Category: The Glimpse

Rural schools were a way of life in the first half of the 20th century. In Medina County, according to a Devine News publication on July 18, 1902, there were 19 school districts, and 33 in 1926-27. Here’s the interesting list of the 19 in 1902: Castroville, San Geronimo, Lacoste, Quihi, Hondo, D’Hanis, Haass, Chicon, Francisco, Lower Hondo, Black Creek, Community, Rear Crock, Devine, Tehencuna, Deer Creek, Leinweber, Maverick, Coal Mine, totaling 2140 students.
 Later, the school “districts,” as they were called, that fed Devine Schools were Biry, Shook, Big Foot, and Black Creek. In around 1952, those rural schools that served the surrounding communities and consisted of first-sixth grades were closed. Up until that time, students attended DISD for their remaining years, but once the rural schools were closed, students from Big Foot, Biry, Black Creek and Shook attended Devine schools for all grades.
A little history of the Shook rural school has been shared by Bob Bendele. Not only did he attend Shook, but so did his father, his mother, and his maternal grandmother. But when Bob was in the second grade, this school and others across the county were closed.
The school consisted of three rooms and six grades. Picture a rectangular building with one room on each side, a hallway down the middle, and a larger room extending at the back. Facing the building, students in first-third grades attended class in the left room; students fourth -sixth attended in the right room. Each room had only one teacher. The back room served as an auditorium with a stage at the back. Bob says many performances happened there as well as community events.
The entrance to the school building had a porch with a bell tower above it. It was actually a very attractive school house, and at the time Bob attended, there were 29 total students.
Other interesting features Bob Bendele shared was that there was a garden that once was used as a mule pen. There was a windmill with a cypress water tank. And there was also a building that had been a teacher’s residence at one time. West of the school house was an outhouse and a baseball diamond, which Bob says was beat down hard from bare feet and drought. Today, the slab where the porch stood remains, and nearby there is a historical marker. The location is near the corner of Hwy 1343 and Calame Store Road (C.R. 664), all which was once Keller property.
Rather than being demolished or left to decay, the Shook school building was moved to Devine and situated at the football field to be used for many years (until 1964) as a field house. The left side was used as concession stand – with the upper part of the wall removed to accommodate customers – and the right side was used as a visitors and B-Team dressing room. The former auditorium was used as the varsity dressing room and the former stage became the coaches’ office. Unfortunately, the bell tower was not moved or saved. And few of these historic school buildings across the state were saved, which is such a shame. But we can share and thus save the stories.

Southton School, one of many rural school buildings that history has forgotten.
Until the early 50s, there were hundreds of rural community schools across Texas. One such elementary school was located in Southton, Texas, a few miles off Highway 87 and Hilltop toward Floresville. I have sweet memories of attending second grade there. The school consisted of three rooms with two grades and one teacher to each room. The first graders were on one end of our room and the second graders on the other. Our teacher sat at the back corner of the room. Her name was Mrs. Williams. I well recall so many happy times there including friends who still live in my memory, even though I have seen few of them since elementary school. One friend was Terry who sat next to me.
Terry was a talker, and so am I, but I’m also a rule follower. So one time when the teacher admonished us not to talk and anyone who did would get a spanking, Terry started talking to me and I told him to hush and I got caught. Sometimes we just get in trouble when it’s not our fault.
I also recall being awarded the distinction of best reader! Go figure. That brings to mind a wonderful memory of the mobile library. That was so exciting and, Oh, what a joy it was to walk down the aisle in that portable library in awe as I took in the smell of the books and made my choices. My favorite books were about ballet and horses.
I walked or rode my bike to school every day. It was about a mile from our home. On more than one occasion, my big, beautiful, white dog, Butterball, would follow me, and I would have to coax him back home. But generally, I did not ride or walk alone. Several neighborhood children also walked and rode their bikes to school. One of my classmates who rode her bike alongside me was named Margie, a neighbor and such a good friend.
Another fond memory of living at Southton was the post office. It was around the corner from the school and sometimes after school I would go there to pick up our mail. The post office consisted of a regular house, and when you walked up onto the porch and you faced the front door, to the left was another door which had been converted to a window where the clerk/homeowner would hand you your mail.
After second grade, that school was closed like so many others across the state, and the building, unfortunately from a historical viewpoint, was torn down. A new school house named Harmony, which was just off of Highway 87 east of Hilltop, became the new, up-to-date, modern elementary school. I attended Harmony third through sixth grades.
East Central ISD encompasses 296 square miles. When I attended Harmony in third through sixth grades, I rode the bus for 5 miles from home. Then in seventh grade, I attended Oak Crest, which was an hour from Harmony. So I rode the bus from my house to Harmony where I changed buses and rode from Harmony to Oakcrest. It was quite a trip.
Oakcrest was a new building situated across the street from East Central High School. As I recall, it had four rooms, two for 7th and two for 8th grades. The principal was one of my teachers. A fun fact is for lunchtime all students boarded a school bus and we rode across the road – Sulphur Springs Highway – to the East Central high school cafeteria. At the end of lunch, we all piled back in the bus and rode back across the road.
Today, Oak Crest is an elementary school with an enrollment of around 680 students. Because we moved to San Antonio near the end of my seventh-grade year, I left Oak Crest and my humble rural school to attend Burbank, which was a 4A high school, equivalent to today’s 5A. The junior high was on the same campus as the high school, which made for an even larger population. Talk about culture shock. Yet, I like to think that I experienced the best of two worlds, small country schools as a child and big city school as a teen.
In keeping with this rural school theme, stay tuned next week to learn about Medina County’s Shook school.

