Pat Sherrell:
CLASS OF 1960
Galena Park High SchoolClass of 1960
Galena park, TX
Pat's Story
Wow! How do you condense 50 years into just a few paragraphs? I'll try, but it ain't easy when you like to talk as much as I do.
College was almost a dream for me. I had saved and planned all of my senior year to go to Jacksonville Baptist College. After visiting there on Senior Day, I was very excited about attending. I had saved enough for the tuition, and my folks were going to pick up room and board and books. At Easter all plans were "go". On Mother's Day everything came to a screeching halt. My brother got a DUI, and my folks had to bail him out of jail. There went the college money.
Two weeks before the term was to begin, the president of JBC came to visit my parents. He informed them about the NDEA loan fund that had recently been enacted by President Kennedy. Because of that visit and the loan I was able to obtain, I could attend Jacksonville Baptist College in Jacksonville, Texas.
Let me tell you about JBC. It is a small missionary Baptist college that specialized in preachers, basketball, Stamps-Baxter gospel music and predestination debates when I was there. Classes were small and students received personalized instruction. I sang in the choir and took voice and piano lessons for personal enjoyment knowing ahead of time that I would have too many hours to transfer them to a senior college.
Our choir went on tour for a week each semester. The first semester we went to New Mexico. Along the way we stopped at Carlsbad Caverns. The park rangers knew we were a choir and asked us to sing. The natural acoustics were incredible when we sang "The Benediction" in the Big Room of the caverns.
I graduated valedictorian from Jacksonville in June of 1962 with an Associate of Arts degree. Two weeks later I transferred to East Texas Baptist College in Marshall, Texas and graduated from there at the end of the summer in 1963 with a Bachelor of Arts degree (major in English, minor in history and secondary teacher certification. Graduating 3 times in 3 years, I never wanted to hear "Pomp and Circumstance" again or see another cap and gown.
As many of your folks did, my parents had taken out a 20 year pay insurance policy on me when I was first born. The agent assured them it would provide enough money for a college education. In reality, it paid for one summer.
No one ever told me about summer classes and how condensed the material has to be. Like a fool, I signed up for Shakespeare and Texas history that first six weeks of summer school at East Texas Baptist In addition, I proofread at the local newspaper office for 4 hours a day. Talk about eye strain.
If you were a member of the choir, you had to be in the chorus. I was a member in both. Our chorus director had a leading role in the opera "La Traviata" with the Shreveport symphony. He arranged for our college chorus to entertain as the chorus in the opera. That was quite an experience. Later that year, the choir performed at the national meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Kansas City, Missouri.
I still sing in the shower and at church. I sang with the Mastersingers at Tennessee Tech for a couple of years after we came to Tennessee, but gave it up when I spent 6 months in Houston to sell the townhouse there. I've just not gotten back to it.
I moved back home and began teaching 8th grade English at north Shore Junior High 2 weeks after I graduated. Mr. Bob Cloud was my principal. He had been the assistant principal when we were at Galena Park Junior High. He always caught me sitting in the hall after Mr. Manison had put me out for talking too much. Whenever I went to teacher in-service meetings, I met every former English teacher I had except Carolyn Perry plus Ms. Moore and Ms. Neal who had taught me history I was everybody's child prodigy come home to teach. I think I was rated more on my merits as a student than my ability as a teacher.
I took graduate courses in English at the University of Houston, but did not complete a master's degree. I always felt that maybe I had not gotten a quality education by going to such small colleges instead of a larger university. But, those fears were put to rest at U. of H. One of my professors told the graduate assistant, "I don't know where that woman went to school, but she knows how to ask the right questions."
I taught English for 9 years and burned out. All I had ever done was go to school or teach school. I felt like I was living my mother's dream of being a teacher instead of my own. I took a 7 year leave of absence and worked in the business world.
I sold Mary Kay cosmetics for a while and worked temporary jobs through a local agency. One of those temporary assignments became full time at Bludworth Shipyards handling accounts payable. When the company did not come through with the promised raise at the end of a year, I moved on to Sysco Foods where I handled personnel and payroll for a year and assisted the buyers for a second year. I left there on Labor Day of 1976, six weeks before the completion of my bicentennial project, the birth of my daughter Valerie. Before she was a year old, I went back to work for Baker Glass Company typing invoices and taking care of accounts receivable for two years.
In 1979 I returned to teaching in Dayton, Texas. I really wanted something that would allow me more time with my child as well as fulfilling that need to teach. This time I came on my own terms. I was there because of my dream. I think I was a much better teacher once I became a mother.There were no openings in English anywhere in Liberty County; so I took a position teaching special education. I had never taught a child how to read. All my expertise was in teac...Expand for more
hing students how to write and how to appreciate literature. I found a phonics based program which I used in my classroom for the next twenty years. One of the greatest joys of my life was teaching my own child how to read.
