Former Speaker Jim Wright leaves lasting legacy
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."