Griggs: An Original
By Gregg Wendorf
Advance News Journal
There’s a story inside this week’s Advance about the city of McAllen’s celebration of Women’s History Month (March), and reading it, I couldn’t help but think of the city’s first female city commissioner, Phyllis Griggs, elected to office in 1987.
Certainly, an original. No other way to describe her. Tough on the outside, a softie on the inside, although she wanted that part kept a secret.
Over the years, every time I’d call her about something, city business when she was on the commission, gossip confirmation after she retired, she would answer the phone in that low-pitched voice of hers: “What do YOU want?”
Always gave me a laugh. She once called me back in the day when Expressway 83 was divided not by a concrete barrier, but by that beautiful stretch of green grass from McAllen to Brownsville, dotted with beautiful bougainvillea in full bloom.
“Gregg, you won’t believe what just happened.”
With Phyllis, one never knew.
“I was driving down the expressway when I saw this dog in the middle of the expressway (in the grass), and I knew I had to save it.”
An animal lover to her very core, Phyllis attracted all sorts of wild creatures to her home that was once out in the rural part of the city (west side) but is now part of McAllen’s urbanization. Birds of all sorts, ducks, geese, coyotes, you name it, they all found their way to her home with its huge yard, and she always had a massive dog inside her adobe who won the Lotto the minute Phyllis brought him/her home. The dog’s bed was as big as the sofa.
On this one particular day, seeing the dog in the grass, in distress, in the middle of Expressway 83, she pulled over and ran across two lanes of traffic to rescue the poor creature. She scooped it up in her arms, and like a football player headed toward the end zone, sprinted back to her car.
The Donut Lady
Phyllis served on the McAllen City Commission between 1987 and 2001, occasionally butting heads with Othal, but before that, she was a hit around the city’s cop shop (McAllen PD), where she picked up the nickname “The Donut Lady.”
Why? Because as the owner of six Mister Donut Shops across the RGV she would drop off free donuts at the old PD station on Pecan, never expecting anything in return, just happy to show her appreciation for the work they did.
Phyllis first moved to McAllen in 1972, back when it had a population of approximately 38,000 compared to the 2020 census — 142,000. Lines of traffic? They didn’t exist. Women in business? Few and far between.
She opened her first Mister Donut Shop in McAllen the following year and built and/or purchased five more during the next six years.
Along the way, no doubt she ran into old-fogey misogynists, but she either won them over with her charm and business acumen or brushed them aside and moved on to the next challenge, whether it be in business or politics.
In 1983, the SBA named Phyllis Griggs its Business Person of the Year for the state of Texas, and she followed that up with her charity work — “Spirit of the American Woman” award from J.C. Penney in 1991; Zonta Shining Star for the year 2001; past president of the McAllen Boys & Girls Club, the American Heart Association (regional), and the Upper Valley Humane Society. Always moving forward, she was also a member of the Board of Governors of the McAllen Medical Hospital for 14 years, the first female member of the McAllen Noon Lions Club and first female president of its board. In l993, she was named Lion of the Year.
At the city level, besides serving as city commissioner and mayor pro tem, she also served as a member of the Fireman’s Pension Fund Board for 14 years.
“You have to give back to your community,” Phyllis once told me.
Just writing all of this makes me tired, but Griggs had the strength and stamina, it seemed, of 10 men, running unopposed for the city commission in '87, when she was elected the city’s first female commissioner. Four years later, she ran again unopposed, laying aside the claim that local politics was no place for a woman.
In 2007, she self-published a book, which you can still find for sale at Amazon and Barnes & Noble — “Memories, Musings and Moments.”
Indeed, there was once a ceiling that held women down who wanted to succeed in business, a profession, or elected office, but Phyllis proved that if she could break through it, any woman with enough guts and determination could do the same. After all, Florence Butt started H-E-B back in 1905, and look at it now.
During Phyllis’s 14 years on the McAllen City Commission, the city was an at-large voting entity. No districts like there are today. For her third term, which began in 1995, she drew an opponent, but easily won the race.
When the campaign season began, I remember her telling me, “Dang it, Gregg, these are my people.”
Turned out, she was right.