Guest Speaker Series: Mr. G.W. Neal

By Adrian Price

G.W. Neal is president of the NISD School Board and a retired long-time employee of the school district. He spoke to Journalism students at NHS this week as part of an oral history project and shared his life story.

Born in 1951, Mr. Neal is married and has two daughters. When he was younger schools were segregated. He went to an all-black elementary school in Central Heights. It was a two-room school house, and on the first day of school students brought two erasers with them. They used those erasers, because they didn’t get new books. They had hand-me-down books, and they had to use the erasers to erase all the writing out of the books.

In 1964, the schools became integrated, and Mr. Neal’s two-room school house shut down.

“We finally had an equal playing field,” he said.

Mr. Neal was going into the ninth grade when integration happened. He said no one knew what to expect, but it was the best experience and he made the best friends who he is still in contact with to this day.

Mr. Neal said he didn’t always care about school, but his parents and teachers encouraged him to do his best. His mother had only attended school through the sixth grade, and his dad had never learned to read or write. It was important to them for their son to receive the best education possible.

In 10th grade, Mr. Neal said one of his teachers in high school told him he could do better. So, he tried harder, and he made his first B.

“It felt amazing,” he said. “I decided to study more and to keep trying and learning.”

One day one of Mr. Neal’s teachers told him he thought he should go to college. This was something that had never occurred to him as he had thought he would work in a blue-collar job. When the teacher told him that he was smart, respectful and perfectly capable of graduating from college, he began to strongly consider it.

Mr. Neal attended a basketball game at Shelton Gym on the SFA campus, and he saw college students who looked like him. He decided to go to SFA. His first semester, he took English I and Health. He made friends, studied and applied himself.

After graduating he planned to move away from Nacogdoches. However, his parents encouraged him to find a job and stay for one year to save some money. He had his first job interview at Nacogdoches ISD, was hired, and the rest is history.  He worked for the district for more than 40 years. He student-taught at Nettie Marshall, and then taught fifth grade at Fredonia Elementary. He was an assistant principal at Raguet, and eventually he went to central office to work in Human Resources. He loved recruiting teachers and principals for NISD, and he went all over the state and even out of the state to find the best people possible.

Neal had two daughters who went to NHS. One graduated from Texas A&M and then received a master’s and doctorate from TWU, and the other graduated with a degree and a master’s from UNT.

He said mentors and others along the way encouraged him and his children.

Mr. Neal currently has a goal to see more students and young people succeed, and that is why he serves on the school board, as a member of the Concerned Black Men, and volunteers his time with the Barbershop Reading Program and Leadership Summit. The reading program is where men read high interest books to younger boys at the barbershop while they wait to get a haircut. The Leadership Summit is held annually for 8th grade boys to encourage them and motivate them.

Mr. Neal offered advice to the journalism students.

“Prepare yourself, so you have choices,” he said.

For fun, when he was young, Mr. Neal played outside because there were no electronics when he was growing up. One of his favorite sports was playing softball. He thought it was fun, because they used Mr. rolled up socks for a ball. Mr. Neal was into sports, and he still likes sports. If he hadn’t become an educator, he said he might have become a welder, because that seemed interesting to him.

“To this day I have a goal,” he said. “And that is to see more students and young people succeed.”

Mr. Neal said, “Always be the best you can be. Apply yourself. Always be prepared. The sky is the limit. Don’t be afraid to reach for it.”