El Paso Critics Mull What Might Have Been

Betty Killen still has the "Vote Blue" T-shirt she wore to last year's big El Paso EP proxy fight.

The pale blue shirt, donned by many that humid day in downtown Houston, clearly identified Killen as a member of a proud dissident team that sought to replace the energy giant's entire board in the name of corporate reform. The dissidents narrowly lost. But Killen still treasures the T-shirt, anyway.

"My grandniece was going through my closet the other day, and she said, 'We need to get rid of this ugly blue shirt,'" Killen says. "I told her, 'Don't throw that away!'"

Instead, Killen wishes she had good reason to wear the shirt again.

"I always wonder what would happen if we could say, 'Just vote all over again. Just one more time,'" she told TheStreet.com this week. "It was so close. We had high hopes that maybe we could actually get something done."

Exactly a year has passed since Killen's group tried to make history by winning the biggest proxy fight of the decade. They were hoping to oust company leaders that, they felt, had unjustly enriched themselves while recklessly driving the company into the ground. But their well-orchestrated campaign, partially financed by legendary oilman Oscar Wyatt, fell just shy despite some powerful endorsements. The dissidents, officially led by millionaire businessman Selim Zilkha, wound up where dissidents usually do -- on the losing side -- after a couple of big institutions changed their votes in favor of the incumbents at the last minute.

El Paso has gone on to hire a permanent CEO, former Halliburton HAL executive Doug Foshee, and adopt a number of changes that the dissidents themselves had recommended. But El Paso's stock, down 1.6% to $7.23 on Wednesday, fetches even less now than it did when investors were agonizing over the company's survival on that fateful day last summer.

Killen, for one, wonders if El Paso can ever fully recover.

"I certainly hope it does," she sighed. "But I just don't see it turning any corners."