Carol Reed, a tour de force in political campaign strategy, died Thursday morning of cancer. She was 72.

The principal of the Reeds Public Relations Corp. had been at the home of her daughter, Laura Reed, since being diagnosed with widespread cancer at Thanksgiving. She was recently moved to Faith Presbyterian Hospice, where she died.

Known for her feisty but humorous demeanor, Reed spent more than four decades as a vaunted campaign strategist whose political victories included managing the 1995 campaign to elect Ron Kirk as Dallas’ first black mayor.

She was known as Dallas’ mayor maker, having also handled successful campaigns for Dallas mayors Jack Evans, Starke Taylor and Tom Leppert. Reed also managed Annette Strauss’ re-election campaign.

Reed helped sway voters in crucial local issues, including bond elections and referendums for two Trinity River projects, American Airlines Center, AT&T Stadium, the Dallas Convention Center hotel, Parkland Hospital and numerous educational campaigns.

Reed didn’t work on Mike Rawlings’ mayoral campaigns, but she helped him with numerous projects while he was in office. He considered her a close adviser.

“So few citizens really know the impact on our city that Carol had and how much she loved Dallas,” Rawlings said. “From helping us pass infrastructure bond elections, getting our first African-American elected as mayor, helping young minorities get their first paying jobs by growing America’s largest intern program. I could go on and on.

“Even though she was bigger than life, she always wanted to be behind the scenes helping others and our city shine.”

“Carol had the pulse of this city in her hands,” said civic leader Pete Schenkel. "Carol loved all of Dallas — both sides of the river — and she worked to make life better for everyone.”

The Ron and Carol show

No one knew this better than Ron Kirk, who served as Dallas mayor from 1995 to 2002.

When he decided to run for mayor, he immediately turned to Reed for her expertise.

“It’s not an overstatement to say that, other than getting the courage to run, the most important thing in my race was getting Carol Reed to agree to be my partner,” Kirk said recently. “Outside of my marriage, it was the most fun, successful, irreverent, crazy, wild ride I’ve ever been on.”

Taking on Kirk’s campaign was Reed’s first political foray outside the Republican party.

Kirk, who was Texas Secretary of State for Gov. Ann Richards, remembers trying to get Reed to reduce her hefty consulting fees.

“I suggested that the historic opportunity to elect Dallas’ first African-American mayor would be worthy of a discount,” Kirk recalled. “When she got done laughing she said, ‘Fat chance.’ But it was worth the try.”

Kirk, an attorney with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, said American Airlines Center wouldn’t exist if Reed hadn’t marshaled the election strategy to get a $140 million bond package passed in early 1998.

Emotions against the bond in some of Dallas’ more affluent neighborhoods were running high, so Reed decided to stop campaigning there.

“She said all we were doing was reminding them how much they hated it,” Kirk recalled.

Kirk’s stomach sank when early results showed that the bond package was losing by two-to-one margin. When that narrowed to an eight-point deficit, Reed called Kirk to congratulate him on the victory.

He asked if she was out of her mind. She reminded him that their whole strategy had been to concentrate on southern Dallas and more progressive neighborhoods, and those votes were still out.

“Sure enough, as you know, by the end of the night we’d won,” Kirk said — in one of the narrowest margins ever of 2,600 votes. “We now have one of the most successful urban developments in the country. That wouldn’t have happened without Carol’s leadership.”

Carol Reed, left, hugs Craig Holcomb at a watch party at Gilley's in 2007. (COURTNEY PERRY)

Fair Park and fireworks

Reed was also known for her community work, having raised money for dozens of nonprofits, including Klyde Warren Park, Perot Museum of Nature and Science, African American Museum, the Real Estate Council, Friends of Dallas Police, Dallas Symphony Association and St. Philip's School and Community Center.

Reed played key roles in establishing Pioneer Plaza and the Dallas Police Memorial.

But Fair Park held a special place in her heart.

Craig Holcomb, former Dallas City Council member and retired president of Friends of Fair Park, said Reed used her “amazing, humorous, personable way” to convince Dallas’ power players that Fair Park deserved their support.

She and her daughters created the annual Fair Park Fourth, which attracts 80,000 visitors to the park, and the popular Fair Park Dog Bowl where pups (and their owners) of all sizes run amuck on the field of the Cotton Bowl.

“These are all Carol Reed,” Holcomb said.

When funding ran short for the second Trinity Fest, the downtown fireworks festival that attracted hundreds of thousands, Holcomb said Reed secretly poured tens of thousands of dollars of her own money into the event to prevent its cancellation. ”She was never paid back, but she didn’t want to disappoint the community and sponsors who so looked forward to it’s happening.”

Early beginnings

Reed grew up in Thousand Oaks, Calif., where she was a high school cheerleader. At 19, she met Gerald Reed — whom she described as a tall, good-looking Texan 12 years her senior — at a bar in Santa Monica in 1967 while she was attending California Lutheran University in her hometown.

She dropped out of college, and they eloped and moved to Bullard, Texas, then to Tyler where Laura was born. Angela came along nine months and a week later.

In 1971, the Reeds, who later divorced, moved to Dallas, where Carol became active in politics by licking stamps as a volunteer for GOP women's clubs.

In 1976, she became a political director for Sen. John Tower. A few years later, she started commuting from Dallas to Washington to work for the Reagan-Bush presidential campaign and was the North Texas political director for U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm.

