Doc 'roasted' on 80th birthday
....By Bill Whitaker
Doc Beazley spent the morning of his 80th birthday like many mornings
- shoveling up freshly laid "horse apples" and watching
somebody else ride off toward the horizon.
Only later in the day did Doc casually stroll into the surprise
birthday party Hardin-Simmons University officials slyly set for
him at the Johnson Business Building.
"I wish somebody had told me," Doc grumbled after being
fooled on his April Fools' Day birthday. "I could've dressed
better."
Doc, a veteran HSU administrator who's long overseen the university's
famed Six White Horse program, is due to receive his 45-year pin
during ceremonies later this year. But Monday afternoon it was
time for cake, the singing of "Happy Birthday" and,
yes, some embarrassing tales told by friends.
Former assistant Tim Webb, 28, now of New Mexico Baptist Children's
Home, recalled Doc's love of working outdoors, even at an age
when other men were sitting easy in retirement. Tim also recalled
all the hollering Doc did when he got a cockle burr stuck firmly
on the end of his nose.
Mignon Lawson, one of the young women who rode the Six White Horses
in the mid-1970s, merrily recalled the time Doc and the women
went off to a rodeo in Pecos and the riders politely asked if
they might go to a big rodeo dance afterward.
Doc's Socratic reply: "Do you think you should?"
The HSU riders obviously thought they should, despite the fact
HSU frowned on its students dancing. Not long after they went
to the dance, however, they saw Doc's compact silhouette at the
entrance of the dance hall and knew any further boot-scooting
was out of the question.
"And, oh, the lecture he gave us," Mignon recalled.
"I look at it this way, Doc," Mignon told Doc Monday
after recalling this story, "we were just blazing the trail
for Baylor!"
Although Doc has proven himself a born storyteller over the years
and even authored a series of children's books about the Six White
Horses and a memoir, plenty of others had stories to tell, including
Margaret Forrester, an HSU business office assistant who's known
Doc since 1963.
She recalled the time she and some church friends came into a
restaurant and saw Doc sitting patiently while wife Madge ate.
When Margaret asked why Doc wasn't eating, he explained he and
Madge had only "one set of false teeth between us, and I'm
waiting for her to finish with 'em."
Turned out Doc was actually waiting for his fish to arrive.
Also brimming with tales was Thomas Elementary coach Sharon Gray,
who spent 7-1/2 years living near the horse barn, caring for the
horses and "putting up with Doc" - just as she did Monday
when Doc brought the White Horses out for Thomas Elementary youths
to ride.
"We decided a long time ago our motto for Doc was, 'Hurry
up and wait,'" Sharon told me, "because, well, we were
always getting wherever we were going way too early. Doc was far
more than punctual. We got to the Albany Fandangle parade so early
he even brought a cot to nap on.
"He tried that in Sweetwater, too," she said, "so
we sneaked up on him and put all the horses' noses in his face!"
Sharon said the only time they were late to a parade was when
Doc climbed in the horse trailer with a troublesome mare and Sharon
drove to Eastland. It was only after Sharon looked in the mirror
and saw Doc waving his cap frantically that she realized they'd
gone past the Eastland exit.
"We usually lead most parades," Sharon told me, "but
that time we had to settle for being somewhere in the middle."
All jokes aside, Sharon insists she never would've torn herself
away from caring for the Six White Horses if it hadn't been for
Doc, who helped her finish at HSU and get a job teaching. Margaret
called Doc a "joy and delight" to everyone who meets
him. Mignon described him as having the strong influence of a
favorite grandfather.
For his part, Doc insisted Sharon's spirited tales were highly
suspect, owing to the time the horsewoman decided to ride "Cotton"
without a bridle. Seems Cotton went charging into the old horse
barn with such gusto that Sharon didn't have time to lower her
head.
She reportedly ended up in the dust - and, shortly thereafter,
in the hospital where doctors wanted to do a scan for what turned
out to be a fractured skull.
"Oh, don't do that," Doc remembered Sharon saying. "I'll
be so embarrassed if there isn't anything in there!"
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Copyright ©1996 or
1997, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps. Publications
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