Ann Richards Remembered
Ivins, Molly
Small Favors Molly Ivins Ann Richards Remembered Dorothy Ann Willis was born the only child of Cecil and Mildred Iona Willis, in a small town near Waco, at the depth of the Depression. Her daddy...
...She was outrageous and courageous on behalf of women everywhere...
...At the last minute, the NRA launched a big campaign about how Texas women would feel ever so much safer if we could just carry guns in our purses...
...Her daddy was a salesman and her mother sewed all Ann's clothes...
...The 1990 campaign for governor was a real nail-biter against Claytie Williams...
...Ann got a teaching certificate and taught junior high, which I regard as a thankless assignment...
...Those women with big hair and big purses in Amarillo and Abilene flocked to hear her...
...it was dangerous for her to get worn out...
...She went to Baylor on a debate scholarship, and they were married as undergraduates...
...Annie had told the legislature that if they passed a right-to-carry law, she would veto it...
...Along the way, she disappointed many liberals, but then, she was elected governor of Texas, not Sweden...
...Her latest book is "Who Let the Dogs In...
...Ann was running for "a new Texas," and Claytie, with his good ol' boy racism and sexism, kept defining "old Texas" in the most helpful way...
...Ann Richards's public life was mostly about gender...
...Ann ran again after four exhausting years, and it was fairly apparent she didn't really want to do it...
...She really felt contempt for Bush and thought his ignorance and his arrogance a dangerous combination...
...Although few people knew it, Ann had a form of grand mal epilepsy that could result in seizures...
...Said Annie, "Well, you know that I am not a sexist, but there is not a woman in this state who could find a gun in her handbag...
...When Ann first ran for state treasurer in 1982 you could feel it: the start of a movement...
...WE own the capitol," they all shouted...
...They did, and she did...
...The taxpayers," the kids finally concluded after much nudging...
...But she felt under such pressure to run again-all those people who believed in her, all those women who were inspired by her...
...If you go to buy a candy bar, do you pay taxes on it...
...Ann won on the women's vote, and her Inauguration Day was genuinely special...
...Ann inherited a huge mess as governor, and she fixed just about all of it...
...But she had a real empathy for kids at that impossible age...
...The '94 election was a God, gays, and guns deal...
...While she built 60,000 new prison cells, she did put 14,000 beds into a prison alcohol rehab program...
...She had been working flat out for the entire term...
...A candy bar receipt was finally produced, and sure enough it had tax added on it...
...Had Ann been able to see just a little further into the future, she would have run like a racehorse...
...What she really needed was someone to take her tired ass home...
...asked Ann...
...She attended to the details, actually listened to the civil servants, and made the place run better...
...Who owns this building...
...She and Dave Richards had dated in high school...
...Her father always told her she could do anything she wanted...
...What about you...
...I was in college before I found out he was wrong," she said...
...Who are the taxpayers...
...Running the treasurer's office was just like balancing a checkbook "except more zeroes," she said, adding: "Women are trained to detail, and we are expected to juggle a lot of balls at once...
...A crowd of Texans-white, black, and brown-marched from the bridge to the capitol...
...shouted one kid...
...More than once she slipped into a circle of convicts and said, "My name is Ann and I am an alcoholic...
...My parents pay taxes...
...As governor, she took around a class of gifted and talented kids, mostly black and brown, who were visiting the capitol for the day...
...Molly Ivins writes in this space every month...
Vol. 70 • November 2006 • No. 11
