January 2012- TASB President Profile
Board member and attorney Gary Inmon focuses on the positive in uncertain times
By Bobby Hawthorne

Gary Inmon is entering his one and only year as president of the Texas Association of School Boards fully aware that the Texas economy is as shaky as Barney Fife’s gun. Moreover, the Legislature is unlikely to provide any more significant funding for public schools unless — and/or until — the financial crisis takes a breather. He has accepted this reality for now. That’s just the way it is, Inmon says, and that makes him something of a rarity among Texas education advocates.

“We can’t really control what happens at the legislative level, but we can control what we do at the local level,” says Inmon, who has sat on the Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Board of Trustees for the past 12 years. “Too many school folks have a tendency to say, ‘Well, if we just had this or if we just had that, it would all work out.’ Well, we have to get out of that mindset because we’re not going to get a whole lot more resources any time soon.”

In the meantime, he thinks school leaders might do well focusing on ways to be more creative and efficient.

“Any student of history can tell you that most ‘big ideas’ come from times of uncertainty and stress,” Inmon says. “It’s times like these that will force school districts to improve, and I am confident we’ll ultimately come out better and stronger in the end.”

It’s not an opinion, he concedes, that’s likely to win him many Brownie points with some school people. But he believes it beats simply lobbing grenades at the Legislature. As Inmon sees it, “school board members are elected to be the leaders of public education, not just critics. So it’s important that we promote a positive outlook and keep the

best interests of our students in mind.”

A family law attorney with two teenagers, a 2-year-old and a new golden retriever puppy named Landry, Inmon is the son of an Air Force mechanic and an English farm girl. His dad came from Kosse, a speck of a town 16 miles south of Groesbeck, which is best known for University of Texas football star Kenneth Sims and Bob Wills, the King of Western Swing.

Inmon grew up on Air Force bases across the country until the seventh grade, when his family moved from Myrtle Beach, S.C., to Schertz, where he played sports and performed just well enough in the classroom to keep his parents off his back.

“Let’s just say I concentrated a lot more on sports and girls in high school than I did on my studies,” he says. “My life-changing moment was at my high school graduation. I was sitting there, mad at myself, because I knew I could have done so much better.”

Give me another chance and I’ll turn things around, he vowed, and somehow fate delivered. He applied to The University of Texas at Austin on a whim and made it in.

“I never visited beforehand,” he says. “I just climbed in my $500 car with my things and left and then tried my best to figure it out as I went.”

He applied himself at college in a way he’d never done in high school. Each summer, he worked for the Southwestern Company, a Nashville outfit that sells educational books door to door. He crisscrossed the country, knocked on thousands of doors, sat down at kitchen tables and on front porches with about every type of person imaginable, talking about the importance of education.

“It was the greatest educational experience I’ll ever have,” he says.

After graduating from The University of Texas, he entered Baylor Law School and finished his first year in good enough shape to clerk for a big law firm. However, at his desk one day, bored to tears, he asked himself, “My God, is this where the trail ends?”

So, he joined the Marine Reserves, thinking he might become a military lawyer— like Tom Cruise in the movie “A Few Good Men.” He loved the intensity of officer candidate school and earned his commission as a second lieutenant. After serving for three years, he returned to San Antonio to begin his career with a local law firm. Five years ago, he opened his own firm — a family law practice.

“Every day, I see people going through divorces, child custody battles and so forth,” he says. “I’m dealing with a case now between a dad and a step-dad (the mother recently passed away), and there’s a big fight over where the child will live. We’re talking about ripping the kid out of a school and a community and moving him to a place he’s never been. Right now, he has no idea where he’s going to sleep tomorrow. It’s a ridiculously bitter, emotional battle.

“I see this stuff every day. Tragic situations, and you have to wonder, ‘How do the kids even function at home, let alone at school?’”

Schools could — and should — do more to help, he says.

“When a student walks out the door after high school graduation, he or she should have the tools to be a self-sustaining, responsible citizen,” Inmon says. “While it’s important to know the subjects taught in school, it’s far more important to know how to make wise and productive decisions. So, my biggest critique of public schools is that we spend far too much time teaching what I call ‘subjects’ and very little, if any, time teaching values.”

Not religious values, he’s quick to add, but principles of success to counterbalance the “if it feels good, do it” culture.

“If you’re not attuned to the value of individual responsibility,” he says, “then all this other stuff just doesn’t get you to the finish line.” It’s another one of those realities he wishes more school leaders would accept. He’d also like to see less government intrusion in local decisions.

“For what it’s worth, I’m a conservative Republican,” Inmon says. “But if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s folks in Austin yakking it up about how the federal government should get out of the state’s business, and then they turn right around and stick their noses in what the local school district is doing.”

“The same principles apply,” he says.

“Trust me, local folks know more and care more about their schools and kids than some faraway legislator ever will. Get out of our way and we’ll do a much better job.”

BOBBY HAWTHORNE is the author of “Longhorn Football” and “Home Field,” both published by The University of Texas Press. In 2005, he retired as director of academics for the University Interscholastic League.