Viewing for longtime Howe High School principal Donal Gilstrap will be Wednesday, Mar 28, 2018, from 6 pm to 8 pm at Scoggins Funeral Home, 637 West Van Alstyne Parkway, Van Alstyne, TX 75495.

The funeral service will be Thursday, Mar 29 at 2 pm at the First Baptist Church, 100 Davis Street, Howe, TX 75459.

Services for Donal Gene Gilstrap, age 84, of Howe, Texas will be held at 2:00 PM Thursday, March 29, 2018 at the First Baptist Church in Howe. Private family burial will follow at the Hall Cemetery in Howe, Texas. The family will receive friends from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM on Wednesday, March 28, 2018 at Scoggins Funeral Home in Van Alstyne, Texas.

Donal passed away on Sunday, March 25, 2018 at the Homestead of Sherman. He was born on July 14, 1933 in Breckenridge, Texas the son of Edmund and Martha Gilstrap. Donal enlisted and served in the United States Army becoming a First Lieutenant. He met Barbara Helen Mahan while at Fort Sill & married her on August 8, 1959 in Madill, Oklahoma. Donal received his degree from Hardin Simmons University and later got his Master’s Degree from Texas Tech. He taught & coached in Memphis, TX & Lubbock, TX, before moving to Howe, TX to be a Principle for Howe Schools from 1972 until his retirement in 1993. He was a faithful member of the First Baptist Church in Howe, Texas.
Donal was preceded in death by his parents, then his wife, Barbara Helen Gilstrap.

Survivors are daughter, Catherine Gilstrap; son, Patrick Gilstrap & his wife Loretta; Grand-daughter, Dallas Wilburn & her husband, Lonnie; great-grand-daughter Zoey Wilburn; step-grandsons, Aaron Williams & Colton Williams; brother James Gilstrap & his wife Delores.

Services are under the direction of Scoggins Funeral Home & Crematory, 637 W. Van Alstyne Parkway, Van Alstyne, Texas 75495. Pallbearers will be Sam Haigis, Buddy Baker, Ray Bledsoe, Charles Farris, Charles Loftice & Bill Loftice.
The online register book may be signed at www.scogginsfunealhome.com

To send flowers or a remembrance gift to the family of Donal Gene Gilstrap, please visit our Tribute Store.

 

A walk to remember

Originally published in the Howe Enterprise, Monday, June 16, 2014 

Kids and newer residents of Howe have no idea who the heavily bearded, heavily clothed man is who walks continuously around the east side of town. They just might be shocked of the impact he made on countless individuals who call this city their home.

After the announced retirement of longtime Superintendent, Charles Thompson, the school had a vacancy for the position. Gilstrap, who was best friends with Ray Culp (brother of then-school board member Ned Culp), was asked to apply for the superintendent position.

“I knew I wasn’t qualified for it. I was still working on my master’s degree. But it was something that I was interested in and I thought I’d apply and if nothing else, it would be a mini-vacation,” said Gilstrap. Gilstrap was not hired for the job as it went to Glen Mitchell.

“They told me that I was not going to be the superintendent, and I knew that, but they said that we want you to be a high school principal in a year. The entire school board came out to Lubbock and I was in my shop working and they came out to my shop where I was welding and I couldn’t believe that they had driven all the way out there just to see me and to say ‘we want you’ and that made me feel good,” Gilstrap remarked.

Gilstrap became the middle school principal with the understanding that he would become the high school principal the following year. He was worried about replacing H.L. Linker, who was the current high school principal and wondering how that was going to work.

“I told Mr. Mitchell that I will never take somebody’s job and have him fired simply to please me,” said Gilstrap.

Mr. Mitchell set it up for Gilstrap to take the elementary and middle school principal position and also tax assessor in order for it to be an increase in pay from what he was already receiving in Lubbock.

“A lot of people thought that Mr. Mitchell and I knew each other, but I never knew him until I got here,” said Gilstrap.

When Mitchell left Howe and Arthur Boyle was hired as superintendent, Boyle named Gilstrap the high school principal when it opened up, knowing that it was in Gilstrap’s contract to be offered the position.

Gilstrap, as a principal, was a bit intimidating, although he only stood 5′ 9″. He looked like a man that was either a wrestler or football player. However, he was as caring and protective of his students as anyone could ask.

