I always liked Judge Salinas. He was a good county judge and a proud resident of Sebastian.

We were almost the same age and shared many similar experiences.

In 1957 when I was working in Austin, starving two weeks of every month on my $60 salary, unknown to me, Simon was doing the same thing a few blocks away.

As he later told me, "I worked all over West Texas and New Mexico as a migrant farm worker."

Simon returned to the Rio Grande Valley and was always well liked and respected. For many years he worked as a foreman for the Sebastian Farmers' Gin.

In that capacity he honed his skills that served him well when he entered politics as a county commissioner, beating long time commissioner Clarence Anderson in Pct. 4.

Keeping the peace at the gin between the workers and the farmers and management had to be a delicate balancing act. And the same could be said in the county commissioners job. In a rural county a commissioner has got to keep the farmers happy or he won't be in office long.

Simon was up to it.

Later Simon beat the incumbent county judge Eustolio Gonzales and began a long career as county judge. In that position he did a lot of good for this county, always keenly interested in obtaining jobs and growth.

When he made trips to Austin in pursuit of grant funds Simon tried to keep the expenses down. He told me about a night he spent sleeping in his pickup under an overpass to save the county travel expense.

Simon had challengers for his job and one year he had three opponents. I asked him if he was worried and he said "no, whatever is meant to happen is going to happen."

A few days later I was in the "Tienda Mexicana" in downtown Raymondville. Among the herbs and religous articles there was a large candle in a glass holder labeled, "Guaranteed to defeat your political enemies." I bought it and gave it to the judge as a gift and he kept it in his office behind his desk.

A few days later Simon beat his rivals without a runoff. Next time I saw him, he commented, "That candle worked pretty well."

One thing about the judge and grant funds. He always wanted to get "more bang for our bucks." For that reason Simon usually found fault with the low bidder on any construction job.

"That's too much money, we can do it cheaper, by subcontracting it ourselves". He did it with the Sebastian fire station and later with the Lasara Community building.

In the case of the fire station critics claimed the concrete parking in front of the building didn't drain water and in Lasara they said the county could have gotten the job done cheaper by the low bidder.

But the judge never listened to critics.

"They can say what they want to , but we got a bigger building in Lasara then we would have had, by building it ourselves."

At Lasara, Simon used prison inmates and county road & bridge workers to pour the concrete foundation and lay bricks. When it came time to get the grant money from Texas A&M University,one of the judge's commissioners wrote a letter claiming the money was not being used properly.

After a delay of two years the county finally got the money the Aggies had promised for the job, but not before an audit cleared the judge of wrongdoing.

Simon was really ticked off at two of his commissioners and railed against them every time they were in his office. One elected official said to Simon, "You know the Bible says we have to forgive our enemies."

He responded, "I know what the good book says, I'm a Christian and that's why I pray for those sons of bitches every night."

Judge Salinas only supporter on the court was Commissioner Alfredo "Fred" Serrato.

Commissioners Israel Tamez and Jose Isac "Joe" Jimenez almost always opposed him . The important swing vote was often cast by Commissioner Noe Loya.

Before Judge Salinas left office Dec. 31, 2007 two of the commissioners he served with were indicted for bid rigging on prison construction and one went to prison.

The current county judge has been convicted of lying to authorities about sexual advances he allegedly made to a justice of the peace secretary and our former county auditor is serving 10-years-probation for theft of county funds.

Simon Salinas did a lot of good for this county. We probably wouldn't have the prison economy we have today without his hard work and interest in finding jobs for our workers.

Thanks, Simon, for a job well done.