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Today's Featured Biography
John Grillo
WOW! 1965 WAS A LONG TIME AGO!!!!! Fifty years have passed and we will enjoy this reunion in 2015 as a time to see old friends, some we have known for over 60 years. Each of us has enjoyed some bright spots and some rough spots during our journey through life. In 2014, I lost my lovely wife, Rhonda, to cancer. Others in our class have lost spouses and a few have lost children. The loss of a spouse is very tough. The loss of a child is impossible to comprehend. It is not an easy road for many of us.
Our time in Dumas prepared us for life. Dumas was a great place to grow up – a great place to make life-long friends.
Many ask about my mom, Allie Grillo, who taught at DHS from 1947 to 1967. She finally retired from teaching at the age of 90. She moved to Irving Texas two years after we graduated and taught Spanish there at McArthur High School and then at a local college. Her teaching career spanned from 1943 to 2010 – a total of 67 years. Over the years, she traveled many times to Spain, Mexico, and South America where she continued to study the language and the culture of Spanish speaking people. She still enjoys good health and now lives with my sister near Houston. She spends her time painting landscapes with oils and reading.
Today, I am semi-retired. I still own a few commercial real estate properties (office buildings and strip shopping centers) which I personally manage. The highlight of my morning is eating breakfast at a little hole-in-the-wall café and reading the local paper.
I fondly remember my eighteen years in Dumas. I grew up poor (I guess most of us were poor) in Dumas, a small cow town in the Panhandle of Texas; and then, as a bright-eyed young man full of both hope and fear, I arrived on the college campus eager to kick start my adult life. On that Sunday morning in September, 1965, I was dropped off in front of the college dorm. As I watched my family drive away, I looked down on the sidewalk and saw everything I owned packed in three little cardboard boxes. I had $238 and some pocket change – barely enough for the first two months of school. I was fortunate to put myself through college (I enjoyed the college experience) by first working in the dorm cafeteria and then by launching my entrepreneurial spirit by buying a laundry mat on the edge of campus. College was fun for me. With a lot of work, hardship, some disappointment, a few tears, and some successes, I earned several degrees which, along with determination, propelled me through the business world my entire adult life.
My college education came from North Texas State University in Denton, Texas, and LSU, in Baton Rouge, LA. I began college hoping for a Bachelor of Arts degree and my studies morphed (I was a slow starter) into Banking, Finance, Retail Marketing, and Law. After college, I went to OCS at Quantico and "enjoyed" spending a little time in the Marines. After teaching school for a short time, I joined the largest bank in the State of Arkansas as a commercial banker. During the next ten years, I enjoyed banking and continued to develop as an entrepreneur by becoming involved in the ownership of several “specialty” retail stores and real estate projects. In 1981, I ceased working for "the man." Since then, I have been involved in banking, retail, and real estate. I have owned and operated specialty retail stores; a large independent movie theater, an Italian Fine Dining Restaurant, a “hole in the wall” pizza joint, and I have been a trustee in the Federal Bankruptcy Court. During much of that time I built, owned, and managed my own commercial real estate. I was involved in banking from 1972 until we sold the bank in 2013.
My first job out of college was teaching school and I was very glad when I reached the end of that one year contract. I fondly look at my career as being "from the class room to the board room." Teaching school, building an office building, protecting unsecured creditors in the Bankruptcy Court, or running a bank all require the same skills of setting realistic goals, being both task and people oriented, hiring and motivating the right employees, having good time management skills, and avoiding distractions. I have certainly enjoyed my “productive” years.
I have two daughters (I started late) and one son and I am very proud of each of them. My oldest daughter is a "home body" while my youngest daughter is continuing to advance her education (graduate level studies in Finance and Accounting) at the University of Arkansas. "Boy Wonder" as I call him, is in college, makes good grades, and is enjoying the college life. He played High School Football and excelled on the state level in Basketball. He got his athletic ability from his Mom who taught second grade before she passed away.
I can't decide whether I enjoy the mountains of New Mexico or the beaches of Florida more. Santa Fe New Mexico and Sandestin Florida are my fondest places to relax and spend quality family time. We have rafted on the Rio Grande River from Taos to Santa Fe and gone deep sea fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. Our interests vary from watching the Padres play in San Diego to spending the weekend sampling the Cajun foods of the French Quarter in New Orleans. I have attended a lot of High School Football and Basketball games all over the state and we attend most of the Arkansas Razorback football games and many of the Razorback basketball games.
After glancing at my picture, it is also easy to ascertain that eating is one of my favorite pursuits. I am no longer the skinny boy my classmates knew years ago.
Today, I would like to be remembered as a hard worker who was fair and generous to those less fortunate. I have attempted to be a good father, a good husband, a good role model, and a tribute to those who taught me and raised me. I give a lot of credit to the teachers we had in Dumas and the environment we enjoyed as kids. I don't care if people remember me as being successful. I just care if they remember me as being honest, fair, generous, and kind.
Growing up in Dumas Texas was fun and simple. We were well educated and were taught the traits of honesty, determination, and respect. We were also taught responsibility and accountability. There was a “can do” culture in that little town. We were unaware that we were learning things that would help us succeed in our adult lives. We were taught how to win with honor and lose with dignity. We were taught to speak better, write better, and present ourselves better than those who came from other schools. As individuals, we were able to better compete on the larger scale of life due to the simple fact that we were from Dumas Texas and products of its culture.
Many of us began school together in the first grade. Does anyone remember starting the first grade in the old wooden classrooms (they were old Army barracks) on the junior high campus? I remember being in a second grade play (at North Ward) with Cheryl Harkrider, playing tag with David Hamrick (he was so quick I never caught him), all the guys learning yo-yo tricks in Mrs. Pope’s fourth grade class, and learning to square dance in Mr. Spear’s sixth grade class (Joan Coventry told me I was clumsy). In the seventh grade, in Junior High, all of the grade schools (including the Cactus bunch) joined together to bring diversity and new friendships into one cohesive unit. Who remembers having algebra with Mr. Haynes or biology with Mr. Fonburg or Physics with Mr. Mays? Many of us had jobs. Larry Spears worked at the theater and the bowling alley. I had a paper route, sold Spud Nuts door to door, mowed grass, and washed cars for spending money. I and others like Doug Thompson worked at various farms. During our high school years, we enjoyed going to different towns (chanting that we were the best) on the “fan” bus to watch our Demons play. We were ALL Demons. I guess we all remember our “Demon Bell” that we pulled to all our football games and rang each time we scored. We put on plays and musicals, memorized parts of the Canterbury Tales in Mrs. Bosler’s class, and went to the movie as often as possible (especially the drive in during those hot summer nights). I wonder how many times we “dragged Main Street” and stopped for a Cherry Vanilla Coke at the Demon Mart. Does anyone remember Kelly Baker's 61 Chevy with the extra tail lights? Does anyone remember taking history class with Mrs. McDonald, English with Gene Ledbetter or Geometry with Mr. Burgess? Who remembers dances at the old Hotel Ballroom and the YMCA? Those were the days when we were being prepared for what came later. We were from “Small Town America” and our education was second to none. We were “products” of an environment and a culture that is difficult to put into words. Go Demons!
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