Friday, September 20, 2024
LAKE WORTH — Lake Worth Mayor Walter Bowen has dedicated his whole life to public service. Since the 1960s, Bowen has committed his time to the well-being of the Lake Worth community. He first volunteered at the Lake Worth Fire Department, then ran for city council and eventually became mayor. As city elections are coming up, Mayor Bowen reflects on his life of public service.
Born in Fort Worth in 1943, Walter Edward Bowen grew up in Lake Worth, near Sanson Park, where he has lived his whole life. Bowen said his family and the town were not the wealthiest, but they didn’t know it.
“Lake Worth was not a rich town,” Bowen said. “But we didn’t know that. It was our way of life; we didn’t know any different.”
Bowens’ mother was a stay-at-home mom and his father worked at Borden Dairy in Fort Worth. His father was on the Lake Worth school board when he was in school. Bowen’s father got to hand him, plus his two brothers, their diplomas.
“Pretty neat, I think, that my dad got to hand all three of us our high school diplomas,” Bowen said.
When Bowen graduated from high school, he spent one year at UTA before deciding school wasn’t for him and started working for a car wash company, then worked at General Dynamics.
During that time, Bowen decided to volunteer for the Lake Worth Fire Department.
“I was a volunteer fireman for 12 or 13 years,” Bowen said. “Fire department was my life pretty much then. We got paid a dollar a fire, we didn’t get anything for a long time.”
Bowen was named Volunteer Fireman of the Year before he threw his name into the hat for city council. He ran in 1969 and lost, but ran again in 1971 and was elected to City Council Place 6.
Bowen said the reason he first ran was because the Lake Worth Planning and Zoning Commission, of which he was a member, would often make suggestions to the City Council and the council would constantly turn down recommendations. Bowen resigned from the commission, but the City Council decided to fire Bowen from the Fire Department.
“I liked the fire department, it was pretty devastating, that was my life,” Bowen said. “It caused some uprising from the community.”
Bowen was later elected to City Council Place 7, and served in that seat from 1992-1994. He was elected mayor in 1995.
“If you're going to be mayor, I believe firmly, you need to be a council member for a certain period of time,” Bowen said. “You need that experience.”
Bowens' father was hesitant about his son running for mayor. He says he explained to his dad he wanted to do more than he was doing then.
“I wanted to be a leader; I had always been shy,” Bowen said. “My dad was on the school board, and my brother is the mayor of Munday. That’s our civic duty.”
Bowen gave credit to a former city administrator for bringing him out of his shell.
Shortly after Bowen was elected mayor, retail development exploded in Lake Worth. Bowen admitted it was exciting. Bowen had always wanted a Home Depot, so naturally Home Depot was built first. Then came Albertsons, then the city entered meetings with Target, and later, Kohl’s approached the City of Lake Worth.
Reflecting on his first five years as mayor, Bowen tells a story about the night of Y2K. Bowen and the city manager decided to spend the night at the police station to see what would happen as the 20th century ended and the 21st century began.
“We stayed up that night, I came down here and stayed up with him to see what was going to happen and nothing happened,” Bowen said. “We developed a plan to see what was going to happen, because nobody knew.”
Another big event Bowen experienced as mayor was the COVID-19 pandemic. When asked how Lake Worth handled COVID, Bowen emphasized that Lake Worth wasn’t affected as much as neighboring cities.
“A lot of cities were hurting, we came out really ahead,” Bowen said.
As mayor, Bowen has had to tackle issues that come with being an elected official. But after 30 years, he still has a positive outlook about his job and all the things the city has done after all these years.
“We’re very blessed to be able to do what we do,” Bowen said. “Because of so many things we’ve done with our finances, with our programs we have, the parks, the senior center, the library, there's a lot of things we do that just make me feel great.”
Bowen said he plans to file his application to run for the office of mayor again in January.
