Harvey L. Bass
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Harvey Lee Bass (October 11, 1918 - February 7, 2007) was a businessman, civic leader, and Democratic Party chairman in Muleshoe, the seat of Bailey County, in the western Texas Panhandle. He operated an appliance and furniture store for more than a half century. In 2006, health problems prompted him to relocate to Snyder, the seat of Scurry County, in the South Plains region.
Bass was the youngest of thirteen children born in Jones County in central Texas to Henry Isom Bass (1873-1968) and the former Mary Evaline Jones. In 1939, he graduated from Meadow High School in Meadow (Terry County) in west Texas. He worked for Burleson-Garrett Engineering and laid telephone line in east Texas. Prior to World War II, he worked for North American Aviation in Hawthorne, California, having helped to build P-51 Mustangs and B-25 bombers.
Bass was a deacon in the Primitive Baptist Church, which he first joined while living in California. He taught church singing schools throughout Texas and Oklahoma.
After the war, he returned to Texas to join with a brother-in-law, Afton Richards, to publish the Aspermont Star, a weekly newspaper in Aspermont near Abilene in west Texas. The paper is now known as the Stonewall County Courier. Bass and Richards also took over the publication for a time of The Banner of Love, a Primitive Baptist monthly newspaper. The Banner was first published in Lubbock in 1932.
In 1946, Bass married the former Marie Bingham in Crosbyton, the seat of Crosby County. The couple moved to Muleshoe in 1948. He helped to organize the Muleshoe Chamber of Commerce. A charter member of the Rotary Club, he won the coveted Paul Harris Fellow designation for outstanding community service.
He chaired the Bailey County Democrats for twenty-six years. In later years, however, Bailey County moved into the Republican column, as did most of west Texas and the Panhandle. Bass served on many boards and commissions designed to promote the image of Muleshoe, a community known for its unusual statue of a mule in the town square --the National Mule Memorial. According to his obituary, Bass was a man with a "positive . . . optimistic outlook and 'can-do' attitude."
In addition to his wife, survivors included two daughters and sons-in-law, Carolia and Ron Johnson of Yorba Linda, California, and Vina and Thomas Strayhorn of Snyder; five grandchildren, and two great-grandchilden.
Bass is interred in Snyder Cemetery in Snyder.
