Judge Brown Resigns, Tells of Past and Future

Almost a week of speculation and hearsay ended on Tuesday morning, when incumbent Tom Green County Judge Mike Brown addressed the Commissioners Court and revealed his future intentions.

“It’s just time,” Brown said in a later interview. After 19 years of public service, the Judge has decided to step down. Who will follow remains unknown, however at least one candidate has thrown his hat into the ring. The Judge declined comment on who he would support as successor.

As a judge, he’s not allowed to put his support behind a candidate, Brown says. That’s just the way county politics works.

Judge Brown has been a San Angelo resident for the majority of his life. Born in San Antonio to an oil-field geologist, Brown’s family moved to San Angelo in 1953 when his father was relocated by Standard Oil.

For the better part of 60 years, Brown has been a San Angelo resident. Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather before him, Brown became active in the oil industry as an adult, working as a landman throughout the state of Texas.

Brown described the period as a difficult one. “I was living in hotels, leaving on Sunday and coming back on Friday,” Brown said. “My son was playing baseball and I couldn’t make it to any of his games.”

Although his family history and much of his adult working life had been entrenched in the oil industry, Brown realized that it was time for a change and that he needed to be here for his family.

As a landman, he had had a lot of contact with courts and councilmen, and decided to run for the County Judge position in 1990, but lost to Bill Moore. In 1994, Brown ran again, this time taking the seat behind the desk with the gavel, to which he has been consistently re-elected for the past 19 years up until his resignation Tuesday.

“It’s been a long and fruitful career…It’ll be the end of my 19th year and I just decided I was young enough to take advantages of some those things in the private sector,” Brown said of his decision to step down from the position.

Those things in the private sector he mentions would be the prospects of the current oil boom. Given his professional background, the possibility of returning to the oil industry is not something Brown is ruling out.

But while nothing occupational has been set in stone, one thing’s pretty much certain: whatever the future may bring for Brown, it won’t be bringing it to San Angelo.

Brown is currently renovating a house in Alpine, where he and his mother intend to move once his tenure as County Judge has run its course.

“It’s just nice up there,” he says, noting that the weather is much cooler. On whether there will be a third person in tow, Brown declined to comment. ‘There may be,’ Brown said when asked if the rumors about a new love were true.

Judge Brown will officially step down at midnight on Nov. 30. He hopes that the court will move swiftly in appointing his successor.

“I would like for the Commissioners Court to appoint someone in the next couple of weeks,” Brown said, noting the importance of being able to work together with his successor for a smooth transition at the end of November.

“This is on of the best jobs anyone could ever have,” says Brown. “You deal with a broad public spectrum.” It wasn’t just the criminal aspect, but the guardianships and assistance to the public Brown mentioned as to what really made the job for him.

Brown said he hopes that his successor is able to continue with the public service and keep moving forward.

“It’s been a great 19 years,” Brown said. “I wouldn’t change it.”