Lowell Lebermann Scholarship

Lowell H. Lebermann Jr., Life Member, was a three-term Austin City Council member, former University of Texas System regent and civic, cultural and business leader. Lebermann grew up in Commerce, about 60 miles northeast of Dallas, where his father practiced medicine. At the age of 12, he lost the sight in his right eye in a gunshot accident. Vision in the other eye deteriorated as a repercussion of the accident until he was completely blind by age 23. But his dimming sight did not stop him from academic achievement. A student in the Plan II Honors program at the University of Texas, he was elected student body president in 1961. By then Lebermann already had set up his own real estate company. He made an unsuccessful run for state representative in 1964 in Northeast Texas and returned to Austin, where his father’s family had lived for four generations. But to most Austinites, he was known for his work as a member of the Austin City Council in the 1970s. Then-Mayor Roy Butler dubbed Lebermann “the Green Panther” because of his environmental efforts. Lebermann wrote the ordinance establishing the city’s Office of Environmental Resource Management and pushed through a measure governing development on Lake Walter E. Long, Lake Austin and what is now Lady Bird Lake. He also wrote the city’s creeks ordinance and its historic zoning ordinance. His civic participation continued after he left office. A diverse investor, Lebermann ran a car dealership, owned the beer distributor Centex Beverage Inc., and served on the boards of several banks and companies. Active for years in state and national fundraising for the Democratic Party, he was elected treasurer of the state party in 1981 and for several years was on the executive committee of the Democratic National Finance Council. He ran unsuccessfully for Austin mayor in 1983. The list of his civic involvements was lengthy, including his service on the boards of the United Way, Salvation Army, Austin Community Foundation and the Austin Symphony Orchestra Society. He was president of the Laguna Gloria Art Museum and chairman of the Paramount Theatre board. Lebermann was on the Chancellor’s Council Executive Committee at UT, the Ex-Students Executive Council and the Symposium Planning Committee for the LBJ School of Public Affairs. He was appointed to the UT System Board of Regents in 1993 by Gov. Ann Richards and served as vice chairman from 1993 to 1995.