[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 138 (Monday, September 30, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1839]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO BILL JACK HATHCOX

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JIM CHAPMAN

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                      Saturday, September 28, 1996

  Mr. CHAPMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a great 
Texan, a great Democrat, a great man, Bill Jack Hathcox of Sulphur 
Springs, TX, who passed away April 3, 1996 at the age of 77.
  Bill Jack Hathcox was family to those of us who grew up in Sulphur 
Springs. He was a devotee of Will Rogers, and like Will Rogers, it 
could be said that Bill Jack Hathcox never met anyone he didn't like. 
And there was no one who didn't like him. A dairy farmer, an 
entrepreneur, a restaurant owner, an inventor, a public servant, Bill 
Jack Hathcox embodied the industrious, strong, and generous generation 
that endured the Depression and made ours the most prosperous and free 
nation in the world.
  Bill Jack Hathcox was born July 10, 1918 in Yantis, TX, in Wood 
County, the son of John William and Ella Maude Craver Hathcox. He 
married Margie Dale Parkins on October 25, 1938.
  Mr. Hathcox was well known by several generations in Hopkins and Wood 
counties for his restaurant, farm, ranch and other agricultural 
enterprises. He was instrumental in the commercial development of the 
south side of Sulphur Springs and along the Highway 154 corridor into 
Wood County.
  Bill Jack Hathcox was a 1936 graduate of Sulphur Springs High School 
and attended Texas A&M University and East Texas State Teachers 
College. A natural leader, he was president of the freshmen and 
sophomore classes at East Texas State in 1937 and 1938. Bill Jack was a 
legend at East Texas for his industriousness and creativity. He brought 
a cow with him to school and milked it to pay for his room and board. 
Later, to pay for his honeymoon in Greenville, TX, he hauled along a 
cargo of cotton seed hulls in his truck.
  Bill Jack worked as a roughneck for Shell Oil Co. from 1938 to 1943, 
and at the same time he and his wife owned Hathcox Grocery Store in 
Yantis, TX. During that time he worked also as a substitute teacher and 
a substitute mail carrier. When World War II came, Bill Jack, a master 
carpenter, assisted the war effort by helping build the Red River 
Arsenal and Camp Maxey.
  In the 1940's, Mr. Hathcox opened a Humble, then Texaco gas station 
with his father-in-law T.D. Parkins. From 1949 to 1958, Bill Jack and 
Margie Dale operated the P&B cafe, located next to the gas station on 
Gilmer Street in Sulphur Springs, and later, from 1966 to 1986, they 
owned and operated the Big H Drive-In.
  Three generations of folks in Sulphur Springs practically grew up at 
the Hathcox's restaurants. Bill Jack and Margie Dale had the first 
private dining room in town, served as a center of the community and 
were a second set of parents to the young people of Sulphur Springs.
  In addition, he worked as a fertilizer broker for Big H Fertilizer 
Co. and Mississippi Chemical Co., and operated a dairy with 600 head in 
Wood County from the 1950's until 1992. Mr. Hathcox was a 33d Degree 
Mason, a Shriner, a 50-year Master Mason with the Grand Lodge of Texas, 
Yantis Lodge and Sulphur Springs Lodge and past Worshipful Master. He 
taught Sunday school at First Baptist Church of Yantis and was a member 
of the First Baptist Church of Sulphur Springs.
  He received the Butter Knife Award in 1984 and many other dairy show 
citations for his accomplishments in the dairy industry, and the All-
Electric Building Design Award in 1966, a testament to his ingenuity 
and inventiveness. He was the owner of the 1978 National Quarterhorse 
Futurity Champion.
  Bill Jack Hathcox was a tireless civic-mined citizen. He served as a 
member of the Yantis School Board for many years and was politically 
active all his life. Bill Jack felt people should vote and express 
their views, and he used to take out newspaper ads before elections to 
announce which candidate he was voting for to dramatize that point. I 
am sure many people took his advice.
  Bill Jack Hathcox always fought for the underdog, always tried to 
look out for those less fortunate than he. To him equal rights, and 
justice for all, were not just slogans but rather the way that life 
should be lived. I speak for all of us from Hopkins County when I 
express in his small way our community's sadness at the passing of Bill 
Jack Hathcox, and our gratitude for the time he spent with us. So long, 
Bill Jack--I will miss you, my friend.

                          ____________________