Longest-serving elected official officially retires

Forty years ago, a young University of Houston Law School graduate and new member of the Texas Bar moved to Orange for his first job as a lawyer. He felt he was lucky to get a job as an assistant district attorney at a time when the county had some of the highest pay in the state for that position in a small town.

His plan was to learn to prosecute misdemeanors and then felonies and do the work for maybe three years. Then, he was moving back to San Antonio to defend those accused of crimes.

But love, marriage, and a family got in the way.

That young lawyer, John Kimbrough, is now 65 years old and he's packing up to retire after holding the top prosecutor's job for 32 years, or eight terms. It's an Orange County history record for longest-serving elected official.

On the ballot, the job is listed as Orange County Attorney. The position includes overseeing the prosecution of top misdemeanors plus all felonies. The office's legal staff also works with the juvenile system and some of the assistants work county civil lawsuits and advise commissioners court on legal matters.

Kimbrough stands a bit taller than six feet and has a straight-forward Texas drawl, though he spent part of his youth in England. He has the bearing of a former athlete and spent years as a high school football referee across Southeast Texas. When his knees gave out he became the color commentator with Gary Stelly on the old KOGT radio broadcasts of the high school games.

He's a Texas lawman as much as a Texas Ranger carrying a gun and badge. And Kimbrough's philosophy has always been to follow the state law that requires a prosecutor to seek justice.

"We're not here to convict people, we're trying to do the right thing," he said.

He said he's dropped a murder case when someone came forward with new information. He also requires all the prosecutors in his office to follow the law in giving defense attorneys all the evidence, statements, and lists of witnesses in criminal cases. One of the changes he's seen is that now, his office keeps information files in computers. Defense attorneys get a password to the DA's files instead of getting a paper folder full of copied papers.

Kimbrough calculated that during his years as district attorney, he's overseen 82 grand juries. Some of those grand juries had four-month terms and others six-month terms. He's overseen the prosecution of almost 20,000 felony cases, "and probably three times as many misdemeanors.

He quipped that "based on those figures, I prosecuted basically ever man, woman, and child in Orange County with a crime."

Kimbrough is not from Orange County, but he married someone who is. He started his job as an assistant district attorney at the beginning of 1985. That summer, Kelly Green from Orange got an internship at the courthouse as she studied criminal justice in college. She worked under Deborah Montagne in the court administrator's office that works with judges and lawyers to schedule hearings and trials.

After meeting that summer and going out, they married three years later.

Kimbrough resigned as an assistant district attorney and went into a private law practice with the late Ed Barton. Barton had worked for the old Gulf States Utilities as an electrician and became a union leader. That led him to go to law school when he was 40.

Kimbrough said he admired Barton because he had been a working man. Barton could weld, fix a car or truck. When Barton represented a worker in an lawsuit, he could name the tools and the machines. The corporate lawyers from big cities couldn't name the tools.

Back in the early 1990s, when Barton and Kimbrough worked together, each would hear other people asking if Kimbrough would run for district attorney.

Kimbrough said he kept refusing, knowing that he was not from Orange County and the office had an incumbent who would seek re-election. "Ed loved politics. He had gotten interested in them during his union work," Kimbrough said.

Barton told his young partner with the kind of feedback they were getting, he thought Kimbrough could win. Kimbrough said he figured that if he lost, he still had a job with Barton, so he filed to run against the incumbent.

Kimbrough said Barton enjoyed working on the campaign and probably lost a sizable amount of income to help his partner win the election.

And Kimbrough won in 1992, taking the oath of office on January 1, 1993.

Kelly Green Kimbrough became a school teacher for the Little Cypress-Mauriceville school district and their two sons graduated from LCM High. Son Dr. Ryan Kimbrough is a neurologist in Austin and son Grant Kimbrough is a teacher-coach in New Braunsfel.

Kimbrough was born in San Antonio and traveled the world with his parents as his father was a colonel in the U.S. Air Force. He went to school in a different places like Hawaii and then back to San Antonio. He went to a new school every year for several years. "You're always the new kid, but you learn to deal with it," he said.

One time, his father was "on loan" to the Royal Air Force in England and Kimbrough attended a British school, not one on the base, for two to three years. He remembers the problem of writing with and old-fashioned fountain pen dipped in an ink well built into each desk. Blotting paper was also on each desk. Kimbrough was always getting smudges, on his paper and hands.

His favorite hobby now is nature photography with a telephoto lens. He shows off a the tail of a whale going back into the sea he snapped during a trip to Alaska, or a cardinal drinking water as his beak reflects, or a Sabine River otter looking back after catching a fish to eat. Talbert Meadows, a local birding expert and former Shangri La volunteer is a mentor.

But he'll be saying good-bye to the Sabine River otters. He and Kelly are moving to a new house they are building on acreage outside of Blanco in the Texas Hill Country. Their house in Oak Creek Village flooded in Hurricane Harvey, plus they've ridden out other damaging local storms. "We're tired of hurricanes," he said.

Also, the new house is closer to their sons and to John's four sisters so they will be able to spend more time with family.

County employees and lawyers will have a retirement party for Kimbrough Friday, December 13, from 1 to 3 p.m. in the 128th District Court on the second floor of the historic courthouse building.