A photo of my senior class picture was recently posted online but I wasn’t in it. I had dropped out of school the summer before senior year and gotten married when I was 17 because I was grown and moved out of the Delta. Fifty years later, I had friends swear I graduated with them, I was such a part of their group, we were always together.
There are people like that in our lives who seem to be such a constant unquestioned fixture, such as at our West Tallahatchie High School football games, that they are become all of ours. Like “Choctaw” Morrow. He showed up whenever there was any kind of ball in play. He belonged to the greater “us.”
I cried for a long time when Patty Bryant died, though I didn’t understand why. I never cry at my own family funerals, but I figured out that Patty was like everyone’s little sister.
Jane Jernberg, another childhood friend I grew up with, another sister, more pulling on my protective heartstrings. Another church filled with loved ones who felt the same way.
Last year, we attended another funeral of a dear friend who belonged to everyone, and not a day goes by that he isn’t spoken of or remembered. He was so friendly he made everyone feel like a special friend. Even states away, everyone loved Billy Ray Kent and he won’t be forgotten.
Then there is Ronald Shumate, George Ronald Shumate. No one called him Ronald, and no one probably even knew his given name. He had a nickname that sounded like sounds coming from his gravely voice. Let’s honor him by calling him Ronald here. From what I’ve barely pieced together, he was born around 1939, he lived in Webb, he was raised by a stepmother who took great care of him. He had a bicycle he rode everywhere in Tallahatchie County and he drank Coke. He was like Choctaw Morrow in that if a game was playing, he was there. He belonged to us all. Everyone has a story about him riding Greyhound buses all over, later getting a motorcycle from Kenny Brett, specially fixed to limit its speed.
When family died, he went to an assisted living home in Senatobia and later his brother Charles picked him up and moved him somewhere. He passed away without anyone knowing. I’m believing his brother has no idea how many people he belonged to, how many people would have put on a suit and tie and paid their last respects to remember and honor Ronald. I’m not sure any church would have held the crowd.
I haven’t been able to find an obituary, a place of death or any information. I just know we should remember him as Ronald Shumate and that he loved WTHS and Coke.
By the way, I have six grandchildren and three have special needs. One is in her second year as a teacher of special needs children and coach. Another is married to a man who is a special needs instructor and coach. I’ve raised wonderful children and they have raised wonderful children. If Ronald were around now and my granddaughter was teaching at WTHS, she would have made Ronald a special mascot.
