04/28/2026
CLSC had our program on Wednesday, April 22nd at the Graham Country Club. Our program chairman was Betsy Casteel, while our hostesses were Terry McMillan and Julie Burkett.
Our guest speaker was Tony Widner, who works with the Young County Museum of History in Graham,Texas. He has had a long career in law-enforcement in Graham, first as a Police Officer for 38 years and then as Chief of Police for ten years, before retiring.
He shared a story of his first car chase as a young and inexperienced 18 year-old officer. The person he was chasing was only 17 and apparently took him on a wild trip through Graham. He did apprehend him, and the ironic thing was… Tony could carry a gun, but was too young to buy ammunition, so his father had to buy it for him.
Tony is a great storyteller and had an assortment of stories from Graham’s “Wild West” days. One he mentioned, was about the Marlow Brothers who broke out of jail in Graham in 1888 after being involved in a horse theft. A book was written about them named, The Sons of Katie Elder. Later, a movie was made in 1965 starring John Wayne and Dean Martin as two of the four brothers return to Texas for their mother‘s funeral, only to uncover a conspiracy involving their father‘s death and loss of the family ranch.
The Santa Claus Bank robbery in Cisco, Texas in 1927 was one of Texas, most infamous crimes, and led to the largest manhunt ever seen in the state. Eventually, the th*****me was ambushed by Sheriff Foster of Young County at South Bend as they tried to cross the Brazos river.
 It was a very informative lecture, with many stories some of us may not have heard before.
The last picture is of our new officers for CLSC for the next two years starting in September.