By Kathleene Runnels

I’ve always loved chickens. It goes back to my daddy’s having been a chicken farmer raising White Leghorns when I was little. At the time of this incident, we had a nice flock of a variety of hens and a shiny black rooster that we called Blacky. So, when I was gifted a white Brahman rooster, I was quick to make him a home with my 20+ hens. Knowing that one rooster per up to 10 hens is ideal, I saw no issue in bringing another rooster into the flock. 
I was wrong. On any given day these two fought like fighting cocks, very much to my distress. One day, apparently there had been a vicious fight as Blacky was barely standing alone in the barn with his feathers all fluffed out and eyes not even open. Surely, we thought, he was about to die. He did not. He recovered!
Blacky was resilient and must have been filled with resolve, because a few days later Franklin and I arrived home to find Whitey dead-dog-dead with his legs straight out stiff and naturally not moving. That was so sad. So, needing to humanely dispose of Whitey, Franklin got an empty feed sack, tossed the dead Whitey inside, tied the ends with string, and hauled him out to the back pasture. The dirty job was done.
But wait. There’s more. The next day Franklin hollered for me to come help him because apparently Whitey was NOT dead. Franklin saw him running around near the place where he had been summarily dumped. What?
So, I got a pet carrier, stuffed some hay inside, and prepared to nurse Whitey back to health. (I’ve even been known to take a rooster to the vet!) The two of us rode out in the Mule where I easily picked up the poor thing, held him in my arms to settle him, and when we got back to the house I put him in the above-mentioned pet carrier with food and water for him to recuperate from his ordeal. After just a couple of days, Whitey was ready for his freedom, and I turned him out where he was quickly accepted back to “his” flock. You know, a rooster has his own hens.
As for Blacky, I soon found him a rescue home, so Whitey then had the entire flock to himself. And that’s where his name was changed to Lazarus. Don’t you think that’s fitting? 
Today, I have another white rooster, a White Leghorn, and in homage to my daddy, I named him Hubert, my dad’s name!

By Kathleene Runnels

For the umpteenth time I recently watched “Elvis – Aloha from Hawaii”. Whether or not you’re a fan – and why on earth would you not be – Elvis was a quintessential entertainer! Engaging with the audience, melting your heart when looking straight into the camera, performing with powerful energy, and just breath-taking to look at!

That live performance was done in 1973, and Yes, I watched it live. But in addition, my friend, Sharon Vetters Dunnam, and I went to see him live in San Antonio at the original convention center on three occasions! Yep. Three times I had the pleasure to see Elvis live! His performances were exactly like what you see on his satellite show. My only regret was that I always took my binoculars and Sharon did not (!), so I had to share! That’s what you call real friendship!

Looking back to Elvis’ beginnings, I was 12 when I saw him on our black and white TV while living in Southtown, Texas, as he performed on the Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey show. He sang “Heartbreak Hotel”, and at the end he bowed so low his hair almost touched the ground. I told my mother that this guy would be famous some day, and I went to the desk and wrote down his name. Later I heard that a girl from our high school, East Central, took a razor blade to cut his name into her thighs and pour ink into the cuts! I guess that’s the old-school way of tattooing! But rest assured, I’m not that much of a fanatic!

Now Elvis’ movies never appealed to me except for “King Creole”. I have that on VCR and I do watch it from time to time. I love the score in that movie. But as for his singing, I have every album Elvis made, and more importantly, I have every 45 rpm! When a new 45 would come out, I would hurry down to Sears on SW Military Dr and go to their record department and purchase my copy. Do I ever listen to them? Yes, I do. I actually have the “Stereo” that my dad gave me for my 16th birthday.

