Former Governor of Texas Mark White dies aged 77

Monday, August 7, 2017

Former governor of Texas, Mark White died at the age of 77 in Houston on Saturday, his son Andrew White told the Associated Press. The Democrat served as Texas' governor from 1983 till 1987. White was considered as an education reformer during his single-term in office for bringing some policies focusing on education. White had suffered from kidney cancer for several years.

White's son, Andrew paid tribute to his father and said, "He [Mark White] cared about Texas deeply [...] He realized that this wasn't about getting re-elected. This wasn't about being popular. This was about making Texas a better place." Former Texan Lieutenant Governor Bill Hobby called White "one of Texas' greatest governors".

The current Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott also paid tribute to White saying, "Mark White cared deeply about Texas [...] and he devoted his life to making our state even better, particularly when it came to educating our children."

Born in 1940, White served as Texas' secretary of state and attorney general before he became the governor. He defeated then-incumbent Republican, Bill Clements to become Governor in 1983 despite Clements spending thirteen million dollars on his campaign. Four years later, Clements defeated White to become Texas' governor.

White brought few educational reforms including the "No-Pass, No-Play" policy. Per the policy, students had to maintain a minimum threshold of grades to participate in school sports and extra-curricular activities. The decision was unpopular among many and even blocked by a state-district judge. The state Supreme Court eventually approved the policy.

Defending the "No-Pass, No-Play policy" in 1987, White told the state lawmakers, "Let's be real: Anyone who can study a playbook can study a textbook. Americans didn't get to the moon on a quarterback sneak."

After losing in his re-election attempt in 1987, White returned to private law practice and also became the owner of a security company. In 1990, he ran for the office again, but lost to Ann Richards in the Democratic primary who later became the Governor.

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!

Sources

AP. "Former Democratic Texas Gov. Mark White dies at 77" — Daily Mail Online, August 6, 2017
"Former Texas governor Mark White, education reformer, dead at 77" — Reuters, August 6, 2017
John C Moritz. "Former Democratic Texas governor Mark White dies at 77" — USA Today, August 5, 2017

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License