Date: 1984-10-04
Speaker: RALPH M. HALL (democrat)
Chamber: H

I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker. it is my honor to get to say a few words for my good friend CHICK KAzEN. I go back a long. long way with CHICK. and Connie. and the Kazen family. Very great and giving and public servants. very generous people of Webb County and up and down the valley highly respected. I go back to the time when an event that affected this body. theHonorable Sam Rayburn was Speaker of the House. the Congressman from the Fourth District of Texas. When Mr. Rayburn died. as you may well remember. the Honorable Ray Roberts was a member of the State senate. He was one of CHICK KAZENS colleagues in the Texas Senate. Ray Roberts decided to run for this seat in Congress. Mr. Rayburns seat. and was elected. I took Ray Roberts place in the Texas Senate. That is the first time I really got to know CHICK KAZEN. I might say it was the first time I really suffered at the hands of CrCK KAZEN because senate bill 1. on my first entrance into the Texas Senate. was a bill that did away with the Fourth Congressional District of Texas in a redistricting bill. I knew that if I lost my congressional district and particularly Mr. Sams district. that I not only could not run again. I probably could not go home. That is one of the first times that I realized that CHICK KAZEN was really a very kind and a very generous person and capable of friendship. I went to CHICK and talked to him and explained it to him and asked him to rewrite his bill and work with me a little bit and see if we could not work out northeast Texas to where we could maintain some semblance of a Fourth District. I think the dean of this Texas body knows that it happended. CHICK KAzEN did work with me as a freshman member of the Texas Senate. He is the kind of guy that has worked with people who would come to him and seek his help. seek his guidance. seek his experience. He has always shared it with everyone. I know that Connie was one of the. senate ladies with my wife. Mary Ellen. They were very good friends. highly respected. and highly loved. by the other senate ladies there. CHICK. as the dean has pointed out. initiated the preschool program and certainly that was the forerunner. I think. for the national Head Start Program. He was a leader in the field of education. One of the original carriers of the bill that set up the Juniorcollege concept in Texas. He repealed the poll tax. I could go on and on and tell you the things that CHICK KAZEN did when he was a member of the Texas Senate. But. of course. I think in about 1966 he was elected to Congress. I had the pleasure of joining CHICK here in 1981 and have had the great pleasure of working with him. As I say. I have heard CHICK KAZEN speak from his desk for 19 straight hours in a filibuster. He is a wonderful friend and a fearful opponent in debate. We are going to miss CHICK KAZEN. We are not going to miss him much because I think he is going to be back up here with us from time to time and we are going to stay in con. tact with him. I Just think that this is a better place because CHICK KAZEN came this way. Certainly 1 know that the Texas Senate was a better place because CHICK went that way. I know that Laredo has something really to look forward to when one of their very favorite sons and daughters come back home. I thank the dean.