Ed Foreman

Edgar Franklin "Ed" Foreman (born December 22, 1933) is a prominent motivational speaker based in Dallas, who represented two different states – Texas and New Mexico – in the United States House of Representatives in the middle twentieth century. He was also among the first Republicans since Reconstruction to have represented Texas in Congress.

Early years in New Mexico

Foreman was born in Portales (Roosevelt County), New Mexico, on a sweet potato and pecan farm. He attended Eastern New Mexico University (then Eastern New Mexico College) in Portales from 1952-1953, and then transferred to New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, from which he obtained his bachelor of science degree in civil engineering in 1955. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1956-1957. He was president of Valley Transit Mix, Atlas Land Co., and Foreman Oil, Inc., prior to entering the political arena.

Motivational speaker

His motivational speaking is in the genre of Dale Carnegie, Zig Ziglar, or Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, his personal mentor. Among his most acclaimed topics are "How to Make Every Day a Terrific Day!", "Making Quality Performance A Lifestyle" and "Acquiring The Basic Habit Patterns Of Winners." An associate said of Foreman: "Listening to Ed Foreman speak is like trying to drink from a fire hose... he delivers so much useful, meaningful information with such enthusiasm… it is truly memorable, exciting and refreshing!" Foreman charges $10,000 per speech plus air fare from Dallas.

By the time he was 26, Foreman had become a millionaire in the petroleum business. Foreman's message as a motivational speaker is one of health, wealth, and happiness. He caters primarily to business leaders.

He is a board member, officer, or major stockholder of a dozen corporations. He is co-founder, with Earlene Vining, and president of Executive Development Systems of Dallas.

Republican congressman from Texas, 1962

Foreman was first elected to Congress in 1962 from the 16thh District, which included a large swath of West Texas stretching from El Paso to the Permian Basin. He was still 29 but would turn 30 before he took the seat. Foreman polled 44,095 votes (53.8 percent) and unseated incumbent Democrat J. T. Rutherford of Odessa (born 1921), who received 37,821 (46.2 percent). While he was serving in his first term in Congress, the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce named him one of the "Ten Outstanding Young Men In America." In that 1963-1965 term, Foreman and Bruce Reynolds Alger, who also still lives in the Dallas area, were the only Republican members in the entire Texas delegation. Foreman served a single term, compiled a conservative voting record, and was defeated, along with Alger, in the Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey Democratic Party landslide that swept Texas and the nation in 1964. Foreman was unseated by Democrat Richard Crawford White of El Paso, 70,262 (55.7 percent) to 55,951 (44.3 percent). White served in Congress from 1965-1983. The Democratic tidal wave was so strong in 1964 that it left only one Republican member, Frank Cahoon of Midland, in the entire 181-member Texas legislature.

Republican congressman from New Mexico, 1968

In 1968, Foreman won a single term in Congress from the southern district of New Mexico. Richard Nixon won New Mexico that year, and there was some Republican momentum to assist Foreman in his attempt to return to Congress from his native state. With 71,857 votes (50.5 percent) Foreman upset freshman Democratic Representative E.S. "Johnny" Walker of Albuquerque (1911-2000), who polled 69,858 (49.1 percent). In 1966, Walker had won one of two at-large congressional seats in New Mexico. The single-member districts were established with the 1968 election. Walker served two terms in the House.

In 1970, Foreman was unseated by the Democrat Harold Lowell Runnels of Roswell, who received 64,518 votes (50.8 percent) to Foreman's 61,074 (48.1 percent). Even though Foreman and Runnels disagreed politically, they had at least two things in common: both had been in the oil business in New Mexico, and both had ties to Dallas. Runnels was born in Dallas in 1924, and Foreman bases his motivational speakers business out of Dallas, and still lives there. (Runnels died in New York City in 1980, while he was still a member of Congress. He was succeeded by the Republican Representative Joe Skeen (1927-2003), also of Roswell, who served from 1980-2003.)

After losing a House seat for the second time in six years, Foreman became assistant secretary of the interior in 1971 in the Nixon administration. He moved to the United States Department of Transportation in 1972 and served there until 1976, under both Presidents Nixon and Gerald R. Ford, Jr.

Foreman's legacy

Despite his high profile careers in politics and business, Foreman knows how to relax. He is a motorcycle and a hot air balloon enthusiast as well as an international traveler.

Early in 2006, Foreman and his brother, Harold "Chub" Foreman, also an NMSU graduate in engineering, donated $1.5 million to the NMSU School of Engineering. Ed Foreman said: "Chub and I are most fortunate. We had loving, hard-working parents who instilled in us the importance of a strong belief and responsibility to and for ourselves, our family, friends, and Christian principles. Although in the early days we didn’t have a lot of material things, we were indeed rich. Over the last few years, we’ve been able to accumulate a little money, and we are pleased to contribute, in whatever way possible, to help people grow."

Foreman has been an advisor to five American presidents. He served in the House with two of them, Gerald Ford and George Herbert Walker Bush.

Movies

* "Pass It On, Share The W.I.S.H.: Ed Foreman is featured in Pass It On, Share the W.I.S.H. Movie. Filmed along the same lines as What the Bleep, The Secret, and The Celestine Prophecy, this DVD will be released on April 1, 2007, to on-line viewers and distributors."

References

http://www.barberusa.com/motive/foreman_ed.htmlhttp://www.edforeman.com/front.cfmhttp://www.nmsu.edu/~ucomm/Releases/2006/january/foreman_gift.htmhttp://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=F000272http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=R000510http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S000463http://www.albertsons.com

"Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections", U.S. House edition