Don Richard Langford

“We moved down here from Nacogdoches in 1952 when I was three years old. My dad was A. H. Atlee Howard Langford. His nickname was “Heavy.” My mom was Evie Eveline Roy. If you’re familiar with Lucille’s Beauty Shop in Anahuac, Lucille’s daddy, Gerald Roy, and my mother were brother and sister. That was probably one of the reasons we moved down here. Dad came down and went to work for Texas Gulf Sulphur where Uncle Gerold was working. He told everybody he stayed there long enough to learn how to strike an arc, then he went to Brown & Root and told them he was a welder, cause welders were paid a lot more money,” chuckled Don. “He had bought a couple of acres out on the Bayshore and my brother, Eugene still lives on one of those acres. 

“I met Kendon Clark when I was just out of high school at the old Roy Sherman Texaco Station at 146 and 10. It used to be the only thing there. You’d go down Interstate 10 and see that big ole’ Texaco sign up in the air and everything else was dark around it, not like it is now. Right after I left home, I rented a little house from them, it was right across the road from their house, and I stayed there for a while. Kendon and I got to be really good friends, and of course Genie, they were really great people. I had some good experiences over in the area and there were some really great people there. There was Leroy and Stevie Stevens and a lot of other faces that come to mind, but I can’t put the names with them anymore. 

“When I was in high school, I had chosen a career path in the military. Vietnam was going on and of course I’d seen all the John Wayne movies,” said Don with a smile. “I was very patriotic and wanted to go help our country. I had a low lottery number and knew I was going to be drafted, so I volunteered to be drafted into the Marines. They had a two-year hitch and I thought I can put up with anything for two years. I failed the physical, went back . . . failed again.  I had a little high blood pressure. I got three or four physicals, and they finally told me not to come back as they had detected a heart murmur. That was basically the only physical I ever failed in my life. Right after that. I went to work for Lubrizol and passed their physical,” laughed Don. “I stayed with them a year and a half, but I had a dream, I wanted to be in law enforcement. 

One morning coming off of graveyards I had a wreck on Cove Road, naturally. Joe Harlan was the highway patrolman there at the time and I got to talking to him about being a patrolman. He gave me some pointers and I put in my application, and I passed the physical,” laughed Don. “I always felt like I missed something by not being in the military, but obviously it wasn’t where the Lord wanted me to go. Paul Miller, an old Korean war veteran who lived on Hankamer Loop, had helped me get on with Lubrizol and he told me, ‘That’s like going to the gates of Hell and the Good Lord pulling you back.’ He was probably right; it wasn’t for me and it wasn’t my time. I got on with the Highway Patrol and turned 21 years old at the Academy. I didn’t tell anyone it was my birthday because they had to always do extra PT when there was a special occasion. Tom Carey was my sergeant and when he interviewed me to get on with the Highway Patrol, he asked me why I wanted to join. I told him because I wanted to help people.  I had good references from Mr. & Mrs. Albert Watts, Mrs. Alice Wilcox, the school secretary at the time, I forget who else, but they all gave me glowing references and I passed the interview board. They put me in Beaumont because not many people wanted to go to that area. There’s a reason I changed my name from Richard to Don. I was born Don Richard Langford, but I always went by Richard. When I first went to Beaumont, Captain Bob Russell introduced me to all these old highway patrolmen as the newest highway patrolman and he introduced me as Don Langford. I was too intimidated to tell him I went by Richard, so it was easier for me just to change my name, ‘cause he was a tough old hombre and we were really in awe,” laughed Don. “I was broke in by some really good experienced WW II and Korean War veterans. As a matter of fact, my first partner was Alfonso “Poncho” Mendiola, a Hispanic officer., but my second training officer was W. T Clark, he was a Korean War veteran who taught me a whole lot. You talk about saving my bacon, he did one time. I had stopped an old boy who was a DWI and he got out on crutches. I was gathering his information and W. T. got out of the car and stayed in the background, which was his usual practice. This old boy was kind of inebriated, but he was on crutches and couldn’t walk. I was trying to decide if I was going to have a case for a DWI or is he safe enough to let drive home. I was leaning towards just writing him a traffic ticket and I had turned away from him to get some information off the car, registration I believe. The next thing I heard was a whop and I turned around. This guy had long hair and W. T. had grabbed him by the hair and thrown him on the ground. He said, ‘Partner, don’t ever turn your back on anybody. He had that crutch halfway up in the air fixing to come down heavy on you.’ The guy didn’t realize W. T. was there behind him. 

“My first night in the Highway Patrol, I went to meet my new partner on patrol. He said, ‘get in the car, we gotta go, we have a wreck on top of the Rainbow Bridge.’ I wasn’t familiar with the Rainbow Bridge at that time. We got on the bridge; it was just a two-lane bridge then and traffic was lined up on it. He jumped over into the oncoming lane and sped up there and I was holding on for dear life. Once we got up there, he jumped out and started getting the traffic moving. When those cars and trucks would rumble by that big old bridge was shaking, so I was scared to death that first night,” Don laughed recalling that night.

