Stephen Thomas Jordan (Steve Jordan)

Jordan died peacefully on Wednesday 21 October 2026 at the Brixton Care Center, aged 87, with his wife Peggy by his side. His family noted that he died at about the same time as the ribbon cutting and dedication of Horseshoe Bay Mausoleum II, a project he had led. No cause of death was made public. The city announced his death in early November, lowered flags at City Center and Old City Hall to half staff and said it would name a tree on the City Center trails Jordan Oak. A memorial service was scheduled for 2 pm on Saturday 14 November 2026 at The Church at Horseshoe Bay, followed by a reception. He was survived by Peggy, his son Scott and daughter Mandy, his brother Greg and sister Martha, stepchildren Jeb Martin and Angela Burton, grandchildren and a great grandson.

Stephen Thomas Jordan was born on 29 July 1939, the second of five children of Al and Dorothy Jordan. When he was in the third grade the family moved from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to McAllen, Texas. At McAllen High School he was elected student body president, was unanimously selected to the all-state basketball team and held a track record. He graduated in 1957.

On the way to the state track meet in Austin, where he hoped to prove himself the fastest quarter miler in Texas, he was badly hurt in a car accident. He spent almost a month in a coma with a severe head injury, broke both ankles and needed about a year to recover. His basketball scholarship to Southern Methodist University was put on hold, but he later took it up, helped SMU to a tie for the Southwest Conference championship with Texas Tech, ran track and joined the ATO fraternity. He earned a BBA in finance and marketing at SMU and a graduate degree from Louisiana State University.

Jordan began his banking career in 1963 at Central Bank and Trust in Farmers Branch, Texas, where he received national acclaim from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and broadcaster Paul Harvey for knocking out a bank robber with one punch. He was president of First City Bank Dallas for four years, joined Merrill Lynch Private Capital as executive director in 1983, and returned to banking in 1989 as president of Capital Bank Dallas. Before retiring he joined the executive search firm Ray and Berndtson.

In Horseshoe Bay he became president of the property owners association and negotiated a plan between the association, the resort and the city to more than double the size of Quail Point Lodge. After a year on the city council he ran for mayor and in November 2013 narrowly defeated fellow council member Tom Schmersahl, 538 votes to 508, to become the city's second mayor. He spent a total of seven years on the council. As mayor he created a forum for the city, the resort and the property owners associations, successfully challenged FEMA's flood zone map so that several hundred residents no longer had to buy flood insurance, negotiated a golf course irrigation agreement for the city's treated wastewater, and led talks with the Texas Department of Transportation and Llano County to widen FM 2147 with safer turn lanes and a signal at Texas 71. He also helped establish the city's Citizens Academy, later renamed the Dottie Anderson Academy.

After graduating from SMU, Jordan married his classmate Judy Franklin, who died before him. At his 40th high school reunion he reconnected with Peggy Brown, the school friend who had visited him daily during his long recovery from the car accident. They married and settled in Horseshoe Bay. He was president of the Men of Faith ministry at the Horseshoe Bay church, where he especially supported the Wounded Warrior Project, feeling a connection with people recovering from injury, and he led the Horseshoe Bay Sports Club, renaming it for its founder Rudy Davalos.

FM 2147 through Horseshoe Bay carries his name as Steve Jordan Parkway. He helped create Horseshoe Bay Nature Park, which opened in 2021 on an 11 acre tract once zoned for multifamily development, and he led the memorial association that restored the original mausoleum and built Memorial Park and Mausoleum II. In 2025 the city named him its Citizen of the Year. Mayor Jeff Jones called him the embodiment of tenacity and graciousness.