Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | T | Texas Monthly

Divine secrets of the Alamo sisterhood: a sensational lawsuit, a disputed election, and months of vicious rumormongering can mean only one thing: the Daughters of the Republic of Texas are at war--again.

Article Excerpt
Write it in red: Armageddon. Odessa. May 2004. No, not an at Qaeda attack or a Jerry Lewis Telethon. Something worse. The Daughters of the Republic of Texas, that otherwise genteel, blue-haired matriarchy charged with the caretaking of the Alamo, are rumbling into the West Texas town for their annual convention, and this time iris not merely one of their periodic catfights but a no-quarter, to-the-death struggle for the heart and soul of Texas's oldest women's organization. Members have been going at it now for nearly one hundred years, and this may be it, the last great slaughter, a final burning of bridges and scorching of earth. [paragraph] Officially, the ladies of the DRT are traveling to Odessa to vote on new bylaws. That's what they do on even years. On odd years they elect new officers. But they'll arrive in the Permian Basin with blood still on the ground from last year's election, in Galveston, which a number of members believe was rigged by former president general Virginia Van Cleave mud her band of supporters, known by rivals as "the evildoers." Those rivals (called "the whiners" by the evildoers) are still angry, and they don't plan to come home from Odessa until they've changed the election rules to prevent future foul play.

Then there is the lasting bitterness from 2002. That year Alamo Committee chairman Kathleen Carter, who oversaw the shrine and its 86 employees, and her chief of security, Vince Phillips, hatched a plan to offer a New Year's Eve party at the monument and charge $5 for general admission. They were hoping to raise money for the Alamo Fund, which had decreased $770,000 during the two-year reign of Van Cleave. But the event was cancelled after a protest was led by Kelly Clark, a Daughter from New Braunfels, who pointed out that the DRT had never charged admission to the Alamo before and that the potential for a crowd of drunks was a recipe for disaster. Carter and Phillips were outraged; the event had bean advertised in the local papers. According to Tomas Padilla, a security guard who was present at the Alamo on New Year's, Phillips turned away would-be revelers by telling them that "a few power-hungry bitches" had spoiled the party and allegedly told Padilla that he'd like to rape and kill Clark. Padilla, who says he was fired after speaking out, made these claims in a lawsuit he filed against Carter, Van Cleave, and the...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!