The Texas March primaries are close enough now that you can almost envision campaign signs just outside the right-of-ways, waving in the wind. Here’s a growing truth about local primaries in places like ours, one also becoming a larger statewide trend: The primary is the election.
Some candidates are unopposed. Some races don’t even have a Democrat on the ballot. Meanwhile, the same set of ballots also helps decide who represents us at the regional and state level, and who Texas sends to Washington.
Leadership matters. That’s not a motivational slogan below a picture of a snow covered pack of wolves in the wilderness.
The Hickory team in Hoosiers was a mess until Gene Hackman’s character, Coach Norman Dale, got to town and made them do the hard, unglamorous things that winning requires. Quality leadership is one of: discipline, clarity, and one who doesn’t confuse purpose and popularity.
A non-Hollywood example might be that of the Ford Motor Company in the mid-2000s.
The company was in deep trouble—financially and culturally—until Alan Mulally arrived and forced the company to operate like one team again. His “One Ford” approach wasn’t magic. It was disciplined leadership: shared direction, clear standards, and a refusal to let internal chaos pretend it was in charge. That’s the point I want in your mind as you think about this March primary. Political chaos, in all its abundance, is not in charge. The voters are. Because leadership isn’t always something you see on a chart.
Take a look right now at Roby CISD. If you’ve read this paper for any length of time, you know that on more than one occasion I have unloaded both barrels of pencil led into the school district’s tailgate.
I have questioned the district’s transparency on more than one occasion, and I’ve often tied that uncertainty to inconsistent leadership— because when leadership is unstable, decision-making gets defensive. Trust gets brittle.
Watching from the outside: the district was unconscious on the floor. People were doing CPR, which is neither present or tidy. It’s chaos in the name of survival.
It’s loud. It’s disruptive. It’s frightening, but the alternative is worse. Then, suddenly, a deep rush of air. And just like that, the district started to breathe.
During the past several months Under the leadership of Superintendent Jimmy Bennett, it would seem, is the first time the district’s heart rate and breathing has looked normal since former superintendent Heath Dickson left in 2018.
When Dickson announced he was leaving, Roby CISD was shaken. Keith Cook took over and the district lost its balance. Jason Carter took over from Cook and the district went to its knees. Dr. Kenny Border assumed control and, the district fell to the ground and stopped breathing.
Citizens stood helpless as the administration attempted to convince trustees to censure a fellow board member, like watching a family argument in front of the laundry mat from the back of a police car. Already in trouble. Making it worse.
Since Bennett took the controls, I’ve noticed a steady, measurable change in the atmosphere over there, and for the last several months, Roby CISD seems to be breathing just fine.
I’ve seen the same thing happen elsewhere.
When we took over coverage of Stonewall County in 2017, the City of Aspermont had two vacant city council seats. That’s a serious symptom of civic decline. The Aspermont civic engine was sputtering.
What followed was a series of: appointments, elections, controversy, and a lengthy debate about the town’s direction and how aggressive to be in the pursuit of improvement. It took time. It took political effort. And it took more than a healthy dose of community engagement.
It took speaking. It took listening.
Today, Aspermont is cleaner, on the economical rise, and there are more community activities than there have been in years. Along with that, the current Aspermont City Council could teach a master class in community civics and what it means to be a leader while serving the people.
That didn’t happen because everyone shared motivational quotes on Facebook. It happened because leadership got serious, and citizens stayed involved long enough to become the change.
What I’m asking is simple. Give thought to that list of candidates. Is that the voice you want speaking for you in Washington, representing you in Austin, providing oversight at the region, and determining the path of your community and neighborhoods tomorrow.
When leadership is unstable, everything is harder than it needs to be. When leadership is competent, the system does what it’s designed to do: moving slow, sometimes frustrating, but forward. The whole point of elections— especially local ones—is that we get to decide who holds the wheel.
So as these March primaries approach, don’t treat your vote like a formality. Treat it like ongoing maintenance.
Because leadership doesn’t just shape policy, it shapes a community, a state, and a nation. While we may be a single voice, together we make the kind of crowd that helped Hickory when a championship. Locally, however, our decisions can be the difference between hanging accolades on the wall and performing CPR on ourselves.