THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • March/April 2018 45 TheCoastalBend.com Rep. Frances Farenthold’s entry into 1969’s ultimate good ole boys club in no way went un- noticed, not by the statewide press, the capitol press, nor the national press—and certainly not by her fellow legislators. In her first year in of- fice, hers was the lone vote against a proclama- tion in support of Pres. Johnson’s handling of the Vietnam War. She introduced the first bill to reduce the charge for simple possession of marijuana from a felony that could be punished with up to a life sentence, to a misdemeanor. A self-described bleeding heart liberal, Farenthold stood by a boycott of imported lettuce in sup- port of Texas farm workers; she supported the federal policy of public school bussing in pursuit of diversity and education equality following de- segregation, and; she railed against the fact that Texas, at the time, did not regulate public util- ity rates statewide. From the perspective of one woman in a chamber with 149 men who were not used to, nor particularly fond of, her presence, Sissy Farenthold was witnessing one of the ugli- est, and most ground-shaking political scandals in Texas history happening before her eyes. Whenever you travel to Houston, especially from Corpus Christi, you have surely seen Sharp- stown, the exit and the old mall, plus a number of car dealerships, along the route that used to be known as U.S. 59, now Interstate 69. The community north of the freeway has grown and changed over the past five decades or so, and is today home to one of the most vibrant and larg- est Vietnamese-American communities in the country. Banker and insurance company owner, Frank Sharp, donated a three-hundred-foot wide strip of land for the construction of the South- west Free- way, allowing faster access to downtown from his new, master planned com- munity of single- family homes, apart- ment complexes, parks, schools, and even a country club. In 1961, PlazAmerica, later known as Sharp- stown Mall, would become the first indoor, air conditioned, shopping mall in Greater Houston. An aggressive power broker in Houston pol- itics, Frank Sharp was used to getting his way at city hall, at the county courthouse, and at the Texas Capitol. Sharp hatched a scheme to artifi- cially inflate the value of stock in his insurance company, National Bankers Life, by successfully pushing a bill through the Texas Legislature that would favor the company financially. Sharp guar- anteed the success of the bill by bribing a number of high-ranking state officials with $600,000 in loans from Sharpstown State Bank—money that was used by those officials to purchase shares in National Bankers Life. Sharp and his cohorts in state government sold their shares at a profit before the bill ever had a chance to become law, although a Catholic Jesuit school in Houston lost over $6 million. At the dawn of the 1971 legislative ses- sion, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commis- sion brought civil and criminal charges against Sharp, the former attorney general of Texas, the former insurance commissioner and a handful of others. Alleged conspirators and enablers of left to right top to bottom: Sissy Farenthold with Gov. Preston Smith whom she would help unseat; 1972 campaign brochure; on a campaign stop in Port Aransas weeks before her stepson would be found murdered a few miles away; girls in Corpus Christi at a campaign table; outside the capitol in Austin while serving in the State House; in a 2013 television interview from Houston.