Among his many friends in Beeville, he simply referred to himself as “the Lance Corporal” (after his life-altering experiences as a Marine in Vietnam) or other modest and often colorful but always deflecting terms.

Former Bee County Judge Jay T. Kimbrough may need to get used to answering to another moniker: “The Fixer.”

That’s how the February issue of Texas Monthly tags him on its list of Texas’ 25 most powerful political figures.

“If the Texas governor’s office were a law firm, Kimbrough would be the fixer, that one indispensable attorney who has a knack for making problems go away, though you don’t always want to know how he does it,” begins the section on Kimbrough under “Team Perry.”

Adds the article of his efforts to clean up the Texas Youth Commission in 2007, “The plain-spoken Vietnam veteran rode his Harley to far-flung TYC facilities for personal inspections. He was blunt about which heads had to roll – quite a few – and reporters ate it up. The former judge of Bee County has been fixing broken agencies – and hurting feelings – since 1997, when Gov. George W. Bush recruited him to reform the troubled Texas Commission on Private Security.”

One Democratic senator called Kimbrough, “essentially a one-man shadow government.” He quickly added, “an extremely effective one.”

That, of course, comes as old news to the Lance Corporal’s many friends in Bee County... and a few old adversaries.