In 1982, she settled back in Dallas and began her own company.

In 2008, Reed made her two daughters, Laura Reed and Angela Shellene, partners in her company and changed its name to the Reeds Public Relations.

"In the past, the only people I've even remotely considered as business partners were so strong, and I wasn't willing to give up control," Reed said at the time. "But these are my girls."

Her daughters were equally devoted to her.

"My mom was my biggest cheerleader and always generous with praise," said Angela Shellene, "She inspired everyone with her positive perspective on life and her fighting spirit."

That was echoed by her sister, Laura Reed. “Mom gave us the gift of great memories.”

Leading in leopard print

When she stepped into a room, she owned it. The roll of her blue eyes spoke volumes.

“She dealt with all the stereotypes of a brassy blonde, attractive woman, but was able to go, ‘Whatever,’ ” Kirk said. "She used that same charm to very gently get the good old boys to understand, ‘I know what I’m doing, and if you’ll listen and work with me, I can help you succeed.’

“As a person of color who’s had to work with people’s limited opinions of what I could do, that made for an easy cultural, intellectual and emotional kinship between Carol and me.”

Carol Reed, president-elect of the Rotary Club, is shown at a 1995 luncheon at Union Station. She was the first female to hold the position. (Evans Caglage - staff photog. / 83528)

One of her proudest invasions of Dallas’ male network was becoming the first chairwoman of the Rotary Club of Dallas in 1996.

Rena Pederson, former editorial page editor of The Dallas Morning News, remembers how Reed had the moxie to preside over those Rotary meetings wearing leopard prints and red high heels.

“She managed to exude good humor and be taken seriously at the same time because she was such a smart lady,” Pederson said. “She proved that women could hold their own in challenging positions — and inspired many other women to step up to the podium and seek leadership positions in civic life.”

Pederson said most people don’t know that Reed believed so strongly in Kirk’s mayoral bid that she charged thousands of dollars on her personal American Express card to keep the campaign alive in the last critical days before the election.

“Many people also might not know she served faithfully as a Presbyterian elder for many years and served lunches to the needy at the Stewpot without fanfare or recognition. She truly was one of the great dames of Dallas.”

Left to right: Angela Reed Shellene, Carol Reed and Laura Reed worked together at The Reeds Public Relations Corp. in Dallas. (MILTON HINNANT / 132238)

Mending a city divided

Gromer Jeffers, political reporter for The News, said Reed’s most important contribution was getting Kirk elected.

“Dallas was in bad need of something to help the city move past the race question — the divided city,” Jeffers said. “Kirk was able to win that race without a runoff. That election changed the course of the city. During Kirk’s time, you had the first majority, minority council. Carol was a part of all of that.

“She was colorful, vocal and in-your-face, but she had a heart of gold and was very loyal to people she liked.”

Jeffers said Reed’s political business suffered after she stepped in to help Kirk with his struggling — and ultimately unsuccessful — U.S. Senate bid in 2002.

“It was the cardinal sin: ‘How dare you, you Republican, help a Democrat,’ ” recalled Jeffers, who worked the campaign trail for The News during that election. “She had the courage to try to help a friend and someone she thought would be good for Texas and good for the country. And she paid a price for it.”

People connector

In 2017, Reed introduced Lesa Roe around town after the former NASA executive moved here to become chancellor of the University of North Texas System.

“What a ride that was,” Roe said. “She knew everyone, knew every story — some pretty notorious — and graciously put me where she knew instinctively I needed to be.

“She was warm, funny, sassy and loved by the top leaders in Dallas. That shined through in every meeting.“

For the past 10 years, Reed, Holcomb and Chris Heinbaugh, vice president of external affairs at AT&T Performing Arts Center, have hosted evening soirees where they and five rotating guests gathered for a home-cooked meal at Reed’s condo.

Guests, who were only invited once, were a diverse mix of political and civic leaders, journalists, artists, philanthropists and deep thinkers.

“These salons have been little islands of sanity,” said Heinbaugh, a former reporter for WFAA-TV (Channel 8) and Mayor Leppert’s chief of staff. “Carol said, if you can sit and break bread with people — even those you disagree with — you can find common ground. These salons reminded us that we can pause, discuss, disagree, laugh, even gossip a little and walk away friends.”

Every participant (a total of 375 at 75 dinners since 2009) was invited back for an annual holiday confab at Reed’s Turtle Creek high-rise condo.

Word of her battle with cancer spread quickly when the event was abruptly canceled just days before it was to take place on Dec. 12.

Linda McMahon, CEO of the Real Estate Council, has known Reed for 30 years.

“She was a tough, no-nonsense leader, who could cut to the heart of the matter faster than anyone I have ever known and a very loving person,” McMahon said. “She had the best laugh that I will miss. I still cannot absorb the magnitude of losing her.”

Reed is survived by her children: daughter Laura Reed and partner Tim Reeves of Dallas and daughter Angela Shellene and husband John Shellene of Dallas and their daughters McKenzie and Sydney. She was preceded in death by her father, Oliver L. Trumbauer.

She is also survived by her mother, Maria Trumbauer, sister Charlotte Karaffa and husband Glen; brothers Gary Trumbauer and wife Samantha; Steven Trumbauer and wife Kathy; Bruce Trumbauer and wife Jari; and many nieces and nephews.

A celebration of life is being planned for after the holidays.