The Correspondence/Constituent Services Office was responsible for preparing replies to many of the letters written to Texas Governor George W. Bush's Office. Types of records in this group include correspondence, memoranda, manuals, notes, organization charts, reports, publications, and related materials. Dates range from 1948 to 2001 and undated with the bulk of records dating from 1995 to 2000. The records of the Texas Governor George W. Bush Correspondence/Constituent Services Office are divided into six series: general office files, Director Shirley Green's files, photo requests, Citizens Assistance telephone activity reports, weekly production reports, Texas Navy files, and Ombudsman's Office files. General office files consist of manuals and procedures, staff emails and memoranda of correspondence policies and procedures, correspondence, organization charts, and related materials, 1986 to 2000 and undated, bulk 1995 to 2000, of the Correspondence/Constituent Services Office. Manuals and procedures include two editions of the official correspondence manual of the Governor's office, dated 1995 (with additions in 1996) and 1998. There are memoranda on writing style procedures, a style sheet for the "Notes and Quotes" reports, organization charts of the division, and a list of correspondence topics, detailing the issues each staff member addressed. Also present is a White House correspondence manual (dated 1986), two folders of form letters (dated 2000), a folder of English-language summaries taken from Spanish-language correspondence, and a register of checks received in the Governor's Office for Bush's election campaigns, 1997-2000. "Director Shirley Green's files" are policy and procedure manuals, staff emails and memoranda of correspondence policies and procedures, and reports listing post-presidential election mail and phone counts of the Correspondence/Constituent Services Office, 1995 to 2000 and undated, bulk 1999 to 2000. Shirley Green served as director of Correspondence/Constituent Services from 1996 to 2000, reporting to Karen Hughes, director of Communications in the Texas Office of the Governor. Policy and procedure materials consist of directives and memoranda regarding policies and procedures, such as handling email, greetings, proclamations, nominations, political mail and legislative mail; data entry of correspondence; handling requests for items such as gifts, auction items, and autographs; and handling requests for Bush's attendance at political events. There are also memoranda to Shirley Green giving daily post-presidential election (November-December 2000) counts for email, faxes, regular mail, and phone calls. "Photo requests" are correspondence, photographs, staff email, and one autographed baseball, dated 2000-2001. Letters request that Governor Bush or First Lady Laura Bush autograph an enclosed photograph or artifact. Extra copies of photographs were occasionally included for the governor. This series is closely related to the Executive Office series, Autograph and photo request correspondence and logs. Citizens Assistance telephone activity reports, 1999-2000, are daily telephone activity reports, January 1999-December 2000, of the Citizens Assistance program of the Texas Governor's Office. Categories include numbers of answered calls, abandoned calls, deflected calls, transferred calls, average length of call, and number and length of queued calls for each extension/person. At the end of the 1999 reports are pie charts by month detailing the percentage of calls answered, abandoned and deflected with total numbers for each. January through April of the year 2000 also contain pie charts. Weekly production reports are statistical compilations of the types and subjects of mail received by the Correspondence/Constituent Services Office for a given week. Dates covered are 1995-2000, bulk 1997-2000. Each report starts with a section for Gubernatorial Mail (detailing the number of letters received, followed by the number received for that year to date) with a section for top issues of the week with the number of letters received listed in each category. Other sections include form mail, correspondence processed, and number of e-mails. Each month also has a cumulative report. Most months also have an "Ombudsman's Report", "Notes and Quotes" report, and a report with a count of letters routed to divisions. The annual reports provide a cumulative total of the correspondence received, number of letters for each major issue and sub-issue. Finally, reports of mail analysts were retained for 1995 to 1996 due to gaps in the holdings of weekly production reports. Texas Navy files were most likely a subject file in the Correspondence Office about the Texas Navy. They contain some publications and information about the Texas Navy and the commission of Admirals into the Texas Navy and date from 1948 to 1998 and undated, bulk 1986 to 1994. From its creation in 1958 until the administration of Governor Mark White (during which time the governor's name was removed from the letterhead), the Texas Navy was partially state-supported with the governor serving as commander-in-chief. It later became a non-profit organization. These records are further subdivided into two groups, reflecting the filing structure of the creating agency. A large number of the first group of records consists of letters from (and memoranda about) Dr. John Thiel, himself an admiral in the Texas Navy and self-designated Chief of Naval Operations for the Texas Navy, Inc., and some background information on the history of the Yellow Rose of Texas. Dates of these records are 1983 to 1998 and undated. The second group of records came from office manager Linda Smith's files and dates from 1948 to 1996, bulk 1977 to 1986, and undated. Records are correspondence, internal memoranda, photographs, publications, printed material, copies of statutes, certificates, and articles of incorporation, concerning the "third" (or modern) Texas Navy. Many of the letters and memoranda are from or about Joseph Jefferson Burris, who was commissioned as an Admiral in the Texas Navy by Governor Price Daniel in 1958. Other letters are from John W. Thiel or Stephen L. Walter, Chief of Naval Operations, circa 1979-1983. Many admirals of the Texas Navy are mentioned by name in these records; however, there is no comprehensive list present. The copies of Burris's certificate and a photocopy of the certificate of John M. Kutch are the only certificates of commission as admiral in the Texas Navy present in these records. "Ombudsman's Office files" comprise correspondence, memoranda, casework summary forms, reports, notes, and related material, dating 1995 to 1997 and undated, bulk 1996 to 1997. The Governor's Ombudsman was Phil Sims and most of the materials were either sent to or worked on by him. Subjects in the files include opposition to bills, grievances with state agencies, dissatisfaction with constituent services in the Governor's office, concerns for people housed in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice system, power outages, sexual abuse of children, abatement projects, requests for general information, and placement centers for the mentally ill, among others. Other employees of the Ombudsman's Office mentioned in the files include Kathy Cleere and Chris Oglesby. Some of the constituent forms appear to have been printed out from a database of cases that is no longer extant.
