April 10, 2017 - Pam and I loaded up our cameras and my swivel chair last night and headed again to the 2017 San Augustine Junior Livestock Show. It was our 25th consecutive year to photograph this fun advent…an event that’s always full of surprises. As Darrenn and Kim Fountain were testing the auctioneer’s mike, I heard someone say, “Hi, Brother Doug” and when I looked up, I saw it was one of my long-time friends, Lattie Hunter. After our brief visit, she and her grandchildren took their place at her usual table.
Before the auction began, Charles Boyette expressed San Augustine’s appreciation for the many years of service that Tommy Hunter and Lavon Tindall had given to the Junior Livestock Show. And after his kind remarks, he closed with a prayer for both families.
Seeing Lattie last night opened up a host of memories dating back to 1957 when I was a college student and pastor of the Liberty Hill Baptist Church in San Augustine. She was a teenager then and I soon got to know her Peavy relatives, her friends, her parents, and her grandparents, Bill and Pearl Stringer. The Vacation Bible Schools, church dinners- on -the ground (in the pic) and the baptismal services at Bland Lake are among the best of my life’s memories.
It’s been good to be back in East Texas these past 26 years and see friends like Lattie again. And she still lets me call her “Lattie Marie.”
