Billy Wayne

Billy Wayne Davis was born at home January 17, 1946 in Matador, Texas.  His father Buford Coleman made his living as a professional gambler and service station attendant.  He related they went from brand new cars and houses to next to nothing shanties and old cars depending on Bud`s luck.  Bill suffered from diphtheria as a child and his mom, Fannie waited until the last minute to interrupt a card game for his dad to take him to the Dr.  That is why he has a cracked tongue even today.  Fannie contributed by canning anything she could find and sewing their clothes from flour sacks.  She bought all of one pattern sacks until they had enough to make shirts etc.  Bud died when Bill was 7 of a goiter operation.  There is some disagreement on whether he had cancer or not.  Aunt said yes and brother said no.  I tend to agree with Aunt as Earl was only 10 years of age.  They may have shielded the kids.  Fannie was left with 4 boys under the age of 10.  She went to work in the cotton fields pulling bolls.  She often pulled her sack with a young one on the end of the sack.  She later married a man who studied to be a Baptist minister.  He had small country churches thus began the moving to a dozen different schools before Bill graduated high school.  He never lived anywhere long enoug to be a Cub Scout thus his passion for scouting today was born.  He attended one room schools all the way up to Dallas city schools.  I think this is why he was a good counselor.  He had empathy for kids in lots of situations and coming from all sizes of schools.  In high school he didn`t want to move so Fannie found a family for him to live with in Geary, Oklahoma.  He spent quite a bit of time with Grandparents in Matador.  He listed his schools as K. he had a tutor named Mrs. Coldiron so he could skip 1st grade to be with older cousin.  The list then included Amarillo, Matador, Hale Center, Hugo, Oklahoma, 2 schools in Dallas named John B. Hood and S.E. Old Cliff, Mt. Pleasant, Mesquite, Pattonville, Broken Bow, Oklahoma,  Green Hill Country outside Mt. Pleasant, Matador,  Mt. Pleasant, and Geary Oklahoma.  Some years he attended 3 different schools in a school year.  Other years he returned to a school he had been in before.  They moved one year because the school tried to get them signed up for free lunches and Fannie thought they were trying to take her boys.  He sometimes went to school barefooted to save shoes for cold weather,  but then others did the same thing

One reason he wanted to stay in Geary was because of sports.  He participated in all sports but basketball was his love-playing in the Big House in 1963 where he promptly fouled out.  He was competing with teammates that were nearly a foot taller than he.  He often walked miles home from ball practice.  He always felt bad because his parents never saw him play a game.  They had to save their money for pop and other things.  He would take an odd job to buy athletic shoes but when typing had a lab fee he just didn`t take it.  A decesion he later regretted when college papers were graded down because they were handwritten in neat print or he hunt and pecked his way thru his years as counselor at the high school.  He could type nearly as fast as I with my 2 years of typing.    His coach Keith Covey and Grandparents Davis helped him go to Northwestern.  He went a couple years but the oil fields of west Texas lured him away.  The money was good but work was 7 days a week.  For entertainment he played summer baseball.  One semester out and he was back at Northwestern.  He was a math major and a job offer in the business world was forthcoming.  He turned it down for his love of education.  The only semester he had financial aid was the semester he bought my engagement ring.  We married in 1967 and he graduated in 1968.  He immediately enrolled in graduate school for the summer.  In the fall found us in Lebanon, Nebraska teaching in a tiny town of about 300.  All 3 of the elementary teachers were not college graduates.  They had taught for years but never finished their degree because they lacked student teaching.  They made 1/2 the salary of a degreed teacher.  We spent 2 years there going back to Alva in summers for school.  He taught math and coached basketball and helped with football.  One year he taught Chemistry and set the lab on fire.  He played town league basketball in a larger town.  At the end of 2 years we decided to move and found a job a little south of Lebanon in Lenora,Kansas.  We moved our furniture there and went to Alva for the summer.  During the summer Keith Covey recruited him for a job in Stroud.  Marty and we took a farm truck up and got our furniture.  In 1970 we started our tenure in Stroud.  We continued to go to Alva summers and he got his Masters in 1972.  One summer in 1973 we lived in Weatherford for him to complete his math degree.