I attended Lamar University to become certified in special education. This led to completing a masters degree in education in 1985. This time I had them send me my diploma. That first degree was a piece of cake compared to the second one. All I had to do for the bachelor's was go to school for 33 months. Fewer classes took much longer to complete the master'[s. I wore so many hats during those 6 years that it is a wonder I finished the degree.
I taught special education in Dayton, Columbia-Brazoria, and Pasadena school districts for a total of 23 years in special education. They told me when I began in special education that I would burn out in 5 years. I loved it until the day I retired. My daughter went to school with me all through elementary except the year she was in third grade. I taught special education social studies at Brazoria High school that year.
The last place I taught was Williams Elementary in Pasadena. I was there for 16 years. One day I mentioned that my high school English teacher often began the class by saying,"Today, we are going to fly low." One of the other teachers said that her high school English teacher said the same thing. It was the same teacher, two different schools. Mrs. Perry had moved from Galena Park High School to South Houston High School a year or two after we graduated. She lived in the same neighborhood we did. I saw her occasionally at the grocery store.
Toward the end of my career, I returned to Lamar for certification as an educational diagnostician and worked in that position for the last three years before I retired in 2005.
I won't bore you with the details of my love life. I am married to Jack Sherell. He did not coach at Texas A& M nor did he make that kind of money. Shucks ! We have been married 26 years. We have 2 children and 3 grandchildren. His son lives in Boston with his wife and our older grandson. My daughter lives in Kingwood with her husband and our younger grandson and our granddaughter.
Jack worked as a funeral director for many years. That is why I am so well preserved. He started and ran Rerun Books in Pasadena for almost 20 years. We started out in the flea market where Pasadena Plaza shopping center had been at the corner of Shaver and Spencer. When they closed the flea market and told us we had to move, we relocated to Southmore close to the landmark Sears store. Rerun Books was kind of llike Topsy, it just growed.
After 5 rounds of pneumonia in 6 years, I decided Jack needed to get away from the Houston ship channel. Foreigners just can't take that pollution like the natives can. We were born to it
Jack came back to Tennessee in February of 2005 and I followed when I retired at the end of the school year. His parents were in poor health and very frail. Both of them passed away within 6 months of our coming to Tennessee. Jack received his family home as part of his inheritance, so we just stayed.
It was difficult at first coming from the big city to the very small town, but once I found Big Lots and T J Maxx, I adjusted very well. The closest town of any size is Cookeville, founded by Richard Fielding Cooke, one of Jack's ancestors. Tennessee Technological University is there. You find lots of better quality books at their Goodwill.
My dad died in 1983; my mother in 1997, and my brother in 2005. I will return to Texas when something happens to Jack. Remembering his stint as a funeral director, you will understand when I say,"When I have Jack in the box, I am going back to Texas. ' My daughter has already informed her husband that they will inherit me.
Jack lost his right leg in April after a yearlong battle with MRSA(staph infection). Our calendar is filled with doctor's appointments and therapy sessions for him to get used to his new leg.
My husband has a lot of family here, and we are busy in the Presbyterian Church. I went to the Baptist Church until I married Jack; now I go to the Presbyterian Church. I tell people I am a Baptisterian .
We would love to have any of you to drop by and stay awhile. The fall colors are really beautiful. We are 100 miles from everything (Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga). You can be in the Smokies in about 3 hours. There are lots of campgorounds and state park just a few miles away.
I never really understood when I would read books that talked about night falling. I understand now. We are so close to the eastern time zone that we can't get our atomic clock to set on the central time zone time.. When it gets to be 5 o'clock in the afternoon in the fall and winter, there is no dusk here. Night just falls.
I am really looking forward to our 50th reunion.
See you real soon..
Do you remember going to the Port Theater in Jacinto City for 9 cents? How about getting ice cream at Munsell's? Happy Days didn't have anything on us. And life was not complte without going skating at Cook's. Does anybody remember pant stretchers? I found one in the basement the other day.
I was born in Houston, but my folks moved to Oklahoma when I was six weeks old. We came back when I was ten right before 5th grade. My dad came down to get a job and find a house before he moved us here. The only thing my mother asked for in a house was for it be in Galena Park school district. Her cousin graduated from GPHS in 1942. I've seen his annual. The faculty section pictures Miss Iris Howard as an English teacher. Yes, that's the same Miss Howard who taught senior English when we were there.
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