Where Are They Now?

Dublin High School graduate Ona Pruitt and her husband John are always on the lookout for a new adventure. Throughout their lives together, this desire for excitement has led them down interesting paths — living in a new state, starting an ostrich farm, and running a bed and breakfast, to name a few. “We always want to do something different,” she said.

Pruitt graduated from Dublin High School in 1964. She married her high school sweetheart, John Pruitt from DeLeon, the next year, and soon after had a son, Douglas. The family stayed in the Dublin area for three years, then moved to Mineral Wells, then Dallas, following Pruitt’s husband’s job working on helicopters.

Pruitt stayed home to take care of Douglas until he was in the first grade. When she finally had time to work, the family was living in Dallas. Pruitt went to secretary school and took a job working as a bookkeeper for a bank. Her job was to verify the signature on the back of each check that came in, to make sure it was valid to be cashed or deposited.

Next she worked at another financial institute as the receptionist, then as a secretary for a computer company called International Computers Ltd. At that job she worked her way up to the position of executive secretary for the vice president of the company.

In 1975, Pruitt and her husband moved to Wisconsin, where she worked as a switchboard operator for another bank.

When the family moved back to Texas five years later to the Southlake/ Grapevine area, Pruitt and her husband wanted to try something new, so they began raising ostriches.

“It was just the thing to do back in the early 90s,” Pruitt said. It was very profitable. There was leather for boots and purses and things like that, and there were several restaurants in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area that were serving ostrich meat.”

Soon the ostrich business got too large for their yard in Grapevine — “We had three breeding pairs and up to 250 baby chicks at one time,” Pruitt said — so in 1994 the Pruitt’s bought some acreage outside of Granbury. “We wanted to move back toward Dublin and DeLeon, but we stopped at Granbury,” she said.

Pruitt took on a job there at the Granbury Convention and Visitors Bureau, then another as a business manager for the Granbury Opera House. She devoted her time off to the ostriches. The Pruitts would sell the chicks and the eggs, and also made piggy banks out of painted egg shells which they called “nest eggs.”

They continued raising ostriches until the early 2000s, then embarked on their next venture: running a bed and breakfast on their land in Granbury.

“My husband can construct and build anything,” Pruitt said. “He built our house, then disassembled a log house and put it back together on our property. That was in 2003, and we opened it up as a rental in 2005.”

Her husband also built a house from straw bales, and the Pruitts rent out the buildings through their business, Texas Heritage Cabins. “It’s a full-time job,” Pruitt said. “I currently do the reservations online, and take phone calls to book reservations. The way things are here in Granbury with the tourism, we keep it rented almost every weekend. We do have some weekday reservations, and during spring break, it’s full with families.”

Her husband and son help out with the day-to-day operations, keeping the cabins clean and ready for guests. “It’s a family venture,” she said.

The Pruitts’ son Douglas, his wife Marci and their son Payton live on the Granbury property as well. While the Pruitts don’t have ostriches anymore, they do have horses and longhorns. “We call them our big pets,” Pruitt said.

When she’s not busy with the bed & breakfast, Pruitt enjoys reading. “I read a lot of mystery and sci-fi — things that are not real,” she said.

She and her husband are also active in the Acton United Methodist Church, and Pruitt has stayed involved with the opera in Granbury, serving on the Granbury Opera Guild and helping raise funds to support the opera house.

Throughout her life, Pruitt has drawn inspiration from her mother, Ola Mae Champion. “My mom would always tell us to run with the right people and stay true to ourselves,” Pruitt said. “She was the one that kept us going in the right direction.”

Pruitt’s advice to Dublin graduates is to get a good education. “That’s the most important thing,” she said. “Without education it’s hard to get by out there in the world unless you are really determined to do one specific thing with your life. Other than that, just try and have fun.”

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