Athens ISD to Honor Three Alumni at Distinguished Induction Ceremony

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Athens ISD will be inducting three individuals Thursday night into the seventh class of AISD's distinguished alumni: Mark Wimberley, class of 1973; Donna Bullock, class of 1974; and, posthumously, Sam Fowler, Athens ISD Assistant Superintendent from 1976-1996.

The trio will be honored during a special event at the Athens Country Club.

Mark Wimberley

By Toni Garrard Clay/AISD Communications Coordinator

Mark Wimberely, an Athens High School graduate and missionary to Latvia, will be inducted Thursday into the Athens ISD Distinguished Alumni. Mark, who also served as principal at AHS, was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on February 1, 1955, to Helen and Karl Wimberley. He was one of three boys, following after brothers John and Danny.

When Mark was four, his family moved from Arlington to Athens, which was a homecoming of sorts, as his family has a deep legacy in Henderson County. Mark’s father, Karl, owned a gasoline service station in Athens for many years. His mother, Helen, helped keep the books and ran their home with love and good humor.

Mark describes his early years as that of a typical East Texas boy, with his interests turning increasingly toward sports as he entered high school. All four years at AHS he played basketball and ran track, and played football his freshman year. “I loved basketball the most,” he said. “Our coach, Jesse Walker, was a tremendous influence on a lot of us. … I don’t think I sat down at the time and thought, ‘Wow, I want to be a coach someday,’ but he certainly didn’t make that path look unappealing.”

In addition to being a solid athlete, Mark had a vibrant social life and was involved in many extracurriculars. His senior year, he was selected as class favorite and as Mr. AHS, the latter resulting from a vote by the entire student body.

After graduating Athens High School in 1973, Mark attended Henderson County Junior College (now Trinity Valley Community College) for two years. At Stephen F. Austin State University, he took a coaching class and majored in physical education and history. It was also there, in one of his very last classes, that he met his future wife, Laura.

Mark’s first job as a coach was at tiny Martinsville ISD in 1977. “I was hired on a Tuesday night and coached junior high basketball on a Thursday night,” he recalled. “I was the only coach in the entire district for both girls and boys.”

After successive moves to larger districts, Mark became the head basketball coach at Diboll High School, where he also taught history. His 1982 boys team went 32-3 and made it all the way to Austin for the Final Four before losing in overtime to the eventual state champions.

In 1985, Mark earned a master’s degree in educational administration from SFA, and in 1991 — after 10 years at Diboll — he took the head basketball coach position at Athens High School, where he also taught government and economics. In 1998, he became assistant principal at Athens High School and, the year after that, principal.

For three years, Mark held the helm at AHS. “A lot of it, I loved,” he said, “but my two younger sons were about to start eighth grade, and I wanted to coach them.” That desire led him to Athens Middle School to coach basketball and teach history. It also gave Mark, for the first time in many years, some significant time off.

In the summer of 2003, his family church, First Baptist Church of Athens, hosted a Christian-based sports camp in Cesis, Latvia. Because of his move to middle school, Mark was able to go. “We took coaches and student athletes from Athens over there, put on sports camps and looked for ways to share the love of God. … It was fantastic. From the time I got there until I left, I felt at home.”

That fall, Mark moved back to the classroom at Athens High School, where he happily taught history and government over the last four years of his academic career. His summers during that time were spent expanding evangelical outreach efforts in Latvia, where he visited people in their homes, built relationships with kids, and encouraged the small but faithful members of Cecis Baptist Church to grow their congregation.

“The second summer we were there, I took my two youngest sons with me, and there was a feeling that I could live there,” said Mark. “So I came home and told Laura I could see myself working with that church.” The following summer, Laura joined Mark in Latvia, and in May of 2007, they both retired from Athens ISD and moved to Cesis.

“In Latvia, there’s a lot of fear of churches and fear of going inside a church that is a holdover from the years of Russian occupation,” said Mark.

Despite the initial culture shock, good things began to happen. With a great deal of assistance from members of FBC Athens, the Wimberleys helped secure and renovate an old factory in a residential area of Cesis, becoming the first permanent house of worship for Cesis Baptist Church since 1938.

