Beyea running for District 87 House seat to speak for education, rural issues

Richard Beyea of Perryton, one of the four Republican candidates running for Texas House District 87 seat, spoke about his objectives in running for the Texas Legislature. Beyea is the owner of an oil and gas exploration company. He also serves as the chairman of The Panhandle Producers and Royalty Owners Association and currently serves on the Perryton School Board as its vice president.

Being a school board member, Beyea says that the education of children in the Texas Panhandle is of the highest importance to him. According to Beyea, while many schools struggled coming out of COVID-19, his district got better and is now considered an A-rated school district.

“My focus has always been on what goes into the classroom; I think we can do much better,” Beyea said. “One of my concerns is that Austin likes issues but not necessarily likes solutions. I am a business guy; I look for solutions to problems and not ways to shift blame to someone else. I want to focus on educational quality going into the classrooms and how we get more resources into the classroom. This includes teacher pay, recognizing teacher performance, materials, and how the small schools get the support into the classroom while being stressed on the budgets.”

When asked what the impact could be if Rep. Four Price, who has stood the line on school vouchers, is replaced by a candidate like Caroline Fairly, who openly supports school vouchers in the Texas Panhandle, Beyea said that a one-size-fits-all approach for all areas of the state would not be good for the education system.

“To stand in a corner and say 'no' on any kind of help to those bigger school systems versus those that want to come in and force universal vouchers down our system, neither one of those things work for Perryton, Booker, Spearman or many other of the rural areas of the Texas Panhandle,” he said. "I propose we remove the small rural districts from any school choice issue. The governor needs to look more into why a lot of representatives of these rural districts could not support the bills and bring all the people back into the camp. We cannot lose any more rural voices, because it is not just the schools that will suffer, but every single issue that is critical to rural communities."

More: House District 86, 87 candidates discuss border, education at candidates forum

Beyea said that if the rural counties are removed from the test of vouchers, it will be beneficial.

“I see choice as a way to strengthen and support public education,” Beyea said. “We do not want to be standing in line reacting to everything. We want to be proactive and protect our local communities while allowing choice in the bigger cities, which need it. Florida and Arizona schools are getting better under the voucher program. I am disturbed that Austin sees everything as a political issue, not a solution. We are going after many rural legislators in this election, which I think is misguided. We need compromise so at the end of the day we can get better education for our kids.”

When asked about a level field for accountability for public education and those receiving vouchers, Beyea said it is already not a level playing field since many districts have no accountability. He said that the Department of Education has worked to the detriment of education with its overreach, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, citing that it sought to deny early education funds for not complying with masking standards. He said that the federal and state mandates many times do not provide enough funding beyond the first year. According to Beyea, this led to his district choosing to find other avenues to fund its early education program.

With the Texas Legislature holding up funding to schools due to Gov. Abbott’s insistence that school vouchers be tied to getting additional funding, Beyea weighed in on getting the best results in the legislature among any contentious issue.

“We have forgotten how to talk to each other,” he said. “You must convince smaller bodies to your point of view and go from there. You work up a compromise with the best solutions at the end of the day. I have always said that at the end of the day, the education of a child is the most important thing we are going to do; we can probably agree on what needs to happen. But you cannot start with, I did not get my way and will stand in a corner and call you names."

Beyea said that this is where his experience comes into play with the ability to go in and talk to people to come to a reasonable conclusion to be able to help the constituents.

“What Austin gets is how many of the things they want to do come down to our local communities and create destruction,” Beyea said. “There is a lot of wisdom in our local districts that understand the local communities better than the state. My approach will be what we can get done and be an active voice to protect our industry and values.”

He said that the natural gas industry needs better support in the legislature, especially regarding its ability to export.

Beyea says his top priorities are supporting Gov. Abbott and his efforts to secure the border, which is affecting communities across the state. Over the past month, Beyea says that election integrity has become a significant concern with outside money affecting local elections. He said that much of the campaign money that has come into the race has come from well outside of the district.

When asked why he is the best qualified to represent the district, Beyea said that his advocacy for education, energy, and other issues that affect the Texas Panhandle has been long-standing.

“You have to get people to trust the government again,” Beyea said. "Voters need to feel like they have an impact. If we can restore faith, we can get a much greater than 20% voter turnout. I can go to the legislature and make changes on the committees I serve on due to my experience and record of accomplishment.”

With all the money and endorsements in his opponent's camp, Beyea says he tries to be an optimist.

“I expect elections to be about ideas rather than money,” he said. “At the end of the day, it needs to be about ideas and how one will help the people of Texas. We are completely distorting the idea of democracy with all the outside actors that get involved in elections. Government across the board is getting too big; we need to get the size of government down. There were 8,800 bills suggested last year in our legislature; how many of those were to shrink the size of government?”

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: House District 87 candidate Richard Beyea outlines priorities