Gene Barnwell Waugh (1920 – 2015)

Written by Pamela Baggett-Wallis.

Norma Gene Barnwell Waugh, for whom our Mentor Award is named, died in the early hours of Jan. 3, 2015, just in time to miss the worst of cedar season and the swearing in of what she worried will be a memorably disastrous Texas legislature. But not before visiting with dear friends and family and giving directions regarding her ranch, paying bills, and reminding us of our assignments regarding her funeral. Mine was to write her obituary.

Gene was a lifelong Democrat who fought for the rights of all. She was born fewer than two months after the 19^th Amendment was ratified, and when she reached the voting age, voting was a matter of pride and civic responsibility.  She never understood people who chose not to vote.

She wanted to hear every detail of my time at the Capitol the summer of 2013 as we spoke out, once again, for a right we believed to have won in 1973. She helped fund my trip to Chicago to march for the ERA behind the WICI banner Mother’s Day, 1980. In response to a letter she wrote to childhood friend Lyndon Johnson in 1970, she received a letter that said, in part,

Dear Gene:
I really think lovely ladies should let the men take care of them, but because they have so many times asked for “equal rights” and because I am for the ladies, I have always tried to help wherever I could, especially since I know there are so many efficient ones like you whose talents we need.

Gene has been my role model for more than 40 years. I went to work for her in 1970 in the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, Texas’ effort in President Lyndon Johnson’s great War on Poverty. She had reared her stepson, was taking care of a disabled husband, managing the family ranch, and still found time to help friends and volunteer at her church. She taught me how to balance career and family decades before that became a career field.

Gene was born Oct. 7, 1920 in Johnson City, in the small country hospital owned and operated by her parents, Dr. James Franklin Barnwell and Alma Irene Lewis, a nurse sent from Austin’s Brackenridge Hospital to help Dr. Barnwell during the 1918 flu epidemic and eventually becoming his wife.

Her home was on the first floor and the second floor was the hospital. The house, which still stands across the street from the Blanco County courthouse, received a Texas Historical marker in October, three days before Gene’s 94^th birthday.

Gene said her communication career began as a child in the 30s when she “absorbed ink in her blood” by insisting on helping set type at the weekly Courier Record next door to her home. She moved to Austin to attend high school, graduating from Austin High in 1938. While there, she worked on the Austin Maroon. After a year at Temple Junior College, she transferred to The University of Texas where she worked on The Daily Texan and earned a Bachelor of Journalism in 1942.

One of her proudest achievement in college was membership in Theta Sigma Phi—at the time a by-invitation-only journalism fraternity whose membership was based on academic achievement. She served in many positions for both the Austin and San Antonio chapters. Gene continued her membership, participating in the momentous March 6, 2013 meeting and casting her vote ratifying the evolution of Women Communicators of Austin.

Gene served in various offices both the Austin and San Antonio AWC chapters, including publicity chairman for the 1962 National Professional Conference in SA where Lady Bird Johnson was a keynote speaker and Liz Carpenter was one of the honored Headliners. Lady Bird and Liz were Gene’s friends. They shared geography, education, and world views.

WCA named our mentor award the Gene Barnwell Waugh Mentor Award in honor of the many young women she took under her wing during her career and into her retirement. I joined Women in Communications at Gene’s urging at a time when one had to have four years of professional experience to qualify for membership. During the nearly five decades since, I have considered Gene both a mentor and a mother. She has been there for me to celebrate successes but also to help me through losses.

What strikes me most about Gene’s career is how it mirrors most of ours, but led the way as a woman in her field decades ahead of the modern women’s movement. Gene walked bravely and confidently into leadership, whether the leadership was the title of the job or that she was a woman in that role. Perhaps her most valuable contribution was the quality of her work and her work ethic. She valued honesty, quality, and thoroughness, and insisted on the same from those who worked for her.

In 1942 at the beginning of her professional career, Gene was one of the first two women to work at the San Antonio Evening News city desk. She moved from there to head of the photography department. Then to Los Angeles where she worked at the LA Times and in an advertising agency, returning to Johnson City to take care of her ill mother for two years.

For six years, Gene was Woman’s Club Editor for the San Antonio Express and News, the best that could be achieved by a woman in the post-WWII 1950s. She completed her career in 1985 after 16 years at the Texas Department of Community Affairs, including a stint as executive director.

Despite failing vision and the disabilities of age, Gene was a leader in recent years in her neighborhood’s successful effort to be named historic and therefore protected from unchallenged development.

Gene contributed her writing and publicity skills to St. Martin’s Lutheran Church. She also was an active member of the Texas Public Employees Association where she served as state public relations chair in 1970-71 and board member of the TPEA Pioneer Chapter in 1976-77. She was the first life member of the Texas Association of Community Action Agencies, and became a life member of the Blanco County Historical Commission.

A partial list of professional and personal honors include:

• Gene Barnwell Waugh Mentor Award named in her honor by Women Communicators of Austin, 2014
• Woman of the Week by the San Antonio Express
• Society of Industrial Editor’s National General Improvement Award for the Texas Public Employee, 1950
• Who’s Who of American Women, 1975-76 and 1977-78.
• Personalities of the South 1976.
• Texas Public Employees Association Pioneer Chapter board, 1976-77.
• Community Leaders and Noteworthy Americans in recognition of past achievements and outstanding service to community and state 1975-76 and 1976-77, Editorial Board of American Biographical Institute a division of Historical Preservation of America

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to St. Martin’s Lutheran Church, 606 W. 15^th, Austin, Texas 78701; Women Communicators of Austin Jo Caldwell Meyer Scholarship Fund, https://wcaustin.org/member-resources/scholarships/; or a charity of your choice.

Visitation is 5-7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 6 and services are 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 7 at Crofts Funeral Home, 305 E. Elm St., Johnson City, Texas.