The Texas 100: Survey Results
Ross Perot (who else?) tops our annual survey of the wealthiest Texans.
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That’s Life Father died in Army Air Corps show when Farish was four. George Bush hunts quail with Farish on his 10,000-acre Beeville ranch; entertains Queen Elizabeth II on 3,000-acre Kentucky Thoroughbred horse farm. Didn’t graduate from college: “I wish I had, but it hasn’t made any difference.”
• Nancy Blackburn Hamon
Dallas • Inheritance (Oil and Gas) • 72
$130 million.
Assets “I didn’t know anything about oil but a good salad dressing,” says Hamon of the oil and gas reserves inherited in 1985 from husband Jake, a six-decade independent oil and gas producer.
That’s Life Danced in Hollywood movies in the forties; in 1949 married Jake, seventeen years her senior. Took one hundred friends on Sea Goddess cruise. Jake gave Dallas Zoo first gorilla; Nancy now funds gorilla habitat and research: “Jake just like gorillas.”
• Sybil Buckingham Harrington
Amarillo • Inheritance (Oil and Gas) • 70’s
$130 million.
Assets Interest in hundreds of oil and gas wells from Panhandle to Kansas’ Hugoton fields inherited from husband, Don Harrington, an independent who died in 1974.
That’s Life Home displays photo reproductions of Impressionist collection Harrington gave to the Phoenix Art Museum. The Amarillo-Panhandle Humane Society once created the Tutu Harrington Fund, named after her poodle. Annually bankrolls a New York Metropolitan Opera production.
• Thomas O. Hicks
Dallas • Financier • 46
$130 million NEW.
Assets Hicks is the principal partner of Hicks, Muse, and Company, an investment firm specializing in LBOs. In the past two years, Hicks Muse acquired seven companies valued at more than $1.8 billion. The firm’s 1991 investment of $30 million for 80 percent of Morningstar Group, an ailing dairy, sweetened to a 56 percent stake worth some $85 million when the company went public this spring.
That’s Life Raised in Port Arthur; played tight end on high school football team. Undergrad finance and marketing degree from UT; MBA from University of Southern California. Worked for Morgan Guaranty Trust in New York before heading venture capital arm of First National Bank of Dallas. Co-founded Hicks and Haas (famous for 1986 Dr Pepper-7 Up buyout) with Robert B. Haas in 1983; the firm was one of the eighties’ leading LBO companies, completing transactions valued at more than $5 billion. Split with Haas in 1989: “I wanted to captain my own ship.” Skis Aspen, Colorado, annually with sons.
• Jubal Richard Parten
Madisonville • Oil and Gas • 96
$130 million
Assets Oil and gas properties throughout the United States collected in more than three decades as an independent.
That’s Life In 1960, at 64, sold Woodley Petroleum, a drilling company founded in 1919 with his in-laws, and took the cash, leaping back into the oil patch: “I’m just a solid, hard-workin’ oilman.” Former chairman of UT Board of Regents; used to give Bevos to UT. Slowed by age? “No, he goes and looks at his oil wells and his cattle ranches,” says a friend. Appeared on 48 hours segment on a day in the life of a small Texas town.
• Lonnie Alfred “Bo” Pilgrim
Pittsburg • Chicken • 64
$130 million, DOWN $10 million from 1991. Pilgrim’s Pride stock is slumping.
Assets Almost 80 percent of publicly held Pilgrim’s Pride, a $790 million chicken producer grown from a feedstore Bo co-founded in 1945 with brother Aubrey (now diseased).
That’s Life At eleven, was pushed into working as a farmhand when father died. Still works twelve-hour days; gives motivational speeches. Locals dubbed new multimillion-dollar mansion outside Pittsburg “Cluckingham Palace.” The 20,000-square-foot eighteenth-century French Renaissance-style house and gardens occupy 25 acres of a 52-acre site: “If I’m not working in the office, I’m working in the yard.”
• Nelda Childers Stark
Orange • Inheritance (oil and timber) • 83
$130 million.
Assets A hefty portfolio, real estate, oil and gas, and Orange Savings and Loan have kept Stark busy since her husband, H. J. “Lutcher” Stark, died in 1965, splitting his timber and oil empire between her and a foundation.
That’s Life Worked as administrator at Orange’s Stark-endowed hospital; married Stark in 1944 after his second wife, Nelda’s sister Ruby, died. Put bodyguards on payroll years ago after experiencing botched kidnapping attempt; tends fortune from fortresslike building.
• Oscar Sherman Wyatt, Jr.
Houston • Coastal Corporation • 68
$130 million.
