Brownsboro Sheriff 'Didn't Get Letter'

Brownsboro Sheriff 'Didn't Get Letter'

Brownsboro, Texas, (UPI) - Sheriff J. W. Brownlow Sunday disclaimed any knowledge of a letter a former Brownsboro school teacher said she wrote him forecasting the chair swinging brawl that took one life at a school board meeting Thursday night.

Mrs. Edyth Barton said she wrote a letter to Brownlow "in plenty of time" before the free-for-all that ended with Thurman Jackson, 42, shot to death, another man stabbed in the back and stomach, a third person shot in the arm and at least four others injured.

Mrs. Barton, one of several teachers, both white and Negro, who were fired when a new school board took over, said she saw a gun in the pocket of Dr. C. C. Rahm, school board secretary, "several times."

Brownlow said, however, that he never received such a letter.

"Besides, I don't know what else we could have done," he said. "We had three deputies attending that meeting. And there had been at least one officer at all their meetings for the last few months."

The fight erupted to climax because of bitter feelings between the new school board and a faction of townspeople who got angry when School Supt. H. D. Bass was fired after 23 years in service.

Nobody was certain exactly what touched off the fight in the high school study hall where the school board was meeting but it was thought it may have been when Jackson stood and asked the board to itemize its expenses. Another theory was that the battle royal began as one of the 150 persons attending the meeting started to protest the firing of the Negro teachers.

The board oversees the administration of both a white high school and a rural Negro high school.

Dr. Rahm, an osteopath and board secretary, was held in an "undisclosed jail for his own protection" after being charged with murder in the shooting of Jackson. He told officers he fired from the floor after Jackson and his brother jumped on him at the meeting.

George Rash was hospitalized with stab wounds in his back and stomach, Bill Melton was shot in the arm and School Board President I. H. Long, Clarence Hatton, J. P. Parker and David Brand also were injured but not as seriously as Rash and Melton.

Rash, who is past 60 years old, faced three charges. He is charged with assault to murder and assault and battery.

Dallas Morning News
Monday, June 20, 1960
Section 1, Page 1
source: GenealogyBank.com