Friday, Jul. 25, 2008

Reflections of a 95-Year-Old Former Lewisville Teacher

By Linda Taylor

Contributing Writer

When 95-year-old Justin resident Chester Boyd first began teaching at Lewisville High School in the early ’40s, Lewisville had a population of 843. That’s a far cry from the nearly 80,000 that the town now lists as its population.

At the time, Lewisville was a small farming community. The football team was called, appropriately enough, The Fighting Farmers.

"I taught at Lewisville High School for 30 years," Boyd said. "I did some coaching along with teaching Ag. At that time, agriculture was the biggest industry in the area."

Although he has been retired for more than 30 years, Boyd still receives phones calls, visits and cards from former students, said his daughter, Jan Bailey.

"The students loved him because he cared about them and cared about what he was teaching," Bailey said.

One of the highlights of the school year for both Boyd and the students was the summer trip he took some of the students on each year. He would take a school bus and take about 20 boys on a senior trip, traveling through the country, camping out at night and cooking meals over an open fire.

"You can’t do something like that these days," Boyd said. "One year I took the senior boys to Washington, D.C., for a week. They enjoyed it and so did I."

During his long career with the Lewisville ISD, Boyd saw a lot of changes. The town changed from a small farming community to a growing suburban area during his 30 years with the district.

"When I first started teaching, my classes were all boys," Boyd said. "The last year I taught I had two girls in the class. They both raised show calves."

Each year, Boyd took students who to the Denton County Fair to show their animals.

"Some of them did pretty well ," he said. "We went to the State Fair in Dallas one time and didn’t fare as well. That was a much bigger fair and the competition was stiffer."

Boyd was born near Hughes Springs in East Texas. When his family was young, he and his brothers built a house at Caddo Lake, near Jefferson.

"I remember when I was younger, we spent a lot of our time down there. He knew everyone," Bailey said.

A few years back, Lewisville ISD named a building in Boyd’s honor, The Chester Boyd Agricultural Center. There is also a Chester Boyd Honorary Scholarship given each year to a student who shows outstanding service and leadership.