In the running for Gray County Judge is current Gray County Judge Chris Porter, who for the last eight years has served the Gray County community, and rather than retiring from a job that comes with many ups and downs and highs and lows, Chris wants to continue to serve the place he has and will always call home.
A life-long resident of Pampa and a PHS graduate, Chris was involved with sports, community activities and events at a very early age, instilling in him the importance of building and maintaining strong bonds with family, friends, and neighbors. He would go on to become heavily involved with the Optimist Club, local youth organizations, and serving as the Public Announcer for the high school football games right here in Pampa.
“Those people formed me,” he said. “I am Coach Cavalier’s first senior class and he called it Carving Character, and he and all the people here were a big part in carving my character. My parents, Lee and Janice, were an integral part of me being who I am today.”
It was those same people and the Pampa community as a whole that ignited Chris’s passion to find a way to serve and help make a positive difference. So in 2013, he ran for City Commissioner and won. It was during his time there he gained a plethora of knowledge regarding the operation between city and county, and with the issues the county was facing at the time, he realized where he was meant to be to do the most good.
“I just wanted to continue the legacy of all the people who had been on the commission and had affected the community in the past. While I was on the City Commission, I realized that there were some communication issues with the county and it really pushed me to want to run for County Judge. I thought I could do a better job at being transparent and there were other things that I was concerned with and wanted to fix.”
Before running for Gray County Judge, Chris did extensive research on what the role would consist of outside the realm of just the courtroom, and armed with years of experience in the oil and gas industry, a business mindset, plenty of common sense, and his love for the community, he would run in the election, land the seat and immediately get to work.
The role of a county judge far exceeds what many might think, and while the title Judge may simply indicate nothing more than a courtroom, robe and gavel, it’s not that simple by any means and the role of Judge is just one of many.
“In short, I’m the presiding officer of the Commissioners Court. The presiding officer basically doesn’t have a vote, but he makes sure things get on the agenda because he creates the agenda, and he makes sure the facts and documents are chased down to ensure the commissioners can make informed decisions. I try to steer us in the direction we need to go as the presiding officer into what’s important and making sure our community is represented and we are doing the right things for Gray County. I’m also responsible for the Class A and B Misdemeanor criminal matters, and I also do civil which includes civil complaints, civil lawsuits, eviction appeals, and probate. Every death in Gray County typically goes through my court to probate the will, make sure the assets are preserved, and the proper transfer of those assets go to the heirs who have been named in the will. I do juvenile hearings for misdemeanors and am the presiding officer over juvenile court, which is comprised of myself, the 223rd District Judge and the 31st District Judge. I do mental competency hearings where if someone is mentally unstable, an officer can see that and can bring it to me for a temporary detention for 48 hours to make sure that person’s evaluated by a professional. It’s really a 24-hour job. I can be called out at 2 o’clock in the morning for someone who is mentally unstable and wants to commit suicide or is depressed and needs help. I have the ability to detain them for 48 hours and make sure they can get the evaluation and help they need.”
“I knew what it was when I ran for this position, and one of the requirements was to have a general knowledge of the law. But I wanted to make sure that I knew exactly what I was getting into before I ran for it because it is so impactful on our community. Not only that, but I’m also the Emergency Management Director and I have emergency management powers as defined by statute. I’m the Chief Budget Officer of Gray County working with the County Auditor to oversee the $22.9 million budget which we prepare every year. I’m responsible for the daily operations, repair and maintenance for our county facilities. I get to the office and hit the ground running every morning and it doesn’t stop until 6 or so at night, but I’m on call 24/7.”
Chris has accomplished many things during his tenure, things he knew he wanted to do before taking the role and many things he didn’t know about until he got in.
“When I came in to office, there were almost 1,000 cases on the misdemeanor docket, and now we’re at 250 and it took us about five years to get really aggressive to do that. Our tax rate is at a 10-year low, and part of the reason is because we’ve been wise with our spending and we’re attracting new industry. Our crime rate is a 31-year low, but I would never take all the credit for that. Our law enforcement is phenomenal. My job as misdemeanor judge is not to really hammer people making mistakes, but to break habits. We had 13 gamerooms that were inside the city limits and in Gray County, now we only have two that are outside the city limits and that was from a regulation we passed. We don’t have people going around and stealing hubcaps and tool sets to trade them in for free spins anymore, so that has helped with the crime rate.”
“When I ran, I promised to be common sense. I promised more transparency, cooperation, and stabilization of our tax rate, and I believe I have achieved that because I have an open-door policy. I have had a lot of people come into my office and talk about all kinds of things because I turn no one away. If someone wants to have that conversation with me, I’ll have that conversation.”
