Judge and politician Sam B. Hall changed Jerry Summers' focus as a teacher, scholar and author.

Summers, an East Texas Baptist University professor of global and European history, narrowed his latest research project to regional issues because of a developing interest in Hall, an interest that came about coincidentally after Summers was named ETBU Sam B. Hall Jr. Professor of History in 1993.

With Hall's death in 1994, Summers decided to write a book about the public official seemingly idolized in East Texas but overlooked by the rest of the country. "Sam B. Hall, Jr.: Whatever is Right" (Best of East Texas Publishers for East Texas Baptist University) was released last month with Summers presenting the book to Hall's widow, Madeline Hall. The biography is selling at the ETBU's Institutional Advancement Office for $30.

"I had no idea, really, how important he was to the community at that time," said Summers, a California native who knew little about East Texas then. People familiar with Hall "began to convince me very soon afterwards."

Born in 1924, Hall was the son of District Judge Sam Blakely Hall Sr. and the nephew of prominent Marshall lawyer Reuben Hall. After serving in the military during World War II and graduating from Baylor University School of Law in 1948, he returned to Marshall to start his family and his practice. Hall represented Texas' First District in Congress for five terms, beginning in 1976, and was then appointed U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Texas by President Reagan in 1985. He served in that role until his death. (Hall had challenged longtime U.S. Rep. Wright Patman in 1962 and took his seat after Patman's death.)