SOUTH TEXAS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. The South Texas Chamber of Commerce, established in 1926, covered in its activities fifty-five counties in South Texas, roughly bounded by Del Rio on the west, Austin on the north, Houston on the east, and the Rio Grande on the south. Its membership included business, agricultural, and industrial leaders in South Texas, and it had affiliated with it more than 100 local chambers of commerce, each of which was represented on its directorate. Representing commercial interests in its area and performing the usual functions of chambers of commerce, the organization included as special features of its program a demand that state-supported educational institutions in South Texas have their equitable proportion of state appropriations, work for the modernization and completion of the state highway system in South Texas, work for rate adjustments and improved marketing conditions in the area, work for equitable fire insurance rate adjustments, and encouragement of tourist traffic into South Texas and the Republic of Mexico. Founding officers of the organization were R. W. Morrison of San Antonio, president; S. C. Tucker of Brownsville, first vice president; E. R. Fawcett of Del Rio, second vice president; Ray Leeman of San Antonio, executive vice president, and George Rehment of Alice, treasurer. The official publication of the organization was a monthly news magazine, the South Texan, which continued publication into the 1970s. From 1975 to the mid-1980s the organization's official publication was called South Texas. For some years the group had cosponsored the Texas Legislative Conference held annually in New Braunfels. In 1986 the South Texas Chamber of Commerce moved its headquarters from San Antonio to Austin. That year there were over 960 members in the group from 101 cities across Texas. In 1988 the South Texas Chamber of Commerce, along with the other regional chambers of commerce, merged into the Texas Chamber of Commerce in Austin. In 1995 a further merger with the Texas Association of Business^qv created the Texas Association of Business and Chambers of Commerce.^qv