Lamar University and the Beaumont Foundation of America have announced the 12th in a series of Southeast Texas Legends Scholarships, this one honoring Jack Brooks, who represented Southeast Texas in Congress for more than 40 years.
The $100,000 endowed scholarship will assist underserved Lamar University students, said Lamar President James Simmons at a ceremony and news conference Monday in the University Reception Center of the Mary and John Gray Library.
Brooks grew up in Beaumont and graduated from Lamar in 1941 when it was a junior college. During his senior year of high school and his two years at Lamar, he worked 54 hours a week at the Beaumont Enterprise.
After completing a bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of Texas and serving in the U.S. Marine Corps in the Pacific during World War II, Brooks returned to Beaumont and ran for a seat in the Texas House. At 23, he beat two opponents without a runoff with campaign help from friends from Beaumont High School. In the Texas House, Brooks passed legislation to turn Lamar into a four-year, state-supported senior college.
“I’d been here for two years in junior college and realized that many people, men and women, could not go to some other college. They had to live at home, and if they lived at home, they could go to college and that college would serve the people of this area well. And it has,” Brooks said.
Brooks graduated from law school at UT while serving in the Legislature. In 1952 at age 29, he won his first term in Congress and was re-elected every two years until 1994. As U.S. representative for Southeast Texas, Brooks built friendships with powerful Texas leaders, including House Speaker Sam Rayburn and President Lyndon B. Johnson, and became a Washington power in his own right.
Brooks chaired the Government Operations Committee and the Judiciary Committee and led the Texas delegation for many years. He helped write the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In the 1990s, he passed legislation broadening the scope of civil rights protections to include women of all races and ethnicities.
He also investigated President Richard Nixon for spending $17 million in public money on homes in Florida and California and later drafted the articles of impeachment against Nixon.
Brooks was instrumental in the passage of scores of pieces of significant legislation. His work in Congress led to critical improvements to Southeast Texas waterways, including the creation of the Port of Beaumont Navigation District and of the Sam Rayburn Dam and Reservoir, which he had named for his friend and mentor.
Lamar University benefited from federal funding he secured, including $1 million to complete the Mary and John Gray Library. As the representative of a district that included the Johnson Space Center outside Houston, Brooks was a strong supporter of NASA throughout his career.
Brooks said he does not consider himself a legend but an ordinary citizen. This ordinary citizen just happens to have a wall of photos of friends in his home: President Johnson and his wife at the Brooks family farm near Jasper, President Harry Truman at a luncheon Brooks hosted for Truman as he finished his presidential term, President Jimmy Carter receiving a pair of cowboy boots on a visit to Beaumont, President Gerald Ford asking for help on some bill and President John F. Kennedy with Brooks and other committee chairmen on the House floor to name just a few.
Beaumont attorney Hubert Oxford III, who was honored last year with a Southeast Texas Legends Scholarship in his name, said Brooks is unquestionably a legend.
“All the good things that have happened in this area are based on the foundation he left, from the waterways to the interstate. You name it, and he had a hand in it,” Oxford said. “Jack Brooks should have been named a legend way before me. He’s a real one.”
Brooks said it was gracious of the Beaumont Foundation to recognize him as a legend. “It’s flattering they think I was a legend for doing good things, not being Billy the Kid,” he said.
The Legends scholarship is not Brooks’ first honor at Lamar. A statue of Brooks clutching one of his signature cigars is a fixture on the campus quadrangle. The Jack Brooks Chair in Government and Public Service was established in the political science department in 1997. Other Lamar University scholarships also bear his name. Brooks said he was glad to have another avenue to assist students.
“The sky’s the limit when you get out of college,” Brooks said. “Many Lamar graduates do very, very well, and all of them benefit from their education.”
Brooks and his wife, Charlotte, will celebrate their 48th anniversary this year. They have three children, Kate Carroll, Jeb Brooks and Kim Brooks, and two grandchildren, Matthew and Brooke Carroll.
“I’d like to thank the Beaumont Foundation of America for its commitment to Lamar University and the underserved individuals who will take advantage of this generous endowment for many years to come,” Simmons said during the ceremony.
The Beaumont Foundation of America is a non-profit organization that grew out of the historic $2.1 billion settlement of a nationwide class action suit to obtain relief for those who bought defective computers.
“The foundation is still focused on the underserved, but the mission has broadened beyond technology, and that mission starts with a fundamental reality of our global economy, in which education is essential for a successful life,” said Frank Newton, president and CEO for the foundation.
