text: Gee, Thanks Dad (Forbes.com) Forbes.com - L. Lowry Mays is a Texan's Texan, rock-ribbed, 6 foot 2 and larger than life. He started out as an investment banker; in 1972, when a client he was advising backed out of a deal to buy an FM radio station in San Antonio, Tex., Mays partnered with a pal and did the deal himself, paying  #36;125,000. In the three decades since, he has built one of the largest and most powerful media companies in the nation, Clear Channel, a much-maligned giant that, in the view of its enemies, is just too damned big for anyone else's good.