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ScorpioBiography
Ovie Clark Fisher (November 22, 1903 – December 9, 1994) was an attorney and author who served for thirty-two years as United States Representative for Texas's 21st congressional district.
Biography
Fisher was born in Junction in Kimble County, Texas to Jobe Bazilee and Rhoda Catherine Clark Fisher. He married Marian E. De Walsh on September 11, 1927. A daughter named Rhoda was the couple's only child.
Fisher attended University of Texas at Austin, University of Colorado at Boulder, and Baylor University at Waco, from which he received his LL.B. He was admitted to the bar in 1929. Fisher practiced law in San Angelo in West Texas for two years. In 1931, he was elected county attorney for Tom Green County.
Fisher represented the 53rd District of Texas in the Texas House of Representatives from 1935 to 1937. From 1937 to 1943, Fisher was District Attorney for the 51st Judicial District of Texas.
In 1942, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat and served in the 78th United States Congress through the 93rd United States Congress. In 1972, the Republican Doug Harlan held Fisher to 57 percent of the general election vote. Paul Burka of Texas Monthly said Harlan's race was "one of the first indications that the dominance of the rural conservative Democrats in Texas politics could not be sustained."
After heart surgery in 1973, Fisher announced that he would not be stand for re-election in 1974. His party nominated Robert Krueger as his successor; Krueger then defeated Doug Harlan, who made his second and last race for Congress.
O.C. Fisher died on December 9, 1994.
Baylor University is the repository for the O.C. Fisher Papers.
Fraternal memberships
O.C. Fisher had membership in the following organizations:
- Freemasons
- Order of the Eastern Star
- Knights of Pythias
- Rotary International
- Acacia Fraternity
O.C. Fisher Reservoir
In 1975, San Angelo Lake, a reservoir managed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers was renamed O.C. Fisher Reservoir in his honor. San Angelo State Park is on the shores of the reservoir.