Dallas businessman Edwin L. Cox remembered for his dedication to SMU

Edwin “Ed” Lockridge Cox Sr. started working in the oilfields while still in high school, a quite different setting than the Southern Methodist University campus that would one day have a school in his name.

Cox would work his way up from a roustabout and roughneck to eventually leading an oil and gas company as well as other notable businesses.

Later in life, he would long be associated with SMU, a university friends and associates said that he loved so dearly that he donated his time and money to build up the business school that now carries his name.

The decision to attend SMU was easy for Cox after visiting the school.

Cox “thought SMU would be the greatest university in the world and that’s when I selected to go to SMU. Going on campus, exposure to the students, I didn’t really know what I was doing but I loved going,” he said in a video interview.

Cox, 99, died Nov. 6 after struggling with various health issues.

Cox was born in Mena, Ark., where his mother’s family was from. His father, Edwin Berry Cox, was in the wholesale grocery and banking businesses, before entering the oil business in Ardmore, Okla., in October 1921, the year Edwin L. Cox was born.

In 1923, Edwin B. Cox and Jake Hamon partnered to develop a group of nearly exhausted stripper wells in Healdton, Okla. The wells and the partnership were successful.

In 1937, the Cox family moved to Dallas, where the Cox-Hamon partnership was based.

The younger Cox started learning the oil business in high school. He was accepted to Harvard University but chose to attend SMU. He joined the Phi Delta Theta fraternity and played in the marching band.

But Cox only attended SMU for two years and eventually earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin. He later earned a master’s of business administration from Harvard.

During World War II, he served in the Navy, where he became a lieutenant.

In 1944, he married Ruth Ann Rife. She died in 1984.

After completing his military service, Cox entered the oil business with his father and Hamon as a full partner. The father and son continued their business, Cox & Cox, after their partnership with Hamon dissolved in 1950.

Cox also oversaw the Edwin L. Cox Co., Cox Oil & Gas Inc., SEDCO Inc. and the Keebler Co. as chairman.

Cox’s devotion to SMU and Dallas kept him connected to the school where he served on the board of trustees, friends and colleagues said. In 1976, he became chairman of SMU’s board of trustees, a post he held until 1987.

SMU President R. Gerald Turner said Cox not only supported the university financially — donating millions over the years — but also empowered students and helped build a standout business school.

“I’d like him to be remembered that the faith he put into SMU really affirmed us and helped us move into a national reputation,” Turner said.

SMU supports the DMN Education Lab, a community-funded initiative to expand our education reporting.

Cox was a board member of several petroleum industry groups and the First National Bank in Dallas, LTV Corp., Halliburton Co. and the Gillette Co. He served on the boards of St. Mark’s School of Texas, The Hockaday School and the Greenhill School.

In 1967, he was elected chairman of the Salvation Army Dallas County Advisory Board. He served two terms as board president of Children’s Medical Center of Dallas.

He was an honorary trustee and member of the Trustees Council at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., and a member of the Library of Congress Trust Fund and the Dallas Museum of Art.

“I would say it’s a sad day on the hilltop, but we are all inspired by the great life Mr. Cox lived and the countless lives he has impacted,” said Brad Cheves, SMU’s vice president for development and external affairs who helped produce a video about Cox for the school.