ustxtxb_obs_1981_01_16_50_00016-00000_000.pdf

tied to a share as another branch. Her proposal would give the school one sixth of the fund, with UT and A&M splitting the rest. Aggie officials probably would prefer to hear little more about Prairie View or the permanent fund, but those issues won’t easily be quashed, especially with the A&M legislative machinery grinding to a halt. Roy Kleinsasser So Long Two retirements of note were announced in Texas just before the end of 1980. One came from Dallas, where Harding L. Lawrence, chairman and chief executive officer of Dallas-based Braniff International Corp., said he was quitting after 15 years of running Texas’ biggest flying joke. Although Braniff denied it, the word was that Lawrence, 60, had been forced to resign. Braniff has been losing money for about 18 months, including operating losses of $113 million in the first three quarters of 1980. Lawrence, whose wife, Mary Wells Lawrence, owns the big New York agency which handles the Braniff adverhad tried to promote Braniff over the years with a good deal of flash. There were the Alexander Calder planes, the orange, red, green and blue planes, and then the sedate chocolate brown planes. There were fancy hostess uniforms \(but ior decorating jobs. There were grand plans to expand during the past two years, based on Braniff’s previous growth impressive from $100 million in revenues back in the ’60s to about $1.3 billion today. But the company overreached, its stock tumbled on the market, and Braniff has been selling some of its fleet and cutting pay to employees to pay off debts and stay in the air. But in the end Braniff, under the flamboyant management of Lawrence, has been unable to turn itself around. Those who fly on the airline regularly may hope that a new chairman will concentrate less on sizzle and more on fundamentals, like passenger treatment, flight safety, and prompt schedules. Now that other Texas airlines such as Southwest and Texas International are capable of moving passengers around Texas at lower cost and with less hassle than often-arrogant Braniff, a change is clearly in order. There’s one other speculation about the Lawrence “retirement” and that’s that a long-discussed merger with Eastern Airlines may now become more possible. If that happens, it would be a black mark against Texas’ reputation for effective management, which ought to be able to keep a potentially successful operation going. The real retirement note for 1980, however, came from quiet La Grange, where Sheriff T. J. “Big Jim” Flournoy decided to hang up his badge at age 78: Flournoy was not one of your real nice gentle cops, but he did achieve a reputation for keeping the Fayette County crime rate down and for getting steamed about the closing of the “Chicken Ranch” brothel in 1973 by then-Gov. Dolph Briscoe. Flournoy was also a Texas Ranger during the war years, 1941-45, and is in the Ranger Hall of Fame. His replacement in Fayette County is no spring chicken himself Vesnate Koppman, 62, a former chief deputy. Progressives and The Austin Council Filing for the six Austin City Council seats doesn’t begin until Feb. 3, but 23 candidates, ranging from graduates of the progressive council of the early ’70s to members of Austin’s conservative es Journal/ HALF PRICE RECORDS AUG AZ IN ES DALLAS Big Main Store 4528 McKinney Downtown: Austin Alley, across from”. FORT WORTH 3306 Fairlield \(6301 Camp Bowie Blvd.1 in Bidglea Shopping Center WACO 301 N. 25th 125th & Columbusl TEMPLE Towne & Country Mall 4401 S. General Bruce Or. RICHARDSON 508 Lockwood FARMERS BRANCH Farmers Branch Shoppingine Cente r JANUARY 16, 1981 , view & i 3eY iffear 1 6 High Speed Web Offset Publication Pre Complete Computer Data Processing Services FlITLI1?A PRESS. AUSTIN TEXAS