Preston Smith (governor) took which position from 1957 to 1963?
Preston Smith ( governor ) Preston Earnest Smith ( March 7 , 1912 October 18 , 2003 ) was the 40th Governor of Texas from 1969 to 1973 , who previously served as the lieutenant governor from 1963 to 1969 . Early life . Smith was born into a tenant farming family of 13 children in Corn Hill , a town in Williamson County , Texas , that has since been absorbed into nearby Jarrell . The family later moved to Lamesa , Texas , where Smith graduated in 1928 from Lamesa High School . In 1934 , he graduated from Texas Technological College ( now Texas Tech University ) in Lubbock with a bachelors degree in business administration . Staying in Lubbock , he founded a movie theater business and invested in real estate . Political career . Smith was first elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1944 and then to the Texas State Senate in 1956 . He won the Senate seat by defeating in the primary the incumbent Kilmer B . Corbin , the father of actor Barry Corbin . In 1962 , Smith won the lieutenant governors race , securing majorities in all but 16 of the 254 counties to defeat the Republican O.W . Bill Hayes . In 1968 , Smith was elected governor , a position he held for two two-year terms . He succeeded the popular Democratic Governor John B . Connally Jr. , who later switched to the Republican Party in 1973 . To win the governorship , Smith first defeated Don Yarborough in the 1968 Democratic runoff election . Several other candidates , including Dolph Briscoe , a large landholder from Uvalde in the Texas Hill Country , and former Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr , also of Lubbock , were eliminated in the primary . Smiths inauguration on January 21 , 1969 , had what was called the flavor of the South Plains . The Texas Tech University marching band led the parade just behind the marshal and the color guard . A mounted masked Red Raider rode with the band . Governor and Mrs . Smith , both Tech graduates , followed in an open convertible . Other Smith family members rode in the parade , followed by the new lieutenant governor , Ben Barnes . The band of Lamesa High School , Smiths alma mater , was the first among the high school groups . Before the oath taking , the first to be televised in Texas history , Smith had been feted with a $25-per-place victory dinner in the Austin Municipal Auditorium , now the Long Center for the Performing Arts . Smith twice defeated Republican nominee Paul W . Eggers , a tax attorney from Wichita Falls and later Dallas , and a close friend of U.S . Senator John G . Tower . In the high-turnout general election of 1968 , Smith received 1,662,019 ballots ( 57 percent ) to Eggers 1,254,333 ( 43 percent ) . In the general election of 1970 , Smith , who had been unopposed in the Democratic primaries , received 1,197,726 votes ( 53.6 percent ) to Eggers 1,037,723 ( 46.4 percent ) - still the highest midterm year turnout in past 50 years . The state switched to four-year terms in 1974 , two years after Smith left office . In 1971 and 1972 , Smith was embroiled in the Sharpstown scandal stock fraud scheme , which eventually led to his downfall . Smith lost his third-term bid for the governorship of Texas to Dolph Briscoe of Uvalde in the Democratic primary in 1972 . He ran a distant fourth in the primary , behind Briscoe , womens activist Frances Sissy Farenthold of Corpus Christi , and Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes , formerly of Comanche County . Among his appointments , Smith in 1970 named Paul Pressler of Houston , a former state representative , as judge of the Texas 133rd District Court in Harris County . Pressler , who later switched to the Republican Party , subsequently became known as a prime leader in the Southern Baptist Convention Conservative Resurgence which began in Houston in 1979 . He appointed former State Senator Grady Hazlewood of Amarillo and Austin as a regent of Hazlewoods alma mater , West Texas A&M University in Canyon . In 1969 , Smith named state Representative Randy Pendleton of Andrews to head the Office of State and Federal Relations in Washington , D.C . Later life and attempted political comeback . In 1974 , Smith joined banker Stanton Leon Koop ( 1937–2008 ) , a native of Pampa , in forming the West Texas Savings Association in Lubbock . In 1986 , Koop moved to Dallas , where he was affiliated with Great Western Mortgage Company , until his retirement in 1994 . In 1978 , at the age of 66 , Smith again entered the Democratic gubernatorial primary against his intraparty rival , Governor Briscoe . Both Smith and Briscoe lost in the primary to former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice John Hill , who in turn was narrowly defeated in the general election by Republican Bill Clements . Toward the end of his life , Smith worked as a political liaison officer for Texas Tech University . After his death in Lubbock , the airport was renamed in 2004 in his memory as Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport . Smith termed himself a conservative Democrat ; although he was generally supportive of President Lyndon B . Johnson , he refused to support his partys nominees for president in 1980 and for governor in 1982 . Instead of voting to reelect President Jimmy Carter and Mark White in the gubernatorial race , Smith cast his ballot for Ronald Reagan and Bill Clements , respectively . On October 18 , 2003 , Smith died at age 91 in the Texas Tech University Medical Center in Lubbock after being hospitalized for pneumonia . He is interred with his wife , the former Ima Mae Smith ( 1911–1998 ) , at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin . External links . - Programs for people , by Preston Smith , published 1973 , hosted by the Portal to Texas History . - http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/020508/obi_243811655.shtml - Papers , 1930-1975 and undated , in the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library at Texas Tech University