Working within their Latvian church, the Wimberleys helped start youth and community outreach programs, led a prison ministry, launched a chaplaincy program for professional basketball teams, and continue to mentor both youth and adults.

Today, Mark and Laura split their time between Latvia and Athens. They enjoy their ever-growing family — four sons, Andrew, Adam, Jacob and Jordan, and twelve grandchildren.

Mark will be inducted along with Donna Bullock, AHS class of 1974, and Sam Fowler, who served as assistant superintendent at AISD from 1976-1996.

Donna Bullock

By Elise Mullinix/Special Contributor

Film and Broadway star Donna Bullock will be inducted Thursday into the Athens ISD Distinguished Alumni. Bullock, a 1974 graduate of Athens High School, was born in Dallas, Texas, on Dec. 11, 1955, to Don and Shirley Bullock.

When Donna’s father grew weary of corporate life in Dallas, he and Shirley forged a new path for their family, which included younger brother, Charlie, and bought a piece of land that would become the first marina on Cedar Creek Lake: “Don’s Port Marina.”

Donna was bitten by the performance bug at a very early age. “Momma had a beautiful voice,” she said, “and she was my first voice teacher. My earliest memory ... I’m in diapers, I’m not 2 years old, and I am singing a song I had worked on with my mother called ‘Little Sally Water,’ where you turn one way and then another, and I never knew which way to turn first.”

Fast-forward a few years to elementary school and Donna had continued to hone her craft, progressing to school talent shows. She somehow scored her very first TV appearance in College Station, belting out “Hello, Dolly” and “King of the Road” as only a very confident 8-year-old could.

She attended Malakoff schools through her sophomore year of high school, playing sports because, “that’s where the group was,” and continuing to perform at any opportunity. When English teacher Mrs. Lois Stevenson started a drama club, Donna jumped at the chance to participate in UIL One Act Play competitions. “I thought I was great, but I didn’t win anything,” Donna said. After attending SFA drama camp the summer between her freshman and sophomore years, she gave One Act another try and won Best Actress.

In her junior year, the Bullocks moved to Athens, and Donna enrolled at Athens High School. Change can be hard for a teenager. “At first I would go home after school and throw myself on the bed and cry, but then I got nominated for homecoming queen — and I was fine,” she said with a laugh. “I fit right in with a group of really good kids. Athens was just a better fit for me. I found people I felt safe with.”

Athens High School had a speech class but no theater, so in addition to being a cheerleader, Donna enlisted her friends to create their own drama troupe. Then they started entering — and winning — competitions. Just months before graduating Athens High School in 1974, she was named Texas Junior Miss. “I didn’t even think about winning,” she said. “For me, it was just another place to perform — a place to get out there and do something, because there weren’t that many opportunities.”

It was during this time that Donna, Julie Owens and Kim Woodruff formed a singing trio called “Sunshine” and performed at different events around town.

Performing was always Donna’s big dream, but a trip to New York City in her senior year opened her eyes. “I saw ‘Pippin’ on Broadway and that sealed the deal,” she said. “I had only aspired to dinner theatre; but as soon as I saw that level of performance, I thought, ‘That’s it.’”

She came home with a new determination. While training for the national Junior Miss pageant, Donna was introduced to J.W. Johnson, a music professor at Tyler Junior College. Johnson became her mentor and helped her earn a full, two-year scholarship to TJC, where she flourished, performing in musicals and touring with “Harmony & Understanding,” the college’s elite choral group.

After graduating from TJC in 1976, she was accepted into the theater program at SMU. During her time there, she also performed at Dallas Rep, Theatre Three, and Casa Mañana in Fort Worth, as well as playing Bobby Ewing’s first secretary, Connie, in season one of the iconic TV series, “Dallas.”