Cove Mayor Leroy Stevens Hands Don Proclamation Honoring Him

During that dreadful night of 1974, Don showed remarkable courage. When faced with the decision of fight or flight he chose fight. Pushing past his own fears and personal pain his skill as a well-trained highway patrolman took control   He continued to pursue his assailant never ceasing to fight until reinforcements arrived.

Friends and neighbors of Don in the West Chambers County community of Cove honored him in celebration of “Don Richard Langford Day.” Mayor H. Leroy Stevens presented him with the proclamation which said:

WHEREAS establishing and maintaining these peaceful and law abiding surroundings does not come without cost to those men and women who are involved in the law enforcement of our communities; and

WHEREAS Texas Highway Patrolman Langford is a part of this law enforcement and has served his state, his county, and his community in his capacity as patrolman to the best of his ability;

WHEREAS in a recent encounter while executing his official capacity he not only performed his duty well but went farther than duty demanded continuing the chase while seriously wounded showing the courage and bravery that has been passed down in our heritage from the very founders of our country –”

WHEREAS we at Cove, Texas would like to voice our support and appreciation for such dedication.

Don’s demeanor quickly changed as he mentally recalled the horror of that night. As his voice broke, he softly said, “Up until a couple of years ago, on the anniversary of the incident, I would go to the place it all happened and do a replay. I stayed in the highway patrol four more years after that, but it was hard. I was rather paranoid and pulled my gun on more people after that night. Back then they didn’t have counseling. It was just, ‘hey, you did a good job,’ and back to it. I had to go before the Grand Jury, they all thanked me for my service and the people in the community were very supportive, but I probably shouldn’t have gone back on the road. Nowadays, when officers go through traumatic events they go in for counseling because basically it’s PTSD. To this day loud noises unnerve me. I remember when I used to help work traffic for Chambers County when they popped firecrackers for New Years Eve. When they put out those big old booms it would just send a chill through me. I understand why they used to call PTSD “shell shock. That night was probably when the fun and games went out the window of being a police officer.” 

Don quickly took his emotions captive once again and said, “One night I was out on patrol in Anahuac and I stopped this guy, real nice guy. He probably wouldn’t care if I called his name, but I’m not going to. He was working for Exxon and I asked him, ‘what do you make an hour?’ That was in 1978. He said $15, I forget how much I was making but when I got out of the Academy in 1970, we were making $630 a month with once-a-month paydays. That’s when I decided I needed to make a career change and I applied at Exxon, Texas Eastern and Sun Oil Company. Exxon was the first one to call me, so I went and took their test. Jake Ducote, I went to school with his son, Steve, kept telling me they were going to hire me. I passed their psychological test and their physical, and that’s when I went to work for Exxon. While working there on December 20th, 1980, I was out pumping wells between C and A lease. I wasn’t supposed to work that shift, but I filled in so I could be off later that day for my little girl’s birthday, I never made it to that party. I was getting a sample off a well and a boat driver pulled his boat into the little pier on the wellhead. It was about 4 feet long and 20 feet wide and I was catching the sample when he put both engines forward and went back to get a cup of coffee, which was kinda normal. He didn’t do anything that hadn’t been done a hundred times before. A norther had blown in and a big wave caught the boat and the rear end spun around. With the gears going forward it just spun around and pushed grating into my ankle and foot on my left leg. He quickly backed away and turned around and I grabbed the handrails and hopped up on the boat. It was a thirty-minute boat ride back to Point Barrow on the West side of the county. From there they carried me to Methodist in Baytown. That was the first time I didn’t have Christmas at home. We had a family tradition started by my wife’s parents, we always had gumbo on Christmas Eve. This would be the only year I would miss my gumbo on Christmas Eve. On January the 14th Debby and I will have been married 53 years,” Don exclaimed proudly. “and Debby has stood by me through all of that, she’s a good wife.”

“One of the fond memories I have of Methodist Hospital is the Robert E. Lee choir came and sang Christmas carols. That’s a good memory,” Don whispered softly. “My leg was pretty mangled but the doctors at Methodist thought it was worth saving because I was a young bread winner. It’s kind of like they say, ‘the operation was a success, but the patient died.’ The grafts and the bone structure and everything was coming back but there’s oily barnacles and stuff on those well heads and they couldn’t get all of that cleaned out, it was so ground up in there and gangrene set in, so they had to go ahead and amputate. It all made me feel pretty low, but I also felt blessed that the good Lord had saved me . . . again! I’ve always felt the good Lord has kept me around for a reason. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not worth taking or if He has something specific in mind,” laughed Don heartily. I used to think He wanted me to do something great and grand, but I’ve decided it isn’t, He just want me to try and be as kind to people as I can. Recovery took a while, the prosthetic kept rubbing blisters on my leg ‘cause the ones back then were held on by leather straps and there was a lot more movement and friction. Now they’re held on my suction and that is much better, but I still have problems to this day because I’m very active After I recovered from my accident, I went back to work for Exxon for a while at Point Barrow then they sent me to school in Boulder, Colorado to learn how to give hearing tests. I drove a little truck around to the different oil fields in East Texas and gave those Exxon hands hearing tests. They’d all worked around compressors, and they were all deaf at certain levels,” laughed Don.