So, it’s August, and August marks the 48th anniversary of Elvis’ death at the untimely age of 42. My dad called me to break the news. I well recall that when his mother died at that same age, Elvis said he would not live past 42. Interesting. To think that he’s been dead longer than he lived. But boy, Sirius FM channel 79 sure does keep him “alive” as well as the amazing exhibits at Graceland. All of the exhibit buildings display fascinating memorabilia, not just the mansion, which today seems ordinary, but in its day was just that.

Listening to Elvis takes me back to those impressionable (and mostly enjoyable) high school years, and his music always touches me, whether it’s from his first recordings or his later ones, like “Just Pretend”. I only wish there had been more live performances recorded.

So, here’s to all you Elvis fans, those of my generation and younger!

In our days, only the rich could go to kindergarten. With me being the third of six kids, I didn’t really know what kids today know when they enter first grade. To learn to count, the teacher had us go around and count each desk! I believe there were 32 desks in our first grade room!
We took packed lunches because back then my elementary school had no cafeteria. We had three recesses a day – half an hour mid morning and mid afternoon and an hour after lunch. We enjoyed jump rope, hop scotch, hoola-hoop, while the boys enjoyed playing marbles, etc.
Each morning we said the pledge to the flag and sang My Country Tis of Thee. And we prayed. Before eating lunch, we all said a prayer together. “God is Great, God is Good, and we thank Him for our food, Amen”
In the third grade, I was chosen to be the queen of my class. My mom borrowed a fancy pink dress for me to wear. The boy who was my escort… lol the king… kicked me real hard.. lol. So I was kicked by a king. Also while I was in the third grade God kept impressing on my heart that He wanted me to commit my life to becoming a missionary and to go to a country where the Gospel had never been taught. I struggled with that decision because I was so young. After three days of not being able to concentrate on my math, I finally said yes to God. This decision helped me so much during my life because it gave me focus, and I knew that I had to only marry someone who was also committed to be a missionary, or I would stay single.

Continue reading “SANDY TEGELER BOWYER used her graduation money to stay in the jungles of Ecuador”

By Gayle Sessions
I started first grade in 1948 at Center Grove Elementary in Tullahoma, Tennessee when I was only 5 years old. My brother, Billy, was 2 years older than me and we did everything together. The year he started school in 1947 I was lost and very unhappy. So my mother talked to the first grade teacher, Mrs. Tubbs, and she thought it would be ok for me to start the next year even though I was really young. So mother let me start school.
We lived on a farm about 7 miles from Tullahoma, but we had to attend school in the county where we lived. The elementary school was close but the high school was in another town, Winchester, which was about 20 miles away.
In 1948 we were fortunate to have a vehicle, but it was for all family activities, so we had to ride the county school bus to school. The elementary I attended was only three miles away, but the bus picked up all students in our area and dropped us off at our elementary and continued on to Franklin County High School in Winchester. We caught the bus at 6:30 each morning and were dropped off early at the elementary 15 minutes or so later.

Continue reading “My School Memories by Gayle Sessions”

Phil McAnelly claims that the skills for becoming an athlete were “spawned” at elementary school recess.
I [Phil McAnelly] was born in Hondo, Texas, in 1946 and lived the first three years of my life right across the street from the old school, where the track now is. The house is still there. My dad was the Ag Teacher in Hondo High School, and he walked across the street to work. Sometimes I would accompany him to a class or two when my mom had something she had to do, or maybe he was just indoctrinating me early on to be an Ag teacher myself. Don’t know.
The Ag Building, or Ag Shop as everyone called it, was in the same building as the old gymnasium that later served as the band hall until just a few years ago. I remember one time when I was four years old I crawled up on one of the tables that was used instead of desks and told my dad, “You teach that side, Daddy, and I’ll teach this side over here.”The ag boys all loved it, and I was told about it many times down through the years.

Continue reading “McAnelly claims athletic skills “spawned” at elementary recess”

OK, I’ll go first. My family lived about five miles south of Somerset in the Blackjacks on our 100-acre family farm when I started first grade. My paternal grandmother lived down the lane from us under a grove of Oak trees, and we lived under another. A Mr. Frank James (of the ubiquitous James family of Somerset) was our bus driver, and I recall we meandered amongst the family farms for about an hour before reaching the schoolhouse in “downtown” Somerset. The main schoolhouse was a three-story, 11-classroom building that housed second through 12th grades. The first grade met in a two-room building (which was probably an old barracks) down below the official school house.
There were two rooms. Miss Winnie was my teacher and Miss King was the other. Unfortunately, the Hispanic children were segregated, and they were Miss King’s students.

Continue reading “Glimpse…”