03-07-2019, 02:29 PM
Former Congressman Ralph Hall, last of the GI Generation in the House of Representatives:
Former Rep. Ralph Hall, a political survivor whose career mirrored the massive partisan shift that marked the last 50 years of Texas politics and made him the oldest person to ever serve in the U.S. House, died Thursday. He was 95.
The Rockwall Republican died of natural causes at his home overlooking Lake Ray Hubbard, a spokesman confirmed.
Services will be held on Saturday March 16 at 2 p.m. at First United Methodist Church in Rockwall. Visitation will take place on Friday March 15 at Rest Haven Funeral Home in Rockwall between 6 and 8 p.m.
Hall represented a largely rural northeast Texas district in Congress for 34 years after serving two decades years in other public office before that. He left, in his own way, an indelible imprint on a massive swath from his hometown of Rockwall all the way to Texarkana.
Hall’s longevity — he left office in 2015 at age 91 — was truly for the record books. But that tenure, which included Hall’s switch in 2004 from the Democratic Party to the GOP, also marked the change and end of an era.
“There have been many great members from Texas that served in the House,” former Rep. Joe Barton, an Arlington Republican, said in 2014. “But none has been more beloved and none has been more effective than Ralph Hall of Rockwall, Texas.”
When Hall was first elected to public office in 1950, he served in an area so Democratic, the primary effectively determined the election. By the time he was voted out of office in 2014, the primary was still the vote that mattered, just on the Republican side.
A retired Navy pilot, Hall was one of a host of World War II veterans in Congress when he got elected in 1980. By the time he left office, he was one of the last two World War II veterans left in the House or Senate.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas-po...ll-dies-95
Former Rep. Ralph Hall, a political survivor whose career mirrored the massive partisan shift that marked the last 50 years of Texas politics and made him the oldest person to ever serve in the U.S. House, died Thursday. He was 95.
The Rockwall Republican died of natural causes at his home overlooking Lake Ray Hubbard, a spokesman confirmed.
Services will be held on Saturday March 16 at 2 p.m. at First United Methodist Church in Rockwall. Visitation will take place on Friday March 15 at Rest Haven Funeral Home in Rockwall between 6 and 8 p.m.
Hall represented a largely rural northeast Texas district in Congress for 34 years after serving two decades years in other public office before that. He left, in his own way, an indelible imprint on a massive swath from his hometown of Rockwall all the way to Texarkana.
Hall’s longevity — he left office in 2015 at age 91 — was truly for the record books. But that tenure, which included Hall’s switch in 2004 from the Democratic Party to the GOP, also marked the change and end of an era.
“There have been many great members from Texas that served in the House,” former Rep. Joe Barton, an Arlington Republican, said in 2014. “But none has been more beloved and none has been more effective than Ralph Hall of Rockwall, Texas.”
When Hall was first elected to public office in 1950, he served in an area so Democratic, the primary effectively determined the election. By the time he was voted out of office in 2014, the primary was still the vote that mattered, just on the Republican side.
A retired Navy pilot, Hall was one of a host of World War II veterans in Congress when he got elected in 1980. By the time he left office, he was one of the last two World War II veterans left in the House or Senate.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas-po...ll-dies-95
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.