James Loyd Sexton

My name is Jim Sexton. I was a native of the glorious Panhandle of Texas and was raised among the gentle, God-fearing folk of Memphis, Hall County, Texas, in my youth dubbed "The Cotton Capital of the Panhandle". My cotton sack and I helped a little bit to make it so when I was a kid. I was an honest man; I loved God; I loved my wife and our two girls whose love and precious company I was blessed to have on my journey; I loved my childhood family; I loved being an American and, especially, a Texan; the highest office I ever aspired to or ever held was "Dad"; and my saddest day was April 11, 2024 when we lost Wilma.
The confluence of time, positions attained in my bank regulatory profession, and challenging economic events presented me with opportunities to make a difference for those in my profession, for the U. S. banking industry, and for my beloved Texas during its troubled 80's while I was honored to serve as The Banking Commissioner of Texas. I was proud of my professional contributions and was humbled by and grateful for the opportunities that preparation, initiative and chance presented to me. I met, challenged, and learned from many intelligent and interesting people encountered constantly along my path, even including the inevitable few whose deeds made bank examiners an essential presence on the business landscape.
For a few years in the 90's, I assisted in the development of bank regulatory systems in several former Eastern Bloc and Soviet countries. There, I watched recently freed inmates of a 70-year communist mess enthusiastically, if at times clumsily, embrace personal freedom and the individual opportunity to succeed or fail. It was a profound experience, as had been my first glimpse of the ghastly Berlin Wall, which symbolized for me an inevitable dark side of that economic and sociological model and made me more watchful of those who would emulate it in my much bled-for United States of America.
As my professional progress unfolded, we were honorees at a succession of farewell parties. Wilma, Sheryl, Carole and I left the company of colleagues, friends and schoolmates in Fort Worth, then Dallas, then Memphis, Tennessee, then Philadelphia, then Washington. Then, Wilma and I left Texas one last time, this time leaving our daughters at their homes in Texas and returning to Washington alone. Then, returning to Texas at last and for good and retiring to Granbury in 2000 to a home on the 11th tee box, I suffered the game of golf for just short of 90 days. The prospect of becoming irrelevant to a profession that I had eagerly and passionately pursued for decades and replacing it with a pastime that I found maddening compelled me to gather a number of clients and commence a consulting business and to never, ever again really quit "work". As a particularly fun and memorable part of that return from my brief retirement, Wilma and I and a few new friends, consulting for The Conference of State Bank Supervisors, traveled frequently for 11 years from our respective residences around the U. S., meeting up in a different state capital about once a month, consulting with state bank regulators there for three or four days and enjoying our enduring friendships and the unique charm each state has to offer.
I was honored to have and enjoy good friends in all the places, phases and circumstances comprising my life; I enjoyed playing some mediocre guitar and, with my Granbury-resident musician friends, providing local elder-home residents with a little music and variety for their lives; I always felt at peace and closer to God when hiking alone anywhere, from a quiet desert trail in the majestic Big Bend of Texas to the soft, fragrant tapestry of a Blue Ridge Mountain trail on a cool, misty October morning to our Continental Divide to New Zealand's breathtaking Milford Track, and many more such beautiful trails; I enjoyed a game of bridge or 42 with Wilma and our friends, or a friendly game of chess whenever one could be found; I loved traveling with and just being with Wilma, the love of my life, my best friend and ace travel companion, and with each of our daughters; I lived what I considered a pleasingly balanced existence; I believed myself a prudently generous man and a worthwhile citizen; I always enjoyed real country music and "Gunsmoke" episodes on Saturday morning radio in the 50's and on TV ever after; in all important things, I did my best; and I loved standing six-foot-six.