POLITICS Lifetime Guarantee

IN THE LAST LEGISLATIVE SESsion, Dallas state Senator Royce West tried to take the term limits notion a step further, introducing an amendment that would have slapped term limits on all local elected officials, from sheriffs to tax assessors. West’s amendment tailed, but it got us to wondering just who are the graybeards among Dallas officeholders.

The record for consecutive years in the same post is held by Dallas Public Schools board member Kathlyn Gilliam and County Commissioner Jim Jackson, both of whom first took office in 1974- Gilliam and Jackson, however, are mere pups compared to legendary figures like the venerable Lew Ster-rett, who was Dallas’ county judge from 1949 to 1974, and Henry Wade, Mr. District Attorney from 1950 to 1986. You’ve got to be around awhile before you become part of the language, as in Roe v. Wade, or “He spent the night in Lew Sterrett.”