fourteen states.

Death

Snelson died at the age of 92 at his home in Georgetown in suburban Williamson County near Austin. The Snelsons had four children and ten grandchildren. Services were held on May 3 at Central Presbyterian Church in Austin. Interment followed at the Texas State Cemetery.

At the time Snelson left the state Senate, Texas Monthly described him accordingly: "Conservative Democrat. Midland. Not flashy but a devotee of Grover Cleveland's maxim, 'Honor lies in honest toil.'"