Frank N. Ikard

Frank Neville Ikard (January 30, 1913 – May 1, 1991) was a Democratic United States Representative from Texas' 13th congressional district, centered about Wichita Falls, Texas.

Ikard was born in Henrietta in Clay County, Texas, and attended the public schools and the Schriener Institute, in Kerrville, Texas. He earned an Bachelor of Arts in 1936 at the University of Texas in Austin, where he was a member of the honorary men's service organization known as the Texas Cowboys. He received his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law in 1937 and was admitted that year to the bar.

Ikard began his practice of law in Wichita Falls in the firm now known as Gibson Davenport Anderson; one of the founding partners of the firm was Orville Bullington, the 1932 Republican gubernatorial nominee.

Ikard enlisted in the United States Army in January 1944 and served with Company K, One Hundred and Tenth Infantry, Twenty-eighth Division. He was prisoner of war in Germany in 1944 and 1945. He was awarded the Purple Heart Medal.

Political history
After the war, Ikard served as judge of Thirtieth Judicial District Court of Wichita Falls. He was appointed chairman of the Veterans Affairs Commission of Texas in 1948. Then Governor Beauford Jester in November 1948 named Ikard as judge of the Thirtieth Judicial District Court. He subsequently was elected in 1950, and served until September 8, 1951. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1956, 1960, and 1968. He was chairman of the Texas State Democratic Convention in 1960.

Ikard was elected to the Eighty-second Congress to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of his fellow Democrat, Ed Gossett. He was reelected to the Eighty-third and to the four succeeding Congresses and served from September 8, 1951, to December 15, 1961, when he resigned to become an oil industry lobbyist.

Later career
Ikard served as the executive vice president of American Petroleum Institute from 1962 to 1963 and as president from 1963 to 1980.

He was appointed in 1965, and reappointed in 1967, to the University of Texas Board of Regents by Governor John B. Connally, Jr.

Personal life
Ikard was married to the former Jean Hunter, who died in 1970. They had two children, Frank Ikard, Jr., and William F. Ikard. Later, Ikard married the former Jayne Brumley. Ikard died in 1991 in Washington, D.C., of cardiac arrest.

Ikard was the grandson of rancher William S. Ikard.

Ikard is interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

Quotes

 * Former Congressman Frank Ikard once wisecracked that Alan Greenspan is "the kind of person who knows how many thousands of flat-headed bolts were used in a Chevrolet and what it would do to the national economy if you took out three of them". NNDB -Alan Greenspan