Photo credit: Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel
It’s no surprise G.W. Neal is as strong a supporter of public education as you’re likely to find. After all, he devoted his career to education… spending every minute of it right here in Nacogdoches.
It’s also why he was ready and willing to join the founding board of directors for Nacogdoches ISD Education Foundation.
“Mr. Neal was an obvious choice to be a part of our initial group of directors,” said NEF’s Executive Director Erin Windham. “He was so gracious and eager to serve and help, and having Mr. Neal as part of anything lends instant credibility to what you’re doing.”
For his part, Neal has experienced firsthand the impact education had on decades of Nacogdoches students. For that matter, he will declare the positive influence in his own life.
“Education is so important to the community,” Neal said. “We want kids to have an opportunity to be successful. I truly believe if we can raise their expectations, saying to them, ‘You can do better.
“All kids need that opportunity, and that’s public education.”
Neal grew up in Central Heights – more accurately, the Redland area located a bit farther to the north – and graduated from the high school there in 1969. Neal began his educational journey attending classes at the Black school in Redland, which was a part of Central Heights ISD. In 1963, Central Heights desegregated, right about the time Neal was entering junior high.
When it comes to teachers influencing his career, Neal eagerly talks about Charlene Crocker and the impact she had on his progress at Central Heights. Neal had submitted an assignment to Crocker who promptly returned it, saying “I’m not going to accept this work, it’s unacceptable. You’re going to stay and get it right.”
That interaction, Neal said, guided him onto a better path.
“She challenged me,” he said. “She challenged me to do my best work. I made a B, and thought, ‘This feels pretty good.’”
Succeeding at school was not subject to debate in the Neal family. “There was an expectation level,” he said. “We had two of the best parents.
“You go to school, you learn. We knew what would happen if we misbehaved. We knew education was the way to go.”
While Neal was at Central Heights, he watched Nacogdoches closely. “I wanted so badly to go to E.J. Campbell,” he said.
After high school, Neal enrolled at Stephen F. Austin State University. “I was so happy to go to that school.”
It wasn’t just teachers in school providing guidance. While a senior in high school, Neal worked at a feed store in Nacogdoches driving a truck. He thought it was something he wanted to do… but one of Neal’s coworkers, someone older than him, thought otherwise. “‘You can do better than this,’” he told me. “‘You can do better than I am; you go to school.’
“There were just people along the way.”
But money for tuition was still needed, so Neal took the civil service exam and got a job at the post office in Nacogdoches. It worked perfectly. The post office hired Neal and would make his work schedule mesh with classes at SFA. He also had to keep his grades up.
Neal graduated in three years from SFA, got his degree in education and was prepared to head to the big city for the next step. His parents made a convincing argument to try one year teaching in Nacogdoches.
So he did. After completing his student teaching at Nettie Marshall Elementary (under principal Jimmy Partin, no less) Neal graduated from SFA in three years and went to work for Nacogdoches ISD as a classroom teacher at Fredonia Elementary. “You couldn’t imagine how excited I was,” he said. “And I knew everything!”
Turns out, teaching fifth-grade at Fredonia was a learning experience all its own. “That was a hard year,” Neal said with a grin. He credited the “wonderful, wonderful teachers” at Fredonia for guiding him through to the last day of school. “That’s what young teachers need today,” he said.
In the classroom, Neal expanded the lessons beyond a textbook. Using his own money, Neal purchased supplies for students to conduct science experiments. They loved it.
“Everything was hands-on in my class,” Neal said. “Those kids would come down there, they’d see me and say, ‘Mr. Neal, what are we going to do today? We can’t wait to get to your class.’ And we just had the best time learning.”
After three years at Fredonia, Neal was asked to be an assistant principal at Raguet Elementary across town. He worked under Dr. John Thornton who had been brought in from SFA to oversee the campus. Neal also met his wife that year.
(Funny story, Neal likes to stay. The first day Maylene Neal arrived on campus as a new teacher, Neal made a less-than-flattering comment about her car. She quickly set him straight, Neal said, and he knew he had some ground to make up where Ms. Neal was concerned. By Christmas break, the two had married, requiring a phone call to Dr. John Thornton, the principal.)
And after a year as an assistant under Thornton’s tutelage, Neal – at age 27 – was promoted to principal of the campus. Though he had been on campus for a year as an assistant, Neal knew some work was required to win over the entire staff.
“I knew that first staff meeting was going to be critical for me,” he said.
During that year as an assistant, Neal had already established relationships with some of the staff. At one point during the meeting, one of those teachers leaned back and said, “Mr. Neal said we’re going to do it, and we’re going to do it.”
Neal spent 10 years as principal at Raguet, then it was on to the central office.
Neal emphasized the importance of classroom management skills for teachers – then and today. It was something he benefited greatly from but still had to learn during those early years teaching fifth-graders at Fredonia.
“Day 1 is the most vital day,” he said. “That’s when you establish the culture of the class. You create that mindset, ‘that you will be successful.’”
As an administrator Neal spent 19 years running the human resources department at NISD. He was also active in the community, volunteering his time with United Way, Kiwanis, the chamber of commerce as well as being instrumental in establishing the Nacogdoches chapter of Concerned Black Men.
Neal was a volunteer on the library board in Nacogdoches, part of he and his wife’s lifelong love of reading, something they passed along to their children. As a consequence, Concerned Black Men placed children’s books in barbershops where youngsters waiting for a haircut could look and read. Those students – and future students – were encouraged to carry the books home, Neal said.
Neal retired in 2013 after 41 years with Nacogdoches ISD. Four years later, in 2017, Neal was back in the school business after running for and being elected to the District 2 seat on the NISD Board of Trustees.
“I wouldn’t change anything,” Neal said.