Assets Stock in $9 billion Coastal Corporation, a gas-pipeline company founded by Wyatt with $800 in 1955, when he realized no pipeline system existed to collect or transport the excess gas burned off by oil producers.
That’s Life Raised poor in Beaumont; put self through A&M working on rice farms. Learned gas business after graduation. Divides time between South Texas and Colorado ranches and Riviera mansion, where jet-setting fourth wife, the former Lynn Sakowitz, hosts lavish parties for royalty and rock stars. Loves western movies and books. Ideal vacation is “no phone calls in the mountains.”
• Lester Arnold Levy
Dallas • NCH Corporation • 69
• Milton Philip Levy
Dallas • NCH Corporation • 67
• Irvin Louis Levy
Dallas • NCH Corporation • 63
$380 million, DOWN $40 million from 1991. NCH Corporation stock is sinking.
Assets Family-owned NCH Corporation, an international firm that sells solvents, welding supplies, and plumbing parts.
That’s Life While schoolboys, brothers were thrust into running NCH when Milton Senior, NCH founder, died of heart attack in 1946. “We work as one,” says Irvin. Lester founded Dallas’ Winston School for learning-disabled children, Milton backs Dallas’ Special Care School for mentally impaired children, and Irvin chairs Dallas Museum of Art board. All play tennis.
• Electra Waggoner Biggs
Vernon • Inheritance (ranching, oil and gas) • 79
• Albert Buckman “Bucky” Wharton III
Vernon • Inheritance (ranching, oil and gas) • 44
$240 million, RETURNEES.
Assets A 535,000-acre ranching, farming, and oil kingdom inherited from Electra’s grandfather, W. T. “Pappy” Waggoner (see “Money Becomes Electra”.
• Dan J. Harrison III
Houston • Inheritance (oil and gas) • 40’s
• Bruce Finch Harrison
Houston • Inheritance (oil and gas) • 40’s
$240 million, NEW.
Assets The brothers’ grandfather Dan J. Harrison began his oil career in 1903, eventually founding an oil, gas, and ranching empire that stretched across the state. In 1990 the boys cashed in part of their inheritance by selling one of the family’s gems, the 43,000-acre oil-rich West Texas ranch located between Rocksprings and Sonora, to Meridian Oil for an estimated $70 million. The brothers oversee their oil and gas properties and ranches through Harrison Interests.
That’s Life Grandfather Dan played football for UT in early 1900’s; UT Regent from 1940 to 1944. Former county and district attorney in Liberty County. Joint operator with J. S. Abercrombie in Brazoria County’s Old Ocean Field; also held interests in the Batson oil field. Boys’ father, Dan Junior, died in the eighties. Dan III attended Trinity University but didn’t graduate. Bruce had a three-year stint at Southwestern. Both enjoy deer hunting. “They hang out with the Basses and those of that ilk,” says an associate.
• Mary Ralph Lowe
Houston • Inheritance (oil and gas) • 45
$120 million, NEW.
Assets Mary Ralph’s father, Missouri-born Ralph Lowe, arrived in Wink at age 25 but quickly ditched his machinist job to chase wells. He found oil in the Deep Rock Ellenburger Field, the Permian Basin, and New Mexico. Mary Ralph now runs her inherited oil and gas interests through Maralo, Inc., and also oversees numerous ranches.
That’s Life Midland-born; Ralph’s only heir, was taught business from childhood, never played with dolls, looked at oil maps and studied geology with father until wee hours. Lessons didn’t start too soon; Ralph died when Mary Ralph was Texas Christian University student. Also inherited father’s flamboyant streak. He trucked white sand from Oklahoma to build Mary Ralph a beach around their Davis Mountain ranch swimming pool—Mary Ralph delivered 492 chickens to a food bank in her Jaguar.
• Sam Wyly
Dallas • Investments • 57
$120 million, NEW.
Assets A scorecard is needed to follow Wyly’s dealmaking; he specializes in co-founding companies (at least six since 1963), merging them with others, then selling out. Through family partnerships he now holds large stock positions in Michaels stores and Sterling Software, founded by Wyly in 1981.
That’s Life Louisiana-raised; father was small-town newspaper publisher. Displays bronze bulldog in Dallas office as fond reminder of Louisiana Tech days. Sold computers for IBM and Honeywell. At 28, founded University Computing at SMU with one mainframe. Wyly got free rent, electricity, and cheap student labor; SMU got to use computer. Pursuit of other ventures nearly bankrupted company and led to his departure in 1979. In 1980, forced bidding war for Earth Resources, an oil and mining company he and brother Charles helped found; investors doubled money in five months. Sold family-owned Bonanza restaurants franchise to Metromedia for $78 million in 1989. Keeps Malibu, California, home.
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