25 Facts About Fred Agnich

Frederick Joseph Agnich was a Minnesota-born geophysicist who served from 1971 to 1987 as a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives.

Fred Agnich attended the University of Minnesota at Saint Paul, from which he received a Bachelor of Arts in geology in 1937.

Fred Agnich immediately moved thereafter to Texas to work for Geophysical Services, Inc The company sought to locate petroleum within the United States and abroad in such locations as Venezuela, Sumatra, and the not-yet-established Pakistan.

In 1951, Fred Agnich became the executive vice president of the company; president in 1956.

Fred Agnich retired from the board at the age of forty-eight in 1961.

In 1939, Fred Agnich married Ruth Welton, a native of Eveleth, Minnesota.

Fred Agnich was a trustee for the Southwest Center for Advanced Studies, since the University of Texas at Dallas.

Fred Agnich served as a director for the Dallas Museum of Art, the Dallas Opera, the Dallas Historical Society, and the Dallas Petroleum Club in the Chase Tower.

Fred Agnich was elected national committeeman at the state Republican convention in 1972.

In 1970, Fred Agnich was elected to the state House of Representatives in then District 33-R, renamed District 114 in 1983.

Fred Agnich was the first Republican elected countywide in Dallas County since Reconstruction.

Fred Agnich won as a Republican in a heavily Democratic year with the Texas statewide candidates for US senator and governor, George Herbert Walker Bush and Paul Eggers both going down to defeat at the hands of Lloyd Bentsen and Preston Smith, respectively.

In 1972, Fred Agnich considered running for governor against Preston Smith but never filed his papers of candidacy.

Fred Agnich was a fundraiser for Republican US Senator John Tower of Texas, who won his third term in 1972.

Fred Agnich was tapped as minority leader in 1972 by his Republican House colleagues.

In 1974, Representative Fred Agnich was part of the state constitutional convention held that spring to draft a document to replace the Texas Constitution of 1876.

Fred Agnich served on House Appropriations and Finance and was the chairman of the Environmental Affairs Subcommittee on Wildlife throughout his 18-year career in the legislature.

Fred Agnich's interest in the environment was an outgrowth of the management during the 1960s of his 3,500-acre ranch near Athens in Henderson County east of Dallas.

Fred Agnich built a 3,000-foot dam to fill a 500-acre lake.

Fred Agnich turned his ranch into a wildlife refuge for the undertaking of research into habitat conservation.

In 1979, Agnich endorsed former Democratic Governor John Connally for the 1980 Republican presidential nomination, which instead went to Ronald W Reagan, the former governor of California who then unseated Jimmy Carter, thus far the last Democrat to have won the electoral votes of Texas.

Fred Agnich did not hesitate to use state power to promote his favorite interests, environmental legislation, and wildlife preservation, specifically the Wildlife Conservation Act of 1983.

Fred Agnich died of a lengthy illness in Dallas at the age of ninety-one, just days before the reelection of US President George W Bush.

Fred Agnich was well-loved by people from all sides of the political spectrum.

Fred Agnich probably had enough excitement, energy, ups and downs, successes and risk-taking for two whole people and two whole lives.