Cross & Crescent

Y’all. Fixin’. Purt’ near. Hankerin’. Gully washer. Sgoweat. Awlbidness.

Kansas State Rep.

Kevin Yoder (Kansas 1999), a representative of the Kansas State Legislature, was first elected in 2002, and twice re-elected to the Kansas House representing Overland Park and Leawood, Kansas.
In 2007, he was appointed as chairman of the House General Government Budget Committee.

As an undergraduate at the University of Kansas, he served as student body president and Lambda Chi Alpha chapter president. He also was a finalist for the Fraternity’s Cyril F. “Duke” Flad Outstanding Undergraduate Award in 1999.

In 2005, he was appointed as a member of the board of directors of the Kansas City KU Alumni Association, and was elected president of the Kansas chapter’s Lambda Chi Alpha House Corporation.

He has served as president of the Kansas Union Memorial Corp. board of directors and as a member of the Kansas Athletics Corp. board of directors.

In April 2003, he became an associate at the law firm of Speer & Holliday, LLP in Olathe, Kansas, becoming a partner in April 2005.

These were just a few of the colorful terms guest speaker Texas State Rep. Joe Driver (North Texas 1971) cited at the Fraternity’s 2008 Winter Leadership Retreat in New Braunfels, Texas, when he made all of the attendees honorary Texans.

Representing District 113, which includes Garland, Rowlett, and Sachse, Texas, he is serving his eighth two-year term as a member of the Texas House of Representatives, with plans to run for re-election again this fall.

In 2007, Driver was appointed to his third term as chairman of the Law Enforcement Committee, and a second term on the Environmental Regulation Committee.

In addition to his political and legislative duties, he also has been an agent for State Farm Insurance Companies for 34 years with an office in Garland, Texas.

North Texas

Driver played basketball in high school and played one year at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas, as one of the coaches recruited him to be a walk-on player.

“I was just not quite good enough to get a scholarship,” he says. “So North Texas was far enough away from home but close enough to home that it seemed like a pretty good school.”

After his freshman year, North Texas changed basketball coaches and the new coach recruited new players, so Driver was recuited to a Texas junior college by another coach he knew. Unfortunately, that eventually didn’t work out either, and transferred back to North Texas to focus on earning his degree.

Upon his return, he discovered that a general business degree required three semesters of accounting instead of two. Not wanting to delay his graduation any futher, he earned an insurance degree, which only required two semesters of accounting.

Lambda Chi

Also when Driver returned to North Texas, some of his friends encouraged him to pursue joining Lambda Chi Alpha.

One of those friends was Larry Caldwell (North Texas 1969), who only a short time later was killed tragically in a car crash.

“With Larry gone, I had to re-evaluate whether I really wanted to stay in the Fraternity,” Driver said.

Luckily, he did stay and eventually became the chapter’s president, even though he never campaigned for the position.

“It’s kind of like ‘if called upon I will serve,’” he says. “Three or four of us said if we’re going to hold this together we’re going to have to have somebody we can count on. And they started looking my way.”

During his tenure, he dealt with all types of challenges and issues surrounding the chapter and its members but he cherished the opportunity.

“It was fantastic,” he says. “It was literally one of the most growing experiences I’ve ever had other than the Texas legislature.”

Texas Legislature

After graduating from North Texas, Driver became a successful insurance agent, working alongside his dad. He also volunteered for various community leadership positions in Garland, Texas, and became one of the city’s civic leaders.

Anita Hill, the previous state representative for Driver’s district, told him in the early 1990s that he needed to take over for her when she retired.

Without any political experience, Driver quickly learned as much as he could and was elected to his first term in 1992.

“And then I went down to Austin going, okay I won, what do I do now?,” he says. Eventually, he found his way around the political arena and won over many fellow Republicans and Democrats, including leaders of both the Texas House and Senate, as well as then Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

Driver says he has no plans to run for higher office as he thinks it would be too political and involve too much delegation, which goes against his nature.

He believes that in the service business, whether it’s politics, fraternity or insurance, you have to sell to survive.

When thinking about his accomplishments, he recites a phrase he once read: “‘You can be an ordinary person put in extraordinary circumstances’. And I felt like each time something happened, I was just an ordinary guy put in extraordinary circumstances.”