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18. Henry “Lee” D’Spain, Jr.

Eighteenth Sheriff of Kendall County

January 1957 - December 1964; January 1973 - July 1979;

January 1981 - December 1988; January 1993 - December 1996

 

Sheriff Henry Lee D'Spain

 

Lee D'Spain ran for Kendall County Sheriff in November 1956 against the incumbent Sheriff Douglas Kuebel.  D'Spain won the election by a vote of 1,089 to 790 and took office in January 1957.  Lee was re-elected in November 1960 when he defeated a former Sheriff, William B. Edge, by a vote of 1,032 to 726.  After eight years as Sheriff, he was challenged by Douglas Kuebel, whom he had defeated in 1956.  Kuebel won by 1,186 to 1,019 in a hotly contested election.  D'Spain again ran against Kuebel in 1968 but was defeated. In 1984, the Kendall County Amateur Radio Society honored Sheriff D'Spain for the work he did in establishing a Civil Defense radio tower in Boerne. They presented the Sheriff with a Colt revolver and custom holster. In November 1988, H.A. Stevens ran for Sheriff of Kendall County and defeated Lee D'Spain, by 159 votes.  In 1992 Stevens and D'Spain and a third candidate ran in the March Republican primary.  The vote was so close that a runoff election was held in April. D'Spain won the runoff and was unopposed in the general election and took office as Sheriff of Kendall County once more in January 1993.  In August 1995, D'Spain became the first candidate to announce for the March 1996 Republican primary for sheriff.  But in the primary election, he was defeated by Henry Hodge.  D'Spain served a total of 25 years and seven months as Sheriff of Kendall County.  To date, he is the longest-tenured sheriff to serve the county

 

Source: Tomlinson, Richard. "Henry "Lee" D'Spain, Jr. " Keys to the Past. Vol. XXXVIII No. 2, Fall/Winter 2019.

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