46 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • March/April 2018 TheCoastalBend.com left to right top to bottom: Randy Farenthold in Port Aran- sas after an offshore fishing trip; 1970 Spring Break on Port A beach; Downtown Houston and; Las Vegas, where Randy traveled to meet Mafia figures in 1970; it was presumed that Randy’s body was taken into the Gulf of Mexico on a shrimp boat; 16-year-old Jimmy Farenthold campaigning with his mother in 1972; Jimmy at a social gather- ing in Houston, circa 1982. the scheme, though not charged, were the Democratic state party chairman, a state representative, House Speaker Gus Mutscher, Jr., Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, and Gov. Preston Smith. Sissy Faren- thold declared herself a member of the “Dirty 30” legislators, Democrats and Republicans, who opposed the speaker and those implicated in the Sharpstown scandal. Within months, with the re- form of state government as her leading mission, Frances Farenthold announced her run for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Texas, one of three can- didates to oppose Gov. Smith in the 1972 Democratic primary—an unprecedented war within the state party that was fu- eled by the corruption at Sharpstown. The sitting governor came in fourth, in a field of four, in the May 6, 1972, Democratic primary election for governor. Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, a darling of the state party but scarred by the Sharpstown scandal, came in third; Sis- sy Farenthold came in second, and; leg- endary Uvalde rancher, Dolph Briscoe, placed first. For for the first time since Ma Ferguson won a second term as Gov- ernor of Texas in 1932, a woman—a lib- eral reformer at that—was poised to be elected the state’s chief executive. gan’s, estate, which included one of the biggest cotton gins in South Texas, located in western Nueces County. Hurricane Celia knocked out the gin and although Randy wasn’t hard-up for cash, he took advan- tage of a shady opportunity brought to him by a hunting acquaintance, one Bruce Lusk Bass, III, a contractor in Corpus Christi. Bass said he had a Mafia connec- tion in Houston who was willing to sell $167,000 in mature U.S. Treasury bonds for $100,000 in cash, but that he didn’t have the money to do the deal himself. Randy offered to put up the cash and the two flew to Houston, where they met an alleged mob captain in a hotel room. R andy Farenthold was liked by every- one around the docks in Port Aran- sas, even those he out-fished from his high-powered, custom made, and very exotic yacht, Lollipop. Aside from the expensive boat and free spending, most would not have suspected that ole Ran- dy was heir to millions from both sides of his family, let alone that he was born of Belgian aristocracy! By 1970, 31-year-old Randy was married with two kids, Blake and Sue, albeit on his way to divorce, and was managing his grandfather, Rand Mor-