Mourners honor life of longtime lawmaker
Ogg remembered for statesmanship of ‘a bygone era’
At a memorial service for Jack Ogg on Monday, friends, colleagues and family members celebrated an accomplished legislator, an adventurous traveler and a man whose creed was always “to do what was right.”
A longtime lawyer and state legislator, Ogg was 84 when he died March 3. Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg is his daughter.
Hundreds of mourners gathered for the service, filling the sanctuary at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church on Woodway Drive.
Ogg represented the Houston area in the Texas Legislature for 16 years. He became a state representative in 1967, and he served until he was elected to the state Senate in 1973. He kept that post for a decade, then ran an unsuccessful campaign for Texas attorney general in 1982. Ogg then returned to his law practice in Houston.
“Look around this room,” said longtime friend Mark Davidson. “This room is full of monuments to his life.”
Davidson, a former state district judge who served for a decade as Ogg’s aide in the senate, said Ogg leaves behind a meaningful legislative legacy; his bills made changes we can still see today.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Ogg helped pass legislation that regulated billboards on the side of the highway; established bilingual education in Texas schools; started Houston’s Metro transit system; and outlawed smoking in airplanes, elevators, hospitals and other public places.
Born in 1933, Ogg grew up during the Great Depression — and living through those hard years made a lifelong impact on his world view, said his son, Jon Ogg.
He sold newspapers as a kid, then worked his way through college at the University of Houston, where he was a
cheerleader and two-time class president. Ogg married Connie Harner Ogg in 1959, and to earn his law degree he enrolled in night classes at South Texas College of Law, which allowed him to work during the day.
‘All walks of life’
Davidson said Monday that Ogg “had lived with people in all walks of life” — as a Depressionera child, a working student, a suburban dad and an elected official.
“He could talk to anybody,” Davidson said. “He represented an extremely diverse district well, because he understood all parts of his district.”
Ogg, Davidson said, “was a centrist and a consensus builder.” He was a conservative Democrat, a man who could disagree with colleagues respectfully and could work with people on both sides to get something done.
Many would consider Ogg’s moderate, agreeable approach to be “the mark of public officials of a bygone era,” Davidson acknowledged, but it is also the mark of an open, flexible mind.
Beyond his work, Ogg’s great passion was travel, his family said.
He and his wife traveled together to 170 countries and visited all seven continents. Ogg’s sense of adventure took him to Antarctica and the North Pole, his son said. He went on safari in Africa. He ran with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain in three different decades.
At home, Ogg was “an endless Astros fan,” Jon Ogg said, and he loved oysters “raw, fried, baked, grilled and any other way.” And when Jon Ogg and his sister were young, he recalled with a laugh, their father watched the movie “Mary Poppins” with Kim Ogg “more than 20 times.”
Ogg’s love for Ireland was so strong, his son said, he even became a member of the Houston Irish Lawyers Association. This became complicated when his brother, Larry Ogg, researched the family tree.
“It turns out all the Oggs who came to America were Scottish,” Jon Ogg said.
But Jack Ogg still wanted some of his ashes to be scattered in Ireland.
Hailed as statesman, father
The crowd at Monday’s service was filled with elected officials and other high-profile Houstonians, including Mayor Sylvester Turner, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo and Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.
Also at the service were Harris County Precinct 1 Constable Alan Rosen, State Sen. Sylvia Garcia, State Reps. Gene Wu and Carol Alvarado and several city council members.
After her father died, Kim Ogg described him as “a great statesman” and “a wonderful father.” On Monday, the district attorney read a Bible passage and greeted well-wishers at a reception after the service.
The setting and the program were formal, with an organist and a choral quartet wearing sparkling white robes. The Rev. James M.L. Grace’s homily touched on Ogg’s pursuit of justice and his realization that death was nothing he should fear.
At the end of the service, the sanctuary went silent as a bagpiper began to play “Amazing Grace.” Solemn and piercing, the familiar tune ushered family and guests away from their seats and out of the church, where they filed into a courtyard drenched by the sun.