“There were a couple of boys that I kept out of serious trouble. And it was one of those where not a big deal was made of it. I told someone that it’s not me that’s keeping these boys out of serious trouble, it’s that old principal that I had in Colorado City, Texas.,” said Gilstrap.

He molded himself after his high school principal. In fact, Gilstrap was very lucky to even have a high school principal and an education altogether.

Gilstrap grew up picking cotton in the 1940’s and was not able to go to school until all of the cotton was picked, which was usually around November. His mother had a sixth-grade education and his dad received no education at all, but he was a hard oil field worker.

When Gilstrap went to school at Colorado City, his principal set him up, knowing he wouldn’t be there long. He took him to an English teacher who demanded excellence from him. She was upset at his showing up in November.

“She said, ‘young man, every student in my class is up to date. When Christmas starts, you will have said 100 lines of poetry and you will give me nine book reports. It will be done.’ I said, ‘yes ma’am.,’” remarked Gilstrap with a smile.

Gilstrap turned in three book reports in the first three days and completed all of her assignments by her deadline. She soon realized that he was an avid reader and had done literally two things in his life to that point – work and read.

That English teacher not only challenged him to push himself, but she also taught him how teachers would react to stressful situations like that which would help him down the road in his administration position.

It was also in high school that a coach told him that he needed to try out for football. Even though Gilstrap grew up in the hot-bed of high school football in West Texas near Midland and Big Spring, he had never played or even seen a football game due his constant working and reading.

With his mother insisting on him staying in school at Colorado City, his dad found a job nearby so that could take place. He did as his coach had asked and tried out for the football team in 1949, his sophomore year.

“On my first day, there wasn’t anyone who could show me how to put the football uniform on. If you think about it, it’s difficult. It took me 15 minutes to get the knee pads to stay in. I couldn’t figure out how to get the thing buckled. I just went out there without some pads,” said Gilstrap.

After having to explain to Gilstrap what the word “tackle” meant, the coach had him on the kickoff team and wanted him to tackle the ball carrier on the kick return.

“I grabbed him, picked him up and threw him on the ground. The other kids were clapping and carrying on and what I didn’t know was that this kid was the typical bully,” said Gilstrap. “The next time, I did the same thing. I picked him up and threw him down. The third time, he wouldn’t pick up the ball.”

Not knowing any football terminology, Gilstrap was a real-life Herman Munster on the field with little understanding, but amazing strength. He became the starting middle linebacker in the first game that he’d ever seen. His skills in football earned him an athletic scholarship to Hardin-Simmons University to play football.

After college, he went to The U.S. Army for four years, spending time in Korea, he made money for the first time of his life. Being an officer, he got paid more than the rest. After his duty to his country, he found himself working in Fort Sill, Oklahoma where he joined a church and on one particular church event, the young people walked up Mount Scott near Lawton, Oklahoma.

“About halfway up the hill, I looked up and there was a girl standing there and I never saw such pretty red hair. It was the reddest hair, you can’t believe how red it was. But she was with an enlisted man,” Gilstrap recalled. “I got her name – Barbara, but that was it.”

After calling a friend and confirming that “Barbara” was a college graduate and the church secretary. One evening after the church service was over, the group of younger people went for some coffee. Gilstrap told Barbara that he had a G.I. inspection the next morning and that he couldn’t go. That’s when she put her hand on his shoulder and said, ‘Aw, you’ve got time for a cup of coffee.’

“That was it. We got married really quickly. I could’ve been married a week or two later, but we waited a little while. It was one of those things where I just knew,” said Gilstrap. “I knew from the time she told me that I had time for a cup of coffee that I was going to marry her.”

They were married August 8, 1959, and spent 54 years never having an argument.

“She was the most brilliant person that I have ever encountered. She knew every spelling and definition of every word. I could never stump her. I used to try all of the time,” Gilstrap said.

He also recalled that she was so popular when they were dating. He had all of the little old ladies in the church telling him to be nice to her.

“Barbara had 50 grandmothers in the same church,” he said. “She was the pastor’s secretary so he would also look at me and make sure I was good for her.”

The pastor told them that he never knew a couple that didn’t need a conversation before marriage because he knew they were meant for each other.

