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Turk Cannady

February 7, 2008

The City Council would like to name the new Council and School Board Chambers in honor of Turk Cannady. The School Board will take up this issue at their next meeting on Monday, February 11.

He served the city as it grew rapidly from a small, rural town to a bustling Dallas suburb. Turk was ahead of his time and a lifelong supporter of his community named, “Cedar Hill.” His efforts benefited the city and school district alike.

Please share your memories of Turk and attend the School Board meeting to support the effort.

Update: The School Board agreed during their discussion to honor Turk by naming the joint room, the “T.W. Cannady, Cedar Hill Room”. What a wonderful tribute!

T.W. “Turk” Cannady was born in Cedar Hill in 1923 and served almost 40 years on the City Council including a dozen years as Mayor. He became interested in hometown politics as a child and longed to fulfill that civic-minded duty.

He graduated from Cedar Hill Schools and began a career for much of his life with LTV Corporation as well as longtime volunteer fireman, reserve officer for the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department, member of the First United Methodist Church, member of the Cedar Hill Masonic Lodge, Mayor and Council Member for Cedar Hill, Texas Scottish Rite Mason and a Shriner.

He also coached the high school basketball team during World War II.

Mr. Cannady was a protégé of Cedar Hill’s first mayor, J.C. Potter who groomed the younger man to be his successor.

Turk began as a Council Member in 1953 and his first term as Mayor in 1957 and served as a Council Member or Mayor form 1957 with a brief absence from 1965-1970 until his death in 1993.

He had a hands-on-interest in the town’s Water Department, Fire Department and helped install the city’s water system in the 1940’s. The people who knew him called him a walking computer of Cedar Hill information.

It was not unusual for the Water Department to ask him a question about the position of water system piping and Turk would say, “at that location the pipe is 3 feet over and 5 feet deep,” and that was where it was.

He was devoted to his community and his family (wife Faye and daughter Gail).

He brought the old and the new people together in a way that impressed most. He had forward thinking and built a new city hall in 1961 as well as an additional water well to supply the city’s future needs.

Turk’s life was the city, that’s what he lived for. He had the ability to present a leveling, calming voice to whatever the question because he understood the history of an issue.

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