HBA Auxiliary

HOUSTON BAR ASSOCIATION AUXILIARY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 13, 2011

Contact:  Carolyn Matthews

713.465.7877; carolynmatthews09@gmail.com

               BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF CAROL VANCE

Carol Stoner Vance was born in Beaumont, Texas July 26, 1933 to his father Carol Stoner Vance Sr.,a Methodist Minister and his mother Fanelle Philp Vance, a school teacher.  Carol’s father died when Carol was two years old. Carol moved to Houston at age four and attended Roberts Elementary School, Lanier Jr. High and graduated from Lamar High School. Carol attended Texas A & M his freshman year and then the University of Texas where he received his BBA and Law Degree. While at Texas Carol was president of his fraternity, Phi Kappa Sigma, and also on the University of Texas Rifle Team where he placed first in the Southwest Conference. While in law school Carol married Carolyn Kongabel Vance, December 8, 1954. They celebrated their 50^th anniversary in 2004. Carol and Carolyn have five children and fourteen grandchildren. Lynn Vance Goodson and husband Mark and their three daughters, Carrie, Camille and Carly; Carroll Vance III and sons, Carroll Vance IV and Thomas Berry Vance; Karen Vance  Geoca and husband Ted and sons Nick, Pete and Christian; Harold Philp Vance and wife Mimi and son Ellis and daughter Molly; and Cheryl Vance Tucker and husband Brian and their children Andrew, Sarah, Carolyn and Benjamin.

Carol received his commission as a 2d Lt. in the U.S. Army and served on active duty at Ft. Gordon, Georgia. He served in the Army Reserves for about ten years and was a Captain in the Judge Advocate’s General Corp.

After graduation from law school Carol was went to work as an Assistant District Attorney for Harris County from 1958-1966. At age 32, Carol was appointed District Attorney of Harris County by Governor John Connally. He became the youngest District Attorney ever to serve Harris County. Carol was elected to this office four times and never had an opponent. As District Attorney Carol did many innovative things such as starting the Special Crimes Bureau, The Organized Crime Division, the Major Fraud and Consumer Fraud Bureaus, the Victim Witness Section, the Career Criminal Division, the Pollution Prosecution Section and the Intake Division. Carol continued to try cases as District Attorney including some of the better known cases in the history of Houston such as a case involving a Supreme Court Justice and the mass murder case..

While District Attorney, Carol was chosen the Outstanding Young Man of Houston by the Houston Junior Chamber of Commerce. He was selected as the Outstanding Young Lawyer in Texas by the Texas Young Lawyers Association and the Outstanding District Attorney in the U.S. by the National District Attorney’s Association. He received the outstanding alumni award from Lamar High School. He served as President of the Texas District Attorneys Association and as President of the National District Attorneys Association. He also served as Chairman of the Board of the NDAA. He was one of several founders of the National College of District Attorneys and served as Chairman of that Board of Regents. Carol was named aRegent Emeritus, a position he still holds. Carol served on the State Bar Committee that wrote the new Texas Penal Code in 1974. He also is a past  President of the Houston Young Lawyers Association and past Chairman of the State Bar Criminal Law Section. He was a co-founder of the International Association of Prosecutors. Carol helped develop the National Prosecution Standards for both the NDAA and served on the American Bar Association task force that wrote the ABA Criminal Justice Standards. Carol taught a night class of Criminal Law at the University of Houston Law School as an Adjunct Professor. He also taught seminars and trial training courses there during his tenure as District Attorney. Carol always had a passion to improve our system of criminal justice and wrote and lobbied for many new laws that were passed by the Texas Legislature 

In 1979 Carol left the District Attorney’s office to become a partner with the Bracewell and Patterson Law Firm, now Bracewell and Guiliani. Prior to retirement Carol was one of the Senior Partners. Carol was a well known trial lawyer and a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Carol served on numerous boards through the years including MEPC, then the largest British Property Co., Park Plaza Hospital, The Boy Scouts of Houston, The Gathering of Men, and the Shad Williams Evangelical Association. He and Carolyn also chaired the Houston Area Young Life Board two different years back in its infancy. Carol also was one of the founders of the Houston Forum Club and served as one of its first presidents.

