Hughes vs. Tom Green Co. § 2014-2025
According to data from a Freedom of Information Act request, the Concho Observer obtained records from Tom Green County officials detailing legal expenses associated with the lawsuit Hughes v. Tom Green County, which total $464,771.23 across 11 years of legal action.
The problem began when heirs of Duwain Hughes learned of a plan to name the library in honor of Steve and Pollyanna Stephens, who spearheaded the multi-million-dollar campaign to see the county’s main library relocated to its present address with extensive renovations.
Trouble was, the county had already agreed to name the library after someone, who donated substantially to the library back in 1965, and the Hughes family intended to hold the county to that agreement.
That was in 2011.
According to the Hughes family at that time, they were willing to be flexible, but insisted that at least some part of the main library honor Duwain Hughes for his lifelong commitment and bequest.
“We have a contract, an agreement, and we performed our part of it,” nephew Charles Hughes told reporters.
“They don’t want to name the library in honor of Duwain Hughes, but they want to keep the money.”
Larry Justiss, who was library director at that time, said $402,000 of Hughes’ $500,000 went toward the library, minus attorney’s fees, which resulted from legal action with Southern Methodist University in the 1990s regarding Duwain Hughes’s will.
A lawsuit followed.
A Complicated Case
Duwain Hughes was a son of a wealthy pioneer ranching family who died at age 41, leaving much of his estate to SMU and other causes important to him, including the Tom Green County Library.
Hughes was a teacher and scholar, a patron of the arts, and a gifted piano and organ soloist.
When he died, Hughes left his Santa Rita home to the county — to be used as a library — along with oil-and-gas interests to help sustain his gift.
But when the library board decided to sell the house, they forfeit rights to those mineral interests.
These assets then reverted to support a chair being endowed by Hughes in the English Department at Southern Methodist.
When the chair had been fully funded, SMU campaigned to retain rights to the millions in mineral revenue from Hughes estate.
According to Charles Hughes, in the resulting legal action, he and Tom Green County received a $1M settlement, which the county got half of, with an agreement that the main branch of the library would be named in Duwain Hughes’ honor.
In 2011, the Tom Green County Commissioner Court was headed by County Judge Mike Brown; Pct. 1 Comm. Ralph Hoelscher; Pct. 2 Comm. Aubrey DeCordova; Pct. 3 Comm. Steve Floyd and Pct. 4 Comm. Yantis Green.
They decided to name the library in honor of the Stephens family, despite protests from Hughes.
Green, who had worked as a journalist, explained the Commissioners’ decision to local reporters.
“The court in that vote decided that the Hughes donation was not significant enough to name the library,” Green said.
According to Charles Hughes’ calculations, his uncle’s gift to the county would have been worth between $11 million and $12 million if they had kept the mineral rights, when figured with the rare records and books he left.
A former TGC commissioner, Timothy Weatherby, signed an affidavit saying the amount was considered substantial at the time, adding that the settlement was used to help cover financial shortfalls related to “bad investments and criminal cover-ups by the county treasurer” of that time.
According to Justiss, the Stephens family gave $3 million directly to the new library, while the initiative they led raised $16.5 million for the project, noting that Mr. Stephens spent countless hours over a span of six years in his efforts.
Justiss said Duwain Hughes’ memory would be honored in the audio-visual department.
Resolution
In March of 2019, the Texas Supreme Court sided with the Hughes family in their lawsuit against Tom Green County.
On June 3, it was announced that Tom Green County officials and attorneys for Charles Hughes reached a settlement in the years-long lawsuit after Commissioners met in closed session three times regarding the case earlier this year.
The court approved the settlement agreement, which in rough terms, calls for Tom Green County to compensate Hughes $450,000, by means of establishing a trust or something similar, and naming the library building in his uncle’s honor.
4 Comments
So if I am reading correctly in the “Resolution” paragraph, the library name should be changed to have the Hughes’ name?
That is our understanding of the settlement.
No, only the building will carry the Hughes name. The library will continue to be the Stephens Central Library (basically . . . housed in the Duwain E. Hughes, Jr. building).
Shame on SMU for being so greedy. The chair was funded yet they still wanted the golden goose.