They lived the dream marriage and had two children: Catherine and Patrick, who both graduated from Howe High School.

As a student, Barbara was the secretary to the Oklahoma Baptist University president and continued in that position after graduation. She later worked in the president’s office at Texas Tech University, and she retired in 1996 from the president’s office at Grayson County College.

As mentioned, Donal Gilstrap retired from Howe ISD after the 1992-93 school year. After retirement, he went back to his first childhood job. He worked in the fields. This time he used a tractor when he worked for Norman Farms.

“I loved it so much. I had hardly any responsibilities. I didn’t have to have a philosophy and everything. I was with very intelligent people, but we didn’t have to be intelligent. We just worked. It was so much fun,” said Gilstrap.

But one day, while working on the farms, he realized that something wasn’t quite right with Barbara. She had been driving to Oklahoma regularly to see her elderly mother, who had started to treat her poorly as if she were a little girl. However, if her husband were around, her mother would treat Barbara like an adult.

Gilstrap soon resigned from working for Jack Norman in order to make changes to the routine. Barbara was working non-stop to prepare weekend meals for her visits with her mother and soon because exhausted. She then started to get lost on her way to the Oklahoma destination that she had traveled so many times.

Gilstrap started trying to take some of the stress off of her by doing some of the cooking.

“When we’d come home on Sunday evenings, that would be the only time that she would relax,” Gilstrap said.

Gilstrap became worried about her forgetting what the doctors were telling her, so he requested they have their exams together. The doctor would ask her to spell things backward and then spell very tough words. Little did the doctor realize that this was her specialty. He cleared her and said that she was as sharp as a tack. However, Gilstrap knew that this wasn’t the case.

A few years later, she was in fact diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.  In the early stages, Gilstrap made sure she had a cell phone everywhere she went so she could call if she would get lost. Those early stages, they often laughed about it, but the worse her condition escalated, it became nothing to laugh about. Always trying to please her, he would take her out to lunch or dinner anytime. However, she couldn’t think of what she wanted.  One particular afternoon they started in Howe and drove to Sherman and she refused each location they drove by. He drove to Denison to her favorite places to no avail. He continued to Durant and was told no, in which he drove her to Ada and told no. She finally decided on a place once they drove all the way to her hometown of Madill, Oklahoma. Another afternoon in the grocery store, Gilstrap found her talking to a young family and when asked, she said told the family that she didn’t have any kids and had never been married. She often would not remember being married and would take herself to a place in her life before marriage. She would often speak as if she were in college and with old college friends.

“All of the time I spent in college, 11 years in Lubbock, East Texas State, all of the counseling courses I took, I had to use all of it with Barbara,” said Gilstrap. “I told myself that I would never let it bother me. I don’t care what it is. I can do anything under any circumstance.”

Her suffering became his suffering. He would even listen to her say that she didn’t want to be married or want the responsibility of being married.

“She would say, ‘Don, I love you and I’m so happy with us, but you’re a good woman,’” (he laughed).

With that, he knew she wasn’t understanding what she was saying and he learned to take everything in stride as her condition grew worse and worse.

“I never allowed her to go to bed without being happy and I never left this living room without her giggling. To leave her there (Pecan Point Assisted Living) was the hardest thing to do.

Barbara passed away on a Saturday in November of 2012. It would have been about the same time of the year that Don Gilstrap would’ve finally been done picking cotton in West Texas and heading to school.

The man who walks in overalls, walking stick and long white beard resembles a picture of a shepherd from biblical days. He has seen a lot. He was the non-typical kid that had a great work ethic that was taught to him by his father. He also had a love of reading. All he needed was a chance.

Because of a hard-nosed English teacher that pushed him, a principal that cared enough about him to give him a chance, and a coach that bought him socks and shoes and taught him how to play football, Donal Gilstrap was able to use his work ethic to get through college, the Armed Forces, a long-standing career as an administrator and stick with the love of his life as she chartered in territory unfamiliar.

Gilstrap was brought here by six school board members who drove to Lubbock to make sure he came to Howe to help our kids grow in to being people that just might out-work the next guy.

His ability to endure without wavering can still be seen in the hot June sun every day on a trip from his home on Denny Street down to Duke, back of Hughes to Young, back to Denny to his house. Gilstrap has had a walk to remember.