Elyse Lanier named to port commission

The fun is back: Former Houston first lady Elyse Lanier has been appointed to the port commission to replace Cheryl Thompson-Draper, who resigned over an alleged racial slur she made in Shanghai last year.

Harris County Commissioners Court appointed Lanier on a unanimous vote. But it came after County Judge Robert Eckels made a motion to appoint Leroy Hermes, a local architect and chair of the University of Houston board of Regents. That motion failed.

Commissioner Sylvia Garcia sponsored Lanier's nomination to the seven-member commission.

"She brings a wealth of experience in representing our area,"Garcia said. "When she was first lady of the city for six years, she met people from all over the world."

Houstonist remembers Lanier from her run as first lady in the 1990s, those heady days when she spearheaded the Houston Image Group (remember "Expect the Unexpected?"), gushed to the media about her in-house beauty salon and planted a couple billion rose bushes. As a member of the port commission, Lanier will help govern the Port of Houston — sort of — and represent the port at functions around the world.