Ex-Railroad Commissioner Buddy Temple Dies at 73
Posted/updated on: April 16, 2015 at 4:15 pmLUFKIN (AP) – Former Railroad Commissioner Buddy Temple, who withdrew from the 1982 Democratic primary for governor and unified the party behind state Attorney General Mark White’s eventual winning campaign, has died at age 73. Buddy Zeagler, executive director for the Temple family’s philanthropic foundation, told The Lufkin Daily News that Temple died at his Lufkin home Tuesday. Temple, an heir to his family’s East Texas timber empire, worked in the family business until his election to the Texas Railroad Commission in 1980. In 1982, he was part of a six-candidate Democratic primary field for governor and garnered 31 percent of the vote to White’s 45 percent. However, he declined to run in the runoff against White, who went on to topple Republican incumbent Bill Clements.