Who’s Who of Texans Honors Bivins

AMARILLO, Texas (AP) _ Former presidential adviser Karl Rove remembered his old friend Teel Bivins as a “a modern man of old-fashioned character.”

Rove delivered a eulogy Thursday for Bivins, the former Republican state senator and U.S. ambassador to Sweden who died Monday after a longtime battle with a neurological disease. He was 62.

“Teel was a good friend who worked across lines, and together we could make things happen,” former House Speaker Pete Laney, a Democrat, told the Amarillo Globe-News after the funeral.

An overflow crowd of 800 filled St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church for the service. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, state lawmakers and Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan were in the audience. Bivins was a descendant of a pioneer Panhandle ranching family.

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