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Former Speaker Jim Wright leaves lasting legacy

May 9, 2015

As a young boy, Roger Williams wanted to be a baseball player when he grew up.

But the late former U.S. House Speaker Jim Wright of Fort Worth suggested another path.

The two first met when Williams was a 9-year-old boy and Wright was a congressman. After Williams said he wanted to play baseball, Wright suggested a backup plan.

"If you don't become a baseball player, go into politics and don't do something small, do something big — like run for Congress," Williams recalled Wright telling him.

Decades later, Williams ran for the U.S. House, as a Republican, and one of the first phone calls he received after he won was from Wright, a Democrat.

"I said I would have never done this if he hadn't told me to in 1958," Williams said.

Now, Williams is among those who say Wright's death will leave a big void.

"He cut through party lines, he got things done," he said. "And Jim Wright never forgot people, he never made people inferior. … That's just who he was, just a good guy."