May 25, 1985
Gary Scharrer
El Paso Times -
One of the
books I’ve yet to read only because it remains to be written involves
the life and times of Judge Woodrow Wilson Bean Sr.
The condensed version is the stuff you might read about in Reader’s Digest under the heading: “My Most Unforgettable Character.”
The Bean story could begin just about anywhere. Is he a descendant of the legendary Judge Roy Bean? Bean has never discouraged the notion of his ancestry with the infamous West Texas saloon owner and judge who enforced the only “law west of the Pecos.” So when federal Judge R.E. Thomason swore Woodrow in as El Paso county judge in the 1950s. Thomason proclaimed: “We again have law west of the Pecos.”
Maybe the Bean story begins during those 11 formative years that he spent in a Masonic orphanage. Or maybe it starts in the late 1930s when he donned scarf and goggles and set out to be the Air Force’s next Red Baron. However, after crash-landing two government planes, Bean looked for a more stable calling in life. So he plunged into politics and succumbed to what has become a 45-year-long obsession not unlike a junkie’s addiction to heroin, Bean said.
It started in 1940 when the 22-year-old adventurer hitchhiked back and forth between El Paso and Austin during the first of his three terms in the state legislature.
Bean’s roller-coaster ride through life includes three terms as state representative; a 250-vote defeat in 1947 for U.S. representative; an active term of accomplishments as county judge; neglect to pay federal income taxes in the 1950s that caused him another narrow defeat during a 1962 congressional race; suspension of his law license for two years following his tax problems; rebounding to fame after successfully defending Johnny Cash against charges of carrying an illegal weapon and drugs; getting elected to the state school board; campaigning in an engineer’s cap and bib overalls as “the people’s candidate” for the state Railroad Commission; and then returning six years later in a pinstriped suit during his campaign for the state Supreme Court.
“The Judge” has run so often that buddy Malcolm McGregor once quipped: “He has run for office every two years since 1940 except when under indictment or on probation.”
The Bean stories are too many to chronicle… and he doesn’t even have to be around for new tales to be told. Just last week, state Sen. Carl Parker of Port Arthur shared one of his Bean stories during a lull in a Senate filibuster.
Bean’s charm and cunning character combined to give him a statewide reputation in Democratic politics. Lyndon Johnson was a friend; John Kennedy was an acquaintance. During a 1960 campaign swing through El Paso, Kennedy still remembered and laughed about Bean’s resourcefulness. Four years earlier, Bean used more than 100 county jail trusties to greet Kennedy and help sell the airport crowd.
One factor probably denying the Judge from greatness has been his less than robust health. He’s been a frequent patron of hospitals, sometimes being forced to withdraw from races because of health problems. He often denied rumors about heart and liver problems that he blamed opponents for spreading.
However, no El Pasoan has conducted more hospital room news conferences than Woodrow Bean.
In 1955, the 36-year-old Bean suffered a heart attack. Many years later the Judge would lament: “Had I only known I was gonna live this long I would’ve taken better care of myself.”
Today the 67-year-old legend is battling lung cancer, yet yearning for “one last hurrah.”
And he’s still the witty and audacious Woody, whom Republicans even sometimes admire.
A couple weeks ago, after poking at his hospital meal for an hour. Bean grabbed one of his cigarettes. A nurse asked: “Are you smoking while you eat?”
“No, not while eating. I’ll give the doctor that much,” Bean replied, before offering a pledge to quit “tomorrow.”
Among Bean’s valuable assets has been his visionary look at life. Here’s a guy who, already in the 1940s, warned about El Paso’s future water problems. He wanted the city and state to start searching for solutions. He also advocated a federal housing program for the poor long before the Department of Housing and Urban Development was formed.
Or how about the time Bean offered “free baby-sitting service” during his 1950 campaign for county judge? Doesn’t that make him a pioneer in child day care?
As county judge in the late 1950s, Bean’s political maneuvering enabled El Paso to get the Bridge of the Americas, the county hospital, the Sun Bowl and approval for Trans Mountain Road. Politicians need to open their heads, dream and pursue ideas, he said.
“Any damn fool,” could’ve reasoned a need for the bridge, Bean said. “We have people over there; we have people over here. They have to get back and forth. How do you do it? Hell, you built a bridge!”
Right now, Bean is fighting for his life. But the political part of him is so powerful that he can’t concede that he might have run his last political race.
“Thinking about politics is what keeps my spirits up,” he said recently in his hospital room, while giving tips and advice about the county commission’s squabble over the site for a rodeo/sports complex.
“The fight over that makes me happy. It gives me something to think about. I forget I had cancer,” he said.
After earning a weekend release from the hospital, Bean frail and hoarse, quickly returned to circulation. By Monday morning he was seen with a political buddy in a Downtown café. Pontificating on politics, of course.
That’s why Woody qualifies for “My Most Unforgettable Character.”
The Judge has been a cornerstone in El Paso politics for almost a half century. El Paso politics always will be something less once that pillar is removed.
Legendary Woody Bean battles new foe: cancer
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I WISH I COULD GET MORE INFORAMTION MY MOTHER WAS HIS COUSIN AND HE NEW MY MOTHERS FATHER, I AM TRYING TO GET INFORMATON ON MY GRANDFATHER AND WHO HE WAS AND WHAT HE WAS LIKE AND THE BEAN FAMILY IS THE CLOSEST TO HIM SO IF ANY ONE HAS ANY INFO. PLEASE LET ME KNOW. OR WRITE BACK.
Posted by: Ana Fiffe | November 07, 2011 at 09:13 PM