Page 12 - Senior Link Magazine Summer 2025 - Online Magazine

Exceptional
SENIORS
Happiness Is Lubbock Texas:
From Here and Back Again
by Walter Wilhoit
The Wilhoit Family: Kaitlyn Hall and husband Scott, grandsons Judah and Thatcher, Walter
and Rashell, granddaughter Evelynn, daughter Molly, son Grant (L to R)
y wife, Rashell, and I
retired and returned to
MLubbock in 2020, at the
height of the pandemic. Ironically,
this wasn’t long before the passing
of Mac Davis. I used to watch Mac
Davis‘s television special as a kid
and always loved his song “Texas
in My Rear View Mirror.” Little did
I know that in later years I would
yearn to leave Lubbock, but we
would have even stronger yearnings
to return.
Rashell and I are both graduates
of Lubbock Christian University,
receiving our teaching certificates
in 1984. Rashell taught at Bayless
Elementary, and I taught at Tubbs
and Haynes. Like Mac Davis, we
wanted to get away. We aspired to
teach overseas with the Department
12 Lubbock Senior Link
Walter Wilhoit
of Defense Schools (DoDDS) and
travel the world. DoDDS, now
known as DoDEA (Department
of Defense Education Activity), is
the school system which operates
on overseas military installations
to educate dependent children of
Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine
personnel.
Becoming teachers for DoDEA
was no easy feat. I had become
acquainted with the military schools
during a summer mission trip
with LCU while Rashell had seen
an advertisement in the back of a
teacher magazine. Before the days
of online applications, Rashell and
I found the pen and paper process
arduous. We initially applied in
1987, but problems always arose
with deadlines, updates, and typical
government red tape. Finally, in
early December1989, we received
notices of interviews in our mailbox.
We told no one. Taking a personal
day, we took off for Carswell Air
Force Base in Fort Worth for our
secret interviews. Not realizing that
the interviewer would be following
up that same day with our current
supervising principals, Nettie
Edwards and Mary Hughes, by the
time we drove back to Lubbock, our
secret was out. When we returned
from visiting family that Christmas
break, we received acceptance letters
and thick in-processing packets in
the mail. In the following weeks we
made many trips to the former Reese
Air Force Base to complete a large
amount of government paperwork:
fingerprinting, security background