KENNETH WAYNE RAGLE

The following bio was taken from page 353 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Claudia Schuster

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

 I, Kenneth W. Ragle, was born December 11, 1944, in Little Rock, Arkansas.  When I was four or five days old, my mother, Betty Jo Black Ragle, brought me to the Rusk County Community of Crossroads to live with my grandparents, Edd and Julia B. Black.  I lived with them until I was five or six years old, when my mother married Bobby Y. Walker.

 I have many memorable days of my growing up in Rusk County, living with my grandparents.  Granny Black cooked on a wood stove, and we had a wood-burning heater in the house.  At this time, Aunt Annie Belle, Aunt Mary, and Uncle Tom Black lived with us.  Aunt Mary, whom I admired the most, would take me everywhere with her.  We loved to go to the picture show and probably saw every western ever shown at the Texas and Crim theaters in Kilgore.  Then we could go to a show for nine or eleven cents.  When the price went to sixteen cents, we slowed down.  After every movie, we would go across the railroad tracks and get a coney island, which was just a big old juicy hot dog with mustard, onions, and chili.

 Grandpa Black was probably the greatest man that ever lived.  He would take me with him farming, fox hunting, and even to the Reo Palm Isle Wednesday matinee, where he loved to dance.  Even when we were fox hunting and the dogs would begin to howl, Gramps would start dancing.  Granny didn’t like Gramps’ dancing, but she put up with it.

 After a move to the Monroe Community, I started school at Crossroads, a three-room school.  Mr. Julian (Shorty) Drennan was our principal and fifth grade teacher.  I remember my first grade teacher, Mrs. Vivian Hale, and her husband, Errette Hale, who was a highway patrolman.  He fascinated all of us kids.  The six students in my sixth grade class were Ralph Minor, James Walker, Wayne Moore, Linda McGeehee, Rose Toon, and I.  Grandma Annie D., Daddy’s mother, was a cook at Crossroads Elementary.  That is where I learned to make my first money.  I didn’t like salmon patties, so I sold mine for a nickel and bought candy at Hawkin’s Store.

 Finally, I learned to wear shoes and attended Kilgore Junior High and Kilgore High School.  Then I went on to Kilgore Junior College.  People were convinced I was majoring in “junior college” because I spent three years there.  What they did not realize was that I had sausage, wood, barnyard manure, and topsoil businesses which paid my college expenses.

 I grew up with a group of boys: Jack Kennard, Johnny Leach, Jimmy Oliver, David Beck, and “Old Coon” Lanny Bell.  When we went horseback riding or camping, we would take my first dog, Old Bulger, a pitt bulldog.  He loved to ride in the back of the pickup, and he kept all the other dogs and snakes away from us.  He was probably the meanest dog that ever lived in East Texas.  During this time, my little brother, Bobby Joe Walker, seven years younger than I, was growing up.

 During high school, I met my wife, the former Sharon Louise Zevely of Oil Center, a community west of Kilgore.  We were in college when we decided to get married.  Then we went to Texas A & M where I received a Bachelor of Science Degree in agricultural education.

  In 1969 we moved to Huntsville, Texas, where I received my Master’s Degree in agriculture and food technology from Sam Houston State University.  After graduation, I took a position in Waco at a school known then as James Connally Technical Institute of the Texas A & M University System.  Now the college is known as Texas State Technical Institute.  I helped set up the Meat Processing and Marketing Technology, a program designed to train retail meat cutters and butcher workers for Texas and the United States.

 Sharon and I have two daughters, Shelly Renee and Zevely Ann.  We live in Elm Mott Community in McLennan County and are looking forward to moving back to Rusk County to live on our land located next to Aunt Mary Black’s home.

 Submitted by Kenneth Wayne Ragle