Mr. Hicks was born with the name Johnny Hughes Hicks on his birth certificate May 19, 1953, right here in Mt. Vernon, Franklin County, Texas. His parents, now deceased, were Frank Wesley Hicks and Christine Hughes Hicks. He was reared in the same house through his graduation from Mt. Vernon High School, one of three brothers. The other two live here, too; one is local lawyer B. F. Hicks, and the other is fellow teacher Sid Hicks.

May 24, 1980, Mr. Hicks married his fellow teacher at Mt. Vernon High School, Mary Deas. They have two sons, Caleb and Daniel.

Local friends remember that Mr. Hicks was an all-district guard and line-backer on the Tiger football team. However, he also paid attention to his studies and graduated as salutatorian from Mt. Vernon High School in 1971.

After completion of the bachelor of science degree at East Texas State University (now Texas A&M Commerce), in 1975, Mr. Hicks continued studies toward the master of arts degree with a major in Political Science. He later did post-graduate studies at Duke University and Southern Methodist University's Perkins School of Theology (M.Div., 1987).

Mr. Hicks has a total of ten years' experience in teaching, but that has been spread out over thirty years, as he has done the post-graduate studies already mentioned and, too, served seventeen years as a United Methodist minister, retaining orders as an elder of the North Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Other interests include keeping up with a busy family, playing the guitar, and teaching young persons at church to play the guitar, too.