Feuding Brownsboro Patrolled by Rangers

Feuding Brownsboro Patrolled by Rangers

Brownsboro, Texas (UPI) - Texas Rangers and highway patrolmen kept the residents of Brownsboro off the streets Friday lest a fatal gun, knife, club and fist fight at a school board meeting Thursday night erupt again in open riot.

Thurman Jackson, 42, a lumber company owner, was shot twice and killed Thursday night. Bill Melton was shot in the arm. George Rash was stabbed in the stomach and back. Rash's condition changed from serious to satisfactory Friday. Rash and Melton were among 150 spectators at the meeting.

Four other men - including Dr. C. C. Rahm, an osteopath, former mayor and school board secretary, who was charged with murdering Jackson - were beaten or trampled in a battle royal after the shooting.

In addition to charging Rahm with murdering Jackson and assaulting Melton with intent to murder him, District Attorney Jack Hardee charged seven other men with assault with intent to murder or assault and battery.

The trouble had its beginnings weeks ago when the school board fired Superintendent H. D. Bass after 23 years.

The immediate thing that set off Thursday night's trouble was a Negro man's asking whether the board intended to rehire nine Negro teachers it had fired from the staff of an all-Negro school.

The feud was so widely spread and the number of men who fought so great in relation to Brownsboro's 500-600 population that Henderson County authorities feared a riot and asked for state help.

Ranger Capt. Clint Peeples of Waco went in with three other Rangers and four state highway patrolmen and calmed the people.

"We may charge a lot more after I get through questioning about 50 people," Hardee said.

"Charges will be filed on everyone who violated the law in this affray."

By late Friday Hardee had taken written statements from 55 persons and said he would continue questioning witnesses all night and Saturday, if necessary.

Two men identified as Arland Boles and S. M. Watley pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of assault and battery in Justice of the Peace C. C. Adrian's court and were fined $25 each plus court costs of $19.50 each. The five other men charged in connection with the brawl had not come up for trial.

"The whole town isn't worth a death like that," former Superintendent Bass said in Tyler, where the body of Jackson was laid out at a funeral home.

Deputy Sheriff Clarence Majors said the first blow was struck between I. H. Long and Bill Barton, spectators at the meeting. The next thing he remembered, shooting started.

Mrs. Bass said Jackson stumbled over a chair.

"I think he (Rahm) already had the gun out," she said. "Everybody knew he had been carrying this gun. He bent over and shot Mr. Jackson."

Jackson left the meeting, in the school's study hall, when the fight started, but returned.

"I tried to keep him from getting back in there," his daughter, Vonnie Beth, 14, said. "But he went anyway. He stumbled over a chair and fell down. Then he was shot.

Rahm was held in an unidentified jail for his own safety. Hardee was out of his office part of the day and probably visited Rahm, but would not say that he did.

George Rash was charged with assault with intent to murder Gus Crow and Crow was charged with assault with intent to murder Rash.

Hardee also charged Rash and Melton, along with Clarence Jackson, Bill Watley, Arland Boles, Bill Barton and Clarence Hatton with assault and battery.

Dallas Morning News
Saturday, June 18, 1960
Section 1, Page 1
source: GenealogyBank.com