Teel Bivins

Bivins was the son of Lee Truscott Bivins (June 2, 1916 – July 18, 1972)[3] and Betty Teel Bivins, later Betty Lovell (October 2, 1919 – January 16, 2008).[3] Betty and Lee founded the St. Andrew's Episcopal School in 1951 in Amarillo, Texas.[4] Lee inherited the XL (Exell) Ranch north of the Canadian River.[5]^: 183 Lee drowned near Lima, Peru, while surfing in the Pacific Ocean.[5]^{: 248–249} Teel Bivins attended high school at Colorado Academy.[5]^: 256 Bivins graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans and attended law school at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

In 1976, Bivins and his brother Tom formed a partnership, Bivins Brothers. In 1978, Bivins, along with his two brothers, Mark and Tom, Dale Smith, and Jay O'Brien, formed a partnership, Corsino Cattle Company, still in existence. He was also involved in petroleum and natural gas exploration.[2]

Bivins served as a Republican member of the Texas State Senate from 1989 to 2004 from Senate District 31, based about Amarillo. He was first elected in 1988, when the incumbent Democratic state senator, Bill Sarpalius, was elected to the United States House of Representatives. Thereafter, Bivins did not face an opponent in a general election. Bivins chaired the Senate Finance Committee, the Education Committee, the Nominations Committee and the Agricultural Subcommittee of the Natural Resources Committee. In addition, he co-chaired the Interim Committee on Public School Finance during the 78th session and in 1999 served on the Electric Utility Restructuring Oversight Committee. He worked for tort reform in Texas. Bivins supported measures to increase accountability and spending in public education, to stop social promotions, and to increase financial aid for college students. In 2008, his contributions were recognized by West Texas A&M University in Canyon through the Teel Bivins Chair in Political Science.[2]

Bivins had extensive ranch holdings in the Texas Panhandle. In 1990, he introduced a Senate resolution honoring the memory of Tom Blasingame, the oldest cowboy in the history of the American West. Blasingame taught Bivins, as a youth, how to handle livestock.

In 1999 and 2001, Bivins was recognized as one of the most influential lawmakers by the Dallas Morning News. In 1997 and 2001, Bivins was included among the "Ten Best Legislators" by Texas Monthly magazine. A Dallas blogger described Bivins, along with colleagues David Sibley of Waco and Bill Ratliff of Mt. Pleasant as having formed a particularly effective "triumvirate" in the management of the Senate during the 1990s.[6]

Bivins was also one of the most successful fundraisers during the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns for George W. Bush.[2]

Bivins's first wife, Cornelia "Ninia" Ritchie, grew up on the 900,000-acre (3,600 km²) JA Ranch southeast of Amarillo. In 2005, Bivins' son, Andrew Montgomery Bivins (born 1979), joined the management team of the JA as the fifth generation heir.

Bivins was an avid outdoorsman, a skier and fisherman, who also annually visited the 4UR Ranch in Creede, Colorado. Bivins' second wife Nancy Terrill Bivins, mother of Katherine and William, passed away in 2003. Bivins's third wife, from whom he was also divorced, is Tricia Hamilton Bivins, who subsequently in 2009 married Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst.[7]

In October 2009, Bivins died after a years-long battle with progressive supranuclear palsy.[8] His remaining months were spent in the home his grandfather built at 2311 West Sixteenth Ave.[5]^{: 147, 291} After a private interment, a public memorial service was held on October 29, 2009, at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Amarillo.[2]

Election history of Bivins from 1992.[9]

• Teel Bivins, U.S. Ambassador to Sweden