After earning her BFA in Theatre from SMU in 1979, she moved to New York City to pursue what has become a prolific career in film, television and stage. Her numerous credits include leading roles on Broadway in “Ragtime,” “City of Angels,” and “A Class Act” as well as the first national tour of “Me and my Girl,” opposite Tim Curry. Donna also starred in the brief but critically acclaimed NBC drama, “Against the Grain,” as well as TV guest stars in “Frasier,” “Monk,” “Medium,” “Six Feet Under,” “Smallville” and “Touched by an Angel,” to name a few. In the movie, “Air Force One,” starring Harrison Ford, she played the president’s press secretary who dies at the hands of the film’s villain, played by Gary Oldman. She had the pleasure of appearing opposite her husband, actor Howard Sherman, playing Ophelia to his Hamlet and Beatrice to his Benedick.

After many years of living in New York and Los Angeles, Donna and her husband moved to the Berkshires in Sheffield, Massachusetts in 2017. They have a daughter, Hannah.

“I’ve had some magical experiences,” said Donna. “It’s been a crazy good life.”

Donna will be inducted along with Mark Wimberley, AHS class of 1973, and Sam Fowler, who served as assistant superintendent at AISD from 1976-1996.

Sam Fowler

By Toni Garrard Clay/AISD Communications Coordinator

Sam Fowler, who faithfully served as Athens ISD’s assistant superintendent for 20 years, is being inducted posthumously into the district’s Distinguished Alumni, as an outstanding longtime employee. Fowler served in that position at AISD from 1976 to 1996.

He was born July 6, 1935, in Grand Saline, Texas, to Foye and Faynelle Fowler. As a young man, Sam was heavily involved in both choir and band, which led him to Tyler Junior College, where he played saxophone during concert season and the bass drum during marching season. His performance on the drum was so outstanding that the director invited him on a band trip to Florida after Sam graduated from TJC.

“You’ve never seen anything like the way he would beat a drum, spinning and twirling the mallets,” said his wife, Pat, a former Apache Belle who met her future husband when they both went on a TJC-sponsored trip to Wisconsin.

The band was on one bus and the belles on another, but when they all stopped at a restaurant that had live music, Pat watched Sam dance. “I thought, ‘He’s the one for me,’” she recalled.

After TJC, they both enrolled at the University of North Texas and married in June of 1956, just before their senior year. Sam earned his degree in business administration, and went to work as an insurance salesman in Grand Saline.

“It was turkey one day and feathers the next,” said Pat. The insurance business wasn’t for him.

So it was a welcome development when the superintendent of Grand Saline ISD approached Sam in 1957 to see if he would be interested in teaching science and math at their high school, along with coaching tennis. “He’d never played tennis a day in his life, but the team did well,” recalled Pat with a laugh.

In addition to his work at the school, he also served as choir director at the Methodist Church in Grand Saline. It was music that led Sam to his next educational position. After leading the singing at a revival, he caught the attention of someone in Lindale who offered him the position of principal at an elementary-through-junior-high campus. Over his 14 years at Lindale, he rose to the position of assistant superintendent.

Then, in 1976, he was hired as assistant superintendent at Athens ISD, where he served continuously until his retirement in 1996.

“He was over the buses, the cafeteria, payroll; he was the business manager. They hired three people when he retired,” laughed Pat, who spent many years herself at AISD as an elementary teacher. “But it was a wonderful experience for him. He was a people person, always.”

With 20 years of service as assistant superintendent at Athens ISD, it’s natural to wonder if Sam ever had aspirations for the top chair, but Pat said it was never something he wanted. He enjoyed working behind the scenes and did the most good there.

“He came in as an outsider, and he won everyone over real quick,” recalled Athens ISD board member and former longtime district teacher Eugene Buford. “You didn’t hear anybody have a bad word to say about him. He was full of life and always in for a laugh.”

During his 39-year-career, Sam also earned a master's degree in education at East Texas State College, and continued to use his musical talents. During his early years, he sang regularly at weddings, revivals and funerals. He was a church choir director for 20 years, worked at a funeral home, and dedicated himself to several civic organizations, and two farms.

He and Patricia had three boys, Randy, Kevin and Todd. In June of 2020, Sam and Pat celebrated 65 years of marriage. He passed away on January 4, 2021, at the age of 85.

Also being inducted into AISD’s Distinguished Alumni are Mark Wimberley, AHS class of 1973, and Donna Bullock, AHS class of 1974.