BIDDING A FRIEND GOODBYE

Shirley Ann Craigen West

1940-2013

Drove to Brownwood yesterday to say goodbye to Shirley West. She died on Sunday after a long stay in the hospital following surgery. Shirley had lived in Brownwood for 50 years, moving there with her husband, Kenneth, who was on the "Gordon Wood Coaching Staff." Listening to Richard Hetzel and Dallas Huston talking about her many talents and virtues, I reminisced about our years in Brownwood where football was king and you knew that in the fall when every Friday Night was spent going to a game, eating the peanuts that Homer and Guy Nell West (no relation) brought from their peanut farm, cheering on the home team, the band, the drill team.  Sometimes I wished that these things were not so important, but they were. Enjoying the excitement,  a winning team and the camaraderie of the community was a way of life there in the 70s. 

Shirley epitomized all of that. Her door was open to all. She feed, housed, loved all of those big, and not so big boys who played for the home team and all of us who made up the BISD family. Although it has been almost 30 years since I moved from there, I still felt something of that spirit, Shirley's spirit of love and caring, as her life was honored by those who love her dearly.

"Well, done, thou good and faithful servant. And she entered into the joy of her Lord."