Samuel Blakeley Hall Jr. (January 11, 1924 – April 10, 1994) was an American lawyer, politician, and judge. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Texas's 1st congressional district from 1976 to 1985 and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas from 1985 until his death in 1994.
John Andrew Young (November 10, 1916 – January 22, 2002) was a Democratic politician from Texas who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1957 to 1979.
Born in Corpus Christi, Texas, Young attended Incarnate Word Academy and Corpus Christi College-Academy. He earned his B.A. at St. Edward's University in 1937 and his L.L.B from the University of Texas School of Law in 1940. After starting his career as a lawyer, he served in the United States Navy from 1941 to 1945.
Young served as a lawyer for Nueces County, Texas in various positions, as assistant county attorney in 1946, assistant district attorney from 1947 to 1950, county attorney from 1951 to 1952 and county judge from 1953 to 1956. He ran successfully as a Democrat for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1956, defeating incumbent John J. Bell in the primary election and winning the general election. He took seat in 1957 and was reelected ten times. Young voted against the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964, but voted in favor the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.Young came under fire in 1976 when a former female member of his staff, Colleen Gardner, accused him of requiring her to have sex with him in order to keep her job. Young, who was married with five children at the time, denied the accusation and an investigation produced no evidence. His wife, Jane, committed suicide on July 13, 1977, by a gunshot to the head.The scandal caused his defeat to Joseph P. Wyatt, Jr. in the primary election in 1978 and he left office in 1979.
Afterwards, he worked as a consultant until his death on January 22, 2002. He was interred at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.
Graham Boynton Purcell Jr. (May 5, 1919 – June 11, 2011), was a United States representative from Texas' 13th congressional district.
Born in Archer City in Archer County, a part of the Wichita Falls metropolitan statistical area, Purcell attended public schools and received his Bachelor of Science from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas in 1946, and his LL.B. in 1949 from Baylor Law School in Waco, Texas.
Purcell served in the United States Army during World War II from 1941 to 1946 and served thereafter in the United States Army Reserve.
He served as judge of the Eighty-ninth Judicial District Court of Texas from 1955 to 1962. He was a delegate to the 1960 and 1964 Democratic national conventions, which met in Los Angeles and Atlantic City, New Jersey, respectively to nominate the Kennedy-Johnson and the Johnson-Humphrey tickets, both of which prevailed in Texas.
Purcell was elected to the Eighty-seventh Congress, by special election, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of fellow Democrat, Representative Frank N. Ikard. He was reelected to the five succeeding congresses (January 27, 1962 – January 3, 1973). In 1966, when John Tower won his second term as U. S. senator, Purcell defeated the Republican Dillard Carlisle "Bunny" Norwood (1913-1993) of Wichita Falls.
On November 22, 1963, Purcell was riding in the motorcade's third vehicle behind U.S. President Kennedy during the assassination in Dallas, Texas.
Although Texas gained a seat as a result of the 1970 Census, Purcell's 13th District was dismantled, and his home in Wichita Falls was merged with the Panhandle-based 18th District of Republican Bob Price for the 1972 elections. The new district was numerically Purcell's district—the 13th—but was geographically more Price's district. Purcell retained only one-third of his former constituents. Forced to run in territory that he did not know and that did not know him, Purcell was defeated by nine points.
In 1993, House bill HR 2292 was passed designating the federal building in Wichita Falls as the Graham B. Purcell Jr. Post Office and Federal Building. Purcell resided in Wichita Falls until his death at the age of ninety-two.