Page 72 - Senior Link Magazine Spring 2024 - Online Magazine

Exceptional

SENIORS

Lasting Fingerprints

Peggy Frick Dunn

by Vickie Walters

amous author, Judy Blume, once with one of them, Mrs.
said, “Our fingerprints don’t Ellison, who also taught
Ffade from the lives we touch.” Peggy’s son, Aaron, in
This quote encapsulates the person first grade.
Peggy Frick Dunn is to so many of
her friends, family members, and Peggy attended
especially her former students. She elementary, junior high,
never meets a stranger. and most of high school in Gruver.
The family moved while she was
Peggy Smith was born in Dumas, in high school, and she ended up
TX on September 4, 1951, the third graduating from Booker High School.
child of four. Her father worked for Her favorite teacher was Mr. Winger,
Phillips, so she grew up mostly in her fourth-grade teacher. She shares a
Sunray, Borger, and Pampa. When birthday with him and still wishes him
she was seven years old, her family a happy birthday every year! After
moved as her father transferred to the becoming a teacher herself, she taught
Sherhan Helium plant, 20 miles north his daughter and granddaughters, too.
of Gruver, TX and 15 miles south of that summer to finish that degree. By
Guymon, OK. They lived in a camp Peggy knew from a very early age then they had two boys (Aaron and
occupied by other employees and their that she wanted to become a teacher. Max) who were one and two years old
families. There were 80 houses in the Her parents did not expect her to go at the time. Her daughter, Bonnie, was
Phillips camp, along with a Baptist to college, but she wanted to teach, born in 1989. They raised their family
Church and a little grocery store, and and it required a college degree. as a coaching family, and now all three
it was located on the Texas side, so She first attended West Texas A&M children are involved in some way
they went to school in Gruver. Over University, where she met her future with education.
the years, there was plenty of playing husband, Doug Frick. They met on a
school and house, which instilled a blind date and got married during her Peggy loved everything about
desire in Peggy to become a teacher first semester of college. They both teaching. In her first year, she taught
someday. Several teachers lived in the paid their own way through college Junior High math and High School
camp, and years later, Peggy taught and promised themselves that their Algebra in Anna, TX. After that, most
children would not have to do the of her experience was in first and
same someday. second grade. She loved the small
classes, enjoyed teaching some of
Peggy graduated from North Texas her former classmates’ children, and
State University in 1973, as Doug misses the students and their stories
had taken a job in Denton after now that she is retired. She taught 30
he graduated from WTAMU. Her years total, with 24 of those years in
very first teaching contract was for Gruver.
$6000 a year! Six months before
she finished her master's degree, In 2002, Doug, her husband of almost
they moved back to Gruver, from 32 years, died of a sudden heart
where Peggy drove to Commerce attack while mowing their lawn. They

72 Lubbock Senior Link