Today and in the future, many in Amarillo, Texas, and at the University of Texas, stand on the shoulders of giants of those whose commitment to growth and change have made a difference. Wales Madden Jr. might be small of stature, but those shoulders are quite broad. He has spent a lifetime to better his hometown and alma mater. His influence and insight has made him friends with Boone Pickens and former presidents Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. From his time as student body president at UT in the early 1950s to one of the school's youngest regents to his work with UT's prestigious Harrington Fellows, Wales's work with his alma mater is profound. An attorney in his hometown of Amarillo, Wales's reach in the Texas Panhandle has been long, from his early work to secure funding for the Pioneer Amphitheater in his beloved Palo Duro Canyon to involvement in key parts of the city's growth. And he's done it all with his trademark self-deprecating sense of humor and aw-shucks modesty. Climb Every Mountain The Life Story of Wales H. Madden, Jr. as told to Jon Mark Beilue By Jon Mark Beilue AuthorHouse Copyright © 2016 Jon Mark Beilue All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-5246-5008-7 Contents FOREWORD, ix, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, xiii, WALES H. MADDEN, JR, xv, THE EARLY YEARS, 1, RESTLESS FOR WAR, 21, RETURN TO THE FORTY ACRES, 32, NEW FAMILY, NEW CAREER, 47, ORANGE REMAINED IN HIS BLOOD, 58, AN AFFAIR WITH THE GREAT OUTDOORS, 70, PRESTIGE AND POLITICAL PALS, 80, A FRIEND NAMED BOONE, 95, HONORING SYBIL'S WISHES, 106, ABBIE THE ARTIST, 112, TALL TALES AND MARATHON ROAD TRIPS, 116, 3 FORKS AND A CANYON, 127, WALES & WILLIE: IN BUSINESS TOGETHER, 135, AFTER ABBIE, 141, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, 149, AFTERWORD, 153, ABOUT THE AUTHOR, 155, CHAPTER 1 THE EARLY YEARS Wales Madden, Jr.'s, grandfather S.H. Madden, moved to Texas from Tennessee. An attorney, Madden settled in Clarendon, one of the Texas Panhandle's earliest communities, where Wales' father, Wales H. Madden, Sr., was born in 1894. The eldest of the Maddens longed to move to the growing town of Amarillo, sixty miles to the northwest. There being no railroad at the time, his family arrived by horse and buggy. Madden later negotiated with the Santa Fe Railway in Chicago to bring its line through Amarillo on the way to the West Coast, action that accelerated the city's growth. S.H. Madden became Potter County's first District Attorney, with his son and grandson each becoming lawyers as well. Wales Madden, Jr., was born in Amarillo on September 1, 1927, to parents Kathryn and Wales Madden, Sr. By that time his grandfather had died, and his father, a Harvard graduate, was a partner in the law firm of Adkins, Pipkin, Madden and Kefer in the Fisk Building. "My mother was sweet, very sensitive to people. She was very bright, almost withdrawn," Wales said. "My father was not outwardly loving of me, but I could sense how much he really did love me." "There was something wrong with my parents' relationship. Not to say it was estrangement, but there was not a loving cordiality. You would come into a room sometimes, and they would quit talking. It was quiet. It was distant." Wales was a boy during the Depression, born two years before the stock market crash of 1929. Even then, he sensed people were hurting and money was tight. His home was at 1017 W. Tenth Avenue, next door to his aunt, Minnis Hall. Tenth Avenue was a branch of Highway 66 which connected Chicago and Los Angeles. With cars churning east and west, Wales witnessed what he called "a total absence of comfort," which included children riding on the hoods. When passengers would spy the water hose at the Madden home, "They would stop and ask if they could get a drink of water and fill up their car with our hose," he said. "I was right out there helping fill those cars up. That was a big deal." Although Wales Madden was only five years old in the early 1930s, he saw people for who they were, not who society thought they should be. The 1930s were still a time of segregation and Jim Crow laws that strictly defined black and white, yet Wales didn't see it that way. All he knew was that the black housekeeper, Beulah Wells, was the family maid and that he liked her. Her husband Chester worked for the Santa Fe Railroad, and they lived in a garage apartment at the Madden home on Tenth Avenue. Sometimes Beulah would take Wales with her to shop downtown. They would enter the Kress department store where the young lad would see evidence of segregation. "I can almost smell that store," Wales said. Inside, there were two water fountains, one marked "colored" and one marked "white." That seemed odd. "We both were getting a drink, and I pulled her over to the one marked for whites," Wales said. "She said, 'I can't drink out of your fountain.' I'm sure it angered me more than startled me. I asked her if I could drink out of hers. She said, 'Yes,' and I r