Dec. 25—The first days in Austin as a freshman representative, the drive to Austin is approximately three hours from Huntsville for Trey Wharton.
Elected in November 2024 as the Texas State Representative for District 12, Wharton has been going to Austin a day or two about every other week for the past several months.
“The reason for that is to meet with other officials, incumbent legislators, and incoming freshman in Austin,” Wharton said. “It will be very helpful to have relationships with several others already established when the 89th Session starts in January.”
Wharton is a businessman, community leader, and a longtime trustee on the Huntsville ISD School Board. He is a graduate of Huntsville High School, and attended Texas Christian University where he earned a Bachelor of Business Administration-Finance degree.
He has been married to his wife, JoLynne, for over 33 years and has two adult children. House District 12 includes all of Grimes, Madison, Robertson, Walker, and Washington County, and part of Brazos County.
“Currently, I am in my actual work office about a day and half a week and then again on Saturdays to ‘catch-up’ on things that my team has been working on all week, while I have been either in Austin or traveling around the district,” Wharton said. “I would not be able to do this without their support and they have been doing a phenomenal job over the past 12 months, while I was out on the campaign trail.”
While Wharton is out in the district, he usually has two to three scheduled meetings and an event to attend those same evenings.
“It is rewarding to get to meet people and learn more about their community and what challenges they may be dealing with,” Wharton said.
“There are many different issues across the district and state. I am spending a lot of my time educating myself and learning from others with their experience about those issues, so that I can be as effective as possible in this role.”
The procedure of determining seniority for each incoming class is “probably the most interesting and funny method that I had no idea happens,” Wharton said. To determine where each representative’s office, house floor desks and parking spaces will be, is done by the least technological advanced manner. “We literally draw ping pong balls to determine the ranking,” Wharton said, laughing.
The list of freshman legislators is broken down into several categories ranging from alphabetical last name, alphabetical first name, and district number.
“Someone draws to determine the order the ping pong balls will be drawn and then each representative draws their own ping pong ball in that order,” Wharton said.
His group drew the method of “last name alphabetically” and that meant he was going to be the last one out of 30 to draw.
“I did prevail and got number 6 after everyone else had picked,” said Wharton, noting that the end of the line has its value.
“You then spend half a day looking at all the available offices, parking spaces and desks on the house floor to determine what works best for you and what other legislators you will be neighboring with in the same hallway and on the floor,” Wharton said. “Fortunately, I have an experienced Chief of Staff who was able to guide me in picking the most advantageous office and desk on the Chamber Floor.”
In the next issue of The Item, we will be discussing some of Wharton’s top goals while in office.
Contact Brenda Poe at editor@itemonline.com