“We have aggressively tried to pursue industrial growth because our population is dwindling. Our ambulance coverage was horrible, so one of the first biggest things we did was enter into an interlocal agreement with Hemphill County and they have provided ambulatory services for us and it has been a phenomenal deal. The pandemic would have been a challenge without them. We combined our Emergency Management with Gray County and the City of Pampa. At that time we were having issues with communication and it wasn’t functioning very well, so we combined to make sure that one person was looking out for everyone. I’ve gone toe-to-toe with state organizations for the benefit of Gray County and to protect our citizens and make sure they’re treated right. We updated our technology here, and combined our dispatches to stop the lag because we’re talking about seconds that can make the difference of someone living or dying.”
“We rebuilt County Road 3 and gave Keystone Towers an abatement to keep that facility that was about to shuttered, and it brought them here. We were awarded $4.2 million from the Federal Government for the Covid pandemic, and we dedicated $1.3 million to Resound Network to get broadband coverage increased throughout the county, dedicated $250,000 to each volunteer fire department which came up to $750,000, and during my first year in office we increased our volunteer fire departments from $10,000 a year to $45,000 a year. Over the last eight years, our volunteer fire departments have gotten close to $1.7 million to make sure we’re protected and they have the resources they need.”
“We have aggressively upgraded and modernized the Gray County Sheriff’s Department technology and equipment and established a reserved deputy program. That’s important because when you need those deputies covering a 900 square-mile area, they have to be able to move fast and you don’t want a mechanical breakdown in the middle of all that. In my first year, we were spending as much money on repairs as to what it would have cost to get new vehicles, so JC Skinner and I got together and he created a rotation program for their vehicles which is the first time we’ve ever done that. We rotate those vehicles out and it’s been a very successful program and we’ve had very little repairs because of it.”
“We are experimenting with an ankle monitor program right now, and are hoping it takes off for some misdemeanor cases. That would allow us to be able to take some people who aren’t high-risk individuals who have allegedly committed high-risk crimes to be able to do their jobs with an ankle monitor or be at home with an ankle monitor and not cost us $48 a day to be in jail.”
“Gray County has the lowest tax rate its had in ten years, and it’s my intention to continue that. Part of doing that is increasing that tax base and shifting our tax burden from individual citizens and properties onto the industrial sector. I’m happy to be able to say that Google is the company that will be the tenant for Intersect Power. We look forward to a long partnership with them. Them coming in is the equivalent to Texaco, Phillips, Celanese, Cabot-all those industries coming in a number of years ago. They’re not going to make a $3 billion investment and then walk away from it. I know that tax abatements are controversial and misunderstood, but the only way for our county to put up guardrails for new development, the abatement allows us to restrict water usage and protect the groundwater, so it will be an air-cooled facility. The water they will use will be about the same as a small office building. It also guarantees 39 full-time on-site jobs that will pay an average of $65,000 a year. It’s 13 jobs per facility and there will be three facilities out there, and that’s a minimum. Through this process, the minimums were important, because I anticipate there to be more jobs than that, which will include security, daycare, cafeteria, and things of that nature.”
Chris wants to continue the trajectory that Gray County is currently on and is excited to see what the future holds, hoping that he can continue to be a part of it.
“I was raised for this, these are my people. I would not be the person I am today if I hadn’t grown up here. I believe in our conservative values. My family and I had opportunities to live in other places, but we didn’t because this is home. I’ve had other opportunities while I’ve been County Judge, but I didn’t want to leave because I feel like I’m not done as County Judge. I feel like I’m in my prime. I’ll keep going until I can’t.”
“The wonderful thing about this process is every four years, I get to sit back and take a serious look at myself and ask, did you accomplish what you tried to accomplish? Are you still doing this for the right reasons? Are you willing to do this for another four years? And I am. I love my job. There has not been one morning when I’ve gotten up and gone to the courthouse where I wasn’t ready to go.”
Early voting will be February 17th through February 27th at the Gray County Courthouse, 205 N. Russell in Room 104. Times are:
Tuesday, February 17th through Friday, February 20th-8 AM to 5 PM
Saturday, February 21-7 AM to 7 PM
Sunday, February 22-12 PM to 6 PM
Monday, February 23 through Friday, February 27-7 AM to 7 PM.
Election Day, March 3-7 AM to 7 PM
Last day to register is February 2, 2026. Mail ballots will begin going out on January 17, 2026. Last day to request ballot by mail is February 20, 2026.
