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"Walking George" Beto dies
On this day in 1991, Lutheran minister, educator, and prison
administrator George J. Beto died in Austin. Beto, born in Montana in
1916, taught history at Concordia Lutheran College in Austin from 1939
to 1949, then served as the school's president from 1949 to 1959. He
began a lengthy involvement with the criminal justice system in 1953,
when governor Allan Shivers appointed him to the Texas Prison Board.
After the death of Oscar Byron Ellis in 1961 Beto became director and
chief of chaplains for the Texas Department of Corrections; he held
those positions through 1972. Although many inmates admired him for his
willingness to communicate with them--they called him "Walking George"
because he unexpectedly visited inmates and employees at the various
prison properties--they also regarded him as a stern "preacher" with "a
baseball bat in one hand and a Bible in the other." He received much
criticism for his use of authoritarian disciplinary policies, and many
prisoners complained that Beto and his staff harassed and threatened
those who attempted to file civil-rights suits against prison officials.
After he retired as director of the TDC, he served as a professor of
corrections at Sam Houston State University from 1972 until 1991.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- BETO, GEORGE JOHN
- CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY AT AUSTIN
- ELLIS, OSCAR BYRON
- TEXAS STATE PENITENTIARY AT HUNTSVILLE
- PRISON SYSTEM
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Texans appeal to San Antonio merchants as "Cart War" nears its end (1857)
- Matador Ranch sold (1882)
- Carl G. Cromwell, ignoring orders, brings in world's deepest oil well (1928)
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