As San Angelo prepares to gather in remembrance of Carol Santry, The Concho Observer offers this look back at the public life of a most remarkable woman.
In an era where most women’s name appeared only a handful of times in the local newspaper, her name appeared in the local newspaper an astounding 527 times — 530 if you count the times they accidentally misspelled her name.
Carol McKissack Santry was a doer by nature, and her life is very well catalogued in the news, thanks to the happenstance of her living in San Angelo, where the newspapers reported things like youth sports and even birthday parties.
We first find her name mentioned as once of the attendees at Brenda Boatler’s birthday party in the front yard of the Boatler home on West Avenue L in July 1948.
She had moved to town with her parents the year before, from Corsicana, and already was active at First Methodist and in scouting.
The following year, her name is mentioned at another birthday celebration, this time in March, at the home of honoree Patty Stifel, who lived on Rio Grande Street.
In 1951, her name is mentioned three times.
On April 1, she was named as the treasurer of Brownie Troop No. 34, in a short news item that noted her mother was an assistant troop leader.
And then for her first piano recital, where she played “Dolly’s Birthday Waltz,” in the Crystal Ballroom of the Hotel Cactus May 28.
As she progressed from elementary school to junior high, her participation in a wide array of activities can be seen, and her name turns up a few times every year except 1955.
The number begins to increase sharply in her freshman year; Carol McKissack made the paper 96 times in her high school career, as she became a leader in music, scouting, Spanish club and other interesting things.
From collecting donations for UNICEF, to volunteering, it was no surprise that she was named “friendliest girl” at Central during her senior year.
After graduation, she attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Education in 1963, and met her future husband.
In 1966, she was married and her name changed to Carol Santry, or as things were often styled in those days, Mrs. I.W. Santry