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Shortly after Jordan Cowman graduated from Dripping Springs High School in 1981, he attended a funeral in San Marcos for his great aunt. His grandmother had asked him to go, and Cowman agreed - unaware that it was a decision that would change the course of his life.
While it was a pretty ordinary affair as funerals go, one particular person caught his eye - Lady Bird Johnson. Curious, he asked his grandmother how she came to be there. He learned that a cousin, Donald Thomas, had been President Lyndon B. Johnson’s personal lawyer.
Intrigued, he went and spoke with Thomas. Cowman was interested in becoming a lawyer himself, and had recently enrolled at the University of Texas. He left that day with an offer of employment as a mail clerk at Clark Thomas, which was one of the largest law firms in Austin.
The “Clark” in the name belonged to Edward Clark, who was a close adviser to Lyndon B. Johnson and the Ambassador to Australia during his administration - and a main character in this story.
Not long after, Cowman got an assignment in his freshman English class to interview a famous person. He decided to ask if Clark would be willing to be interviewed, and he consented.
“I’m just a kid basically,” Cowman said. “And it’s a big office, with lots of LBJ stuff all around, and American flags, Australian flags, all this stuff on the wall. Very intimidating.”
Clark got down to business right away, and Cowman got his interview. Over the coming months, Cowman ended up doing more and more tasks for Clark. Then one day, Clark asked him for a favor.
“‘Young man,’ he said - he was probably 85 years old at the time - ‘Could you drive me every third Thursday to San Augustine in deep East Texas near the Louisiana border?’”
Clark had board meetings to attend for the First National Bank of San Augustine. It was a 265-mile trip from Austin, and the trip was getting difficult for him. Cowman agreed to be his driver.
“So I drove him for years. And he would be telling me stories,” Cowman said. “I got to be really good friends with him. He was a mentor to me. He taught me all kinds of things.”
Chief among those was how to deal with people.
“He would bring me to these fancy parties,” Cowman said. “And I would say, ‘Ambassador, I feel like a penny waiting for change among all these highfalutin types.’”
But Clark would take him around and introduce him to people.
“He taught me that you shouldn’t be intimidated, because people are people. Whether they’re rich and powerful or poor and powerless, people are people,” Cowman said. “They deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.”
In that regard, Clark led by example.
“I saw how he treated everyone. That was part of the secret to his success, as opposed to being commanding and overbearing. He had a very good way with people.”
Cowman also got to know Clark’s family, and would sometimes stay at their family home in San Augustine.
“And so when he died in 1992, his daughter calls me and says, ‘Jordan, Daddy wanted you to have his desk and chair.’ By this time, I had graduated from law school, and I was a practicing lawyer in Dallas. And I was so flattered that he had left this to me in his will.”
Cowman went and picked up the chair and desk. Inside, Clark had left some items for him - some notes, photos of him and LBJ, and a boomerang from his time in Australia.
“I have sat at that desk ever since I got it in 1992,” Cowman said. “And it’s been a complete source of inspiration to me.”
The desk has also served as a reminder of an important lesson that Clark taught him.
“One thing that he told me is do whatever you’re big enough for,” Cowman said.
Cowman took that to heart. After graduating from UT, he went on to clerk for a federal judge, and eventually ended up with a very successful private practice in Dallas. He also served as a business advisor to the United Nations labor organization during the Bush administration.
“I’m a labor lawyer by training, and I was appointed to go and give U.S. business a voice on international labor policy,” Cowman said. “So there I am in Geneva, Switzerland, standing in front of an auditorium bigger than anything I’d ever seen in my life. And what I’m thinking is, Ambassador Clark says ‘Do whatever you’re big enough for.’”
But now, the time has come for Cowman to part ways with Clark’s desk. His Dallas law firm is moving, and Cowman decided it was time for the desk to go on to bigger things. He contacted the San Augustine Historical Society in Clark’s hometown, and made arrangements to donate the desk.
“I wanted to make sure that it had a meaningful home. And I think that having it go back to San Augustine is the perfect home for it,” Cowman said. “This desk has such history to it. And I want people to see that and see this desk and know what an important man Ambassador Clark was, not only to me, but to Texas. He had such a formative role in Texas - such an influential role in this great state of ours.”
The desk will be on display in one of the historic homes of San Augustine, surrounded by photos and other memorabilia from Clark.
“It’s something that serves as a tangible reminder of our deep and storied past,” Cowman said. “And it’ll be there forever, hopefully, and inspire a whole new generation of people just like me who may be from small towns, but who are able to do some good in this world.”
