Where Are They Now?

“I’ve always just wanted to be with my wife, make a living, make friends and serve people,” says Jacky Boatright. And after six years in the Army and a decades-long career with local grocery stores, that’s exactly what he’s done.

Boatright graduated from Dublin High School in May of 1950. “That summer, I went to work for Mr. Joe B. Henderson at the Henderson Feed Company,” Boatright said. “I worked there for a year or two in the store, and then I started driving a truck for him. I drove a small truck and delivered feed to the dairymen in places around the country for about a year, and then he put me on a semi truck which I drove for four years.”

While working for Henderson, Boatright met his wife, Neva, through a coworker at the feed store. “He was dating a girl from Comanche and later married her, and Neva was his wife’s sister,” Boatright said.

The Boatrights married in 1953. In 1956, Boatright was drafted into the army, and served active duty for two years and another four in the reserves.

When he finished his active duty in 1958, Boatright returned to Dublin and started looking for work. “Mr. Henderson, the man that I worked for before I went to the Army, had bought a grocery store, and he offered me three options,” Boatright remembers. “I could work in the feed stores as his warehouse manager, I could have a truck driving job back, or I could go to work for him in the grocery store.”

Boatright didn’t want a warehouse job, and since he had been away from home for two years already in the Army, the isolation of life on the road didn’t appeal to him either; so he decided on the grocery store job.

“When I first went to work I was working as a checker and a stocker, and the man that was helping in the market was an older man, so he moved me to the market and told me he wanted me to learn how to operate the market because someday I might be needed,” Boatright said.

When the man retired, Boatright took over as manager of the market. “Working in the market was my favorite job,” he said. “What I was doing was helping people with their food situation, and I got to see and talk with the customers directly and made lots of friends — it was just a good place to work.”

Boatright worked in that same store for 34 years and 11 months. During those years, the store changed hands numerous times, from Mr Henderson, to the Food Fair franchise, to Save-On-Foods, to J.R.B., until eventually the owner at the time declared bankruptcy and the store shut down in the early 90s.

Boatright began to look for other work, and soon found a job at HEB in Stephenville. He started out as a meat cutter, but then hurt his leg and had to take some time off. When he came back, Boatright started in as a checker. He stayed a checker for five years before HEB opened their gas station, and he worked there for nearly 17 years until he retired.

Since his retirement, Boatright has enjoyed spending more time with his family. Boatright and his wife, Neva Boatright, were married for more than sixty years before she passed away in December of 2013. They have two children, Joe and Celinda Boatright. Joe has one daughter, Jessica Moore, who lives near Proctor with her three children.

Boatright now lives with his daughter Celinda, and his two of his granddaughters, Alexis and Caitlin Silva. “I don’t get to do nearly as much as I would have been doing had it not been for the pandemic, but I’ve been taken care of and enjoy life,” he said. “I’m looking forward to 88 years in November.”

Boatright grew up the youngest of 10 children. His parents were Walter and Emala Boatright. He enjoyed growing up in Dublin. “It’s a small town where everybody knows everybody,” he said. “You’ve got lots of friends — might have a few enemies, but very few — and it’s just a nice, quiet place to live, without all the hustle and bustle.”

As for Boatright’s greatest source of inspiration, “there’s two or three things I would say,” he said. “First of all, is my church and church family. That’s the good Lord taking care of us. Secondly is my wife; she was really an inspiration, she kept me straightened out. But the third one and one of the most important ones was my first employer, Mr. Joe B. Henderson. I graduated from high school with his oldest daughter, and when I got out of high school, I didn’t have any money to go to college or anything like that. I applied for a job with him that summer and went to work for him there at the feed store. He was more like a father to me than he was a boss, not only at work, but also in life.”

To future Dublin graduates, Boatright offers the following advice: “Find the Lord Jesus, and get involved in church,” he said. “I don’t mean just go into church on Sunday, but get involved in a church. Because the more you get involved with it, the more you work with it, the greater rewards come from doing so. Stay away from things that you don’t need to be involved in like alcohol and drugs, and if you can possibly go to get you a college education, take advantage of it.”

Editor’s Note: This column chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other graduates, email publisher@dublincitizen.com.