A Nearly Accurate History of Sunrise Beach
By Dick Hart (deceased)
Written for the 25th Anniversary Celebration of the City in November of 1998
recovered and updated in 2005 and continued by others (I hope, hjs)
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that I might use to take this further would be grossly inadequate. No
words can properly describe the contributions the ladies of the
Auxiliary have made to Sunrise Beach.
Before
I
go on any more I must mention that the city has several
standing boards and committees; an example being the Zoning and
Building Committee, the Airport Committee, the Cemetery Board. The
people that serve on the boards advise the City Commissioners. are
empowered to hold hearings. provide input from citizens and so on.
Without these people, the job of being a city commissioner would be
even more difficult than it is. Again, through the years there have
been so many who have served that it would be an injustice to try to
mention any names. These folks are appointed and serve without any
praise except the thanks of the commissioners. To all who have served
and will serve, I tip my hat, for it is another of those thankless
positions that must be filled or the city suffers.
I'll take a moment to apologize right now; as I had hoped to keep this
historical project in a chronological and very orderly manner. It
appears that will not be possible. The history of this community is so
intertwined with so many events and timetables it is nearly impossible
to tell about one organization without taking it to some logical finish
(be it my own logic). Ergo. I may ramble a bit. Stick with me and
maybe this will all come together and make some sense in the end. I
know of no other way to do this in a narrative form.
I think it is about time to start talking about how the City of Sunrise
Beach Village came to be. In 1973, this little piece of Texas was
starting to get a bit crowded. Seemed that we now had about 120
houses here and there was no one who seemed to be in charge. Oh,
we had a gentleman representing the developers that showed up once
in a while. If you wanted to build a house on your lot he would just say
something like "stay on that side of the telephone pole"!!! Well we all
know that when two or more people live side by side there had better
be some rules or there's gonna be a shoot out. Besides that, the
developer seemed to be forgetting such little proprieties as taking care
of the streets and the parks. Police protection didn't even exist. The
sheriff might as well have been in Oklahoma... So, a group of
interested citizens banded together and the Sunrise Beach Civic
Association was formed. They demanded an accounting of the then
$20 a year assessment for maintenance of the parks and streets. A
proper accounting did not appear to be within the realm of possibility
for the developer so, The Sunrise Beach Village Benefit Association
was born and they wrested from the developer the right to collect the
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