With three names in contention, the North Texas Tollway Authority is asking for the public to weigh in on the matter.  To comment on whether you prefer Sam Rayburn Tollway, 121 Tollway or Interurban Tollway, go to http://www.ntta.org/AboutUs/Roadways/121naming.

Public comments will be accepted until March 6.

State Highway 121 runs from Fort Worth to Bonham and now, even 48 years after the death of Mr. Rayburn, he has two former employees working on each end of the highway to make certain any name changes along the route take into account the man many call the most effective Speaker of the House in U.S. history.

In Fort Worth, prominent attorney Dee Kelly, a Bonham native, former member of Rayburn's staff and former Texas Turnpike Authority Chairman, wrote to North Texas Tollway Authority Board Chairman Paul Wageman and recommended that the new SH121 Tollway be named the Sam Rayburn Tollway.

Dee Kelly (right) with Rep. Kay Granger and H.G. Dulaney attend a banquet given by Friends of Sam Rayburn in 2007.

"As you know, SH 121 goes into Bonham, Mr. Rayburn's hometown and through much of his old congressional district," Mr. Kelly wrote to the NTTA Chairman.  "Mr. Rayburn was Speaker of the House of Representatives longer than any man in our country's history.  This would be a great and much deserved tribute to Mr. Rayburn and serve to remind his fellow Texans of this honest and faithful servant to our State and nation."

The Collin County Commissioners Court and the Fannin County Commissioners Court have combined to proclaim the section of State Highway 121 from Melissa into Bonham as Sam Rayburn Memorial Highway. 

photo by Heather Trent

Proponents of naming the new tollway section of the highway as a tribute to the legacy of Sam Rayburn feel that decision would be logical and promote continuity.

Meanwhile, one of the best columnists working in Texas today, Steve Blow of the Dallas Morning News, was in Bonham recently to interview longtime employee of Speaker Rayburn, H.G. Dulaney about the proposed tollway names. 

Dulaney had only recently attended the grand opening ceremony of the $25.4 million Sam Rayburn Student Center at Texas A&M University-Commerce. 

(l-r) Dr. Randy McBroom, A&M-Commerce interim associate vice president for academic affairs, Dr. Frank Ashley, vice chancellor for academic affairs of the Texas A&M University System, A&M-Commerce President Dan Jones and A&M-Commerce Student Government President Byron Johnson cut the ribbon signifying the opening of the Sam Rayburn Student Center at Texas A&M University-Commerce. photo by Heather Trent

As a young man, Rayburn's family had taken him by wagon to Ladonia, where he boarded the train to Commerce and enrolled in the school, known then as East Texas Normal College.  The school's founder, William Mayo, had found Rayburn some work around the school to help pay for a portion of his education and then allowed Rayburn to pay the remainder once he secured a job as a teacher.

"Mr. Rayburn thought Professor Mayo was the greatest humanitarian that ever lived because he would let them go to school and pay later," Dulaney remarked.

H.G. Dulaney sits in the basement of the Sam Rayburn Library. It was 52 years ago that Speaker Rayburn sent Dulaney back to Fannin County from Washington, D.C. to run the library.

With typical humility, Mr. Dulaney shrugs off the attention he has received of late, saying he knows very little about toll roads.  On one hand, a quick scan through Speak, Mr. Speaker, a compilation of the writings of Sam Rayburn, will find no mention of toll roads.

On the other hand, Rayburn was a tireless champion of farm to market roads that allowed farmers in Merit to get their produce to Greenville and McKinney, farmers along Red River to market their crops in places like Paris and Bonham and generally improved the quality life throughout rural America.  Rayburn explained to representatives of heavily populated districts that producers in the farm belt needed incentives in order to promote commerce and competition in urban markets. 

Unless our farm producing classes sell the products of their toil for prices far enough above the cost of production that they can have a buying power, we will always have much unemployment and hard times...

 -- Sam Rayburn, from Speak, Mr. Speaker

Rayburn was also a progressive thinker and a strong proponent of Route 66.  He is credited with devising the term Sun Belt when Rayburn said it was imperative for the U.S. to connect "the Frost Belt with the Sun Belt."

Even today, 100 years after Sam Rayburn was first elected to office, he is still remembered as a man of unquestionable integrity with the character to look past partisan politics and see the faces he never forgot and the people he cared for so deeply.

The only question now is will the people he served so faithfully remember him?