Carol was a longtime member of First Presbyterian Church and an elder there beginning in 1967. He was Chairman of the Church Planting Committee of Christ Evangelical Presbyterian Church and served as an elder. He and Carolyn along with others founded the City of Refuge Presbyterian Church whose primary focus is ministering to those in the Third Ward Area. Carol is an Elder Emeritus there and served as the first Clerk of the Session. Carol is a frequent Sunday School Teacher and preaches, teaches and speaks at various churches, civic organizations, prisons and other venues throughout Texas. Carol served as the first chairman of the Board for the Forge for Families, a Third Ward Ministry mostly doing evangelism and discipleship programs through sports and after school programs.

Carol has many different interests. He is an author having written “After the Leap”, a book on the basics of the faith and published by a large Christian publishing house. He also wrote “My Grandfather’s House” and has finished the first draft of a book on his adventures as District Attorney of Harris County. Carol produced a movie, thanks to a DOT grant, about drunk drivers. Carol wrote the script which starred A. J. Foyt and his team of drivers. Carol wrote a book called “Youth and the Law” which had over 2,000,000 copies printed and was used throughout Texas for school kids.

Carol’s principal hobby has been tennis. He played in tournaments around the State for several years and was been ranked in the top ten in Texas in 45 and older in singles and doubles by the U.S.T.A. He entered the tennis competition for the Senior Olympics in the sixty and older division. He won the Houston title, then the State title but was defeated by the National Champion in the national tournament. Carol took up golf in his fifties, got his handicap as low as 8 at one time and describes himself as a real hacker. Carol is a longtime member of Houston Country Club where he has been the men’s doubles champion and mixed doubles champion several times, the senior champion a good number of years but only got to the regular singles final once and lost.

Carol served as Chairman of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which oversees the Texas Prison System, the State Parole and State Probation Departments from 1992 to 1995. Carol served on this Board for two terms. During his years he was chairman, Carol led the charge to stop smoking in Texas prisons, making Texas the only non smoking prison system in the world. He took the initiative to make sure Texas prisons were side open to those coming in to do ministry. While Carol was Chairman of TDCJ, Texas begin operating some 12,000 drug beds in the prison system, instituted a Sex Offender Treatment Programs, life skills courses, and many new vocational training courses. During his chairmanship the Texas prison system went from 45,000 beds to 145,000. Carol also served as chairman of the board of the Windham School District, one of the state’s largest school systems with 800 teachers and 60,000 students. The students are inmates, and over 5000 GEDs are awarded annually.

Carol is active in various Christian ministries. He loves to share the gospel and accompanied his friend Shad Williams to do field evangelism in Malawi and Kenya as well as having taken mission trips to Brazil, Argentina, Turkey and Ecuador. When Carol was Chairman of the Board of the Texas Prison System, he along with Chuck Colson and then Governor Bush led the startup of the first all Christian programming in any prison in the United States. That prison is in Sugar Land, Texas and now named the Carol S. Vance Unit. The recidivism rate of the graduates is only 8% after two years of being out. This is one-third the usual rate. The Texas success has led Prison Fellowship to open similar programs in several other states. Carol preaches regularly in the Harris County Jail and has been on a team doing a weekly CBS Bible Study at the Jester III Prison since 1994. He also teaches most weeks the Basics of the Faith at the Vance Unit and at the Jo Kegans State Jail in downtown Houston. He preaches on occasions at the Open Door Mission, numerous prisons and “once in a while a church desperately needs a free preacher” as Carol likes to say. Carol likes to do evangelism, but his main love is discipleship through the gift of teaching.

Carol’s main love is his wife Carolyn and his children and their families. His favorite activity is having the entire family come over for the day when he can cook out and many of the family can play tennis into the night. 

Lynne Liberato

DISASTER RELIEF TASK FORCE ORGANIZER
RECIPIENT OF 2010 JAWORSKI AWARD

First Woman Recipient Lynne Liberato to be honored at 23rd Annual Award Luncheon

Lynne Liberato was named the 2010 recipient of the Houston Bar Association Auxiliary’s Leon Jaworski Award .