TEXAS SUPREME COURT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Fellows ColumnPhoto by Alexander’s Fine Portrait Design-HoustonIBy David J. Beck, Chair of the FellowsAM PLEASED TO REPORT that the Third Annual Fellows Dinner was atremendous success. Seven Justices from the Texas Supreme Court joined theFellows at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin on May 7 for a wonderful eveningof art, dinner, and conversation. We appreciate Justice Green, the Court’s liaison tothe Society, coordinating the scheduling of the dinner so that the Justices would beable to attend. Unique events such as this one are included as a benefit of being aFellow. The attached photos will give you some sense of the elegance, uniqueness,and camaraderie of the evening. We are beginning plans now for the Fourth AnnualFellows Dinner, to be held in April 2016.We are also pleased that many of the Fellows were able to attend the Historyof Texas and Supreme Court Jurisprudence symposium in Austin on May 7. AllFellows were invited to attend free of charge. We encourage all of you to attend theHemphill Dinner on September 11 where the Society will recognize and express its appreciation to all Fellows.We continue to make substantial progress on our judicial civics book project for seventh-grade Texashistory classes. The book and program is tentatively named Taming Texas: How Law and Order Came to the LoneStar State. The book has been written and is currently being illustrated. We are very pleased that Chief JusticeHecht has written the foreword. As Chief Justice Hecht describes the book:[O]ver the years, judges and lawmakers have fought against power and prejudice to produce thesociety we enjoy today. This book is about how that happened in Texas. Settlers from Spain andMexico brought with them a civil law tradition that had its origins in Roman law two thousand yearsago. At the same time, other pioneers from the United States believed in a common law systemborrowed from England. Coming together in this wild frontier, people from very different culturesand backgrounds had to find new ways to settle their disputes and establish order. They recognizedwomen’s rights, protected homesteads, tamed the railroads, and fostered the independent spirit thathad brought them here in the first place.We greatly appreciate the Chief’s support of this project.We are in the process of nominating the Fellows Class of 2015. I am excited to welcome the followingas new Fellows: Stacy Alexander, Douglas W. Alexander, Jeffrey L. Oldham, Thomas F.A. Hetherington, Hon.Harriet O’Neill, Kerry N. Cammack, and Elaine Block.Finally, I want to again express our appreciation to the Fellows for their support of programs like ourjudicial civics book project. If you are not currently a Fellow, please consider joining the Fellows and helpingus with this important work. If you would like more information or want to join the Fellows, please contact theSociety office or me.7