Theil Shastid 1930-2018
Funeral services for Theil Dane Shastid, 87, of Edgewood, are scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 17, 2018, at Russell Memorial United Methodist Church in Wills Point. Services are under the direction of Hiett’s LyBrand Funeral Home. He passed away Feb. 11, 2018, at the VA Nursing Home in Bonham.
He was born Dec. 5, 1930, in Fort Smith, Ark., to the late Robert Lee Shastid and Nellie Grace Villines Shastid. He was the youngest of six children.
When he was three months old, his family moved to Houston. He was reared in the Methodist Church and his maternal grandfather was a Methodist Circuit preacher.
Following his graduation from Milby High School, he worked as a carman maintenance apprentice. It involved drafting and mechanical engineering training. He was in the United States Navy during the Korean Conflict.
He attended college on the GI bill and supplemented his income during these years by working for his brother’s furniture manufacturing company.
He attended the University of Houston and obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in 1955 and a Master of Education Degree in 1963.
He was awarded an NDEA Grant in reading at Sacramento State College in California and a Texas Congress of Parents and Teachers Career Teacher Scholarship Grant. He attended an Advanced Study Institute for Reading in 1965.
He taught in elementary schools from 1956 until 1965 and was an elementary school principal from 1965 until 1984.
During his years as principal, he aided in designing, staffing, and operating two new school buildings.
Additionally, he organized the first magnet school for the gifted in the Houston Independent School District.
In 1985, he served as attendance officer for the Spring Independent School District and increased attendance by over 44 percent.
He has taught fifth and sixth grades, art for third through eighth grades, Rocketry, civil defense, defensive driving, and Sunday school. He took flying lessons and completed his first solo flight in 1965.
He married Argie Marie McClellan June 5, 1953, in Houston. They are the proud parents of their children, Alan, Lee, and Landis. They moved to Edgewood in 1989 to make their home.
He is preceded in death by his parents, as well as five brothers and one sister.
He is survived by his wife, Marie Shastid, of Edgewood; sons, Alan Shastid and wife, Nancy, of Denton, and Lee Shastid and wife, Valerie, of Tyler; daughter, Landis Gurney and husband, Larry, of Plantersville; seven grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
Visitation will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday evening at Hiett’s LyBrand Funeral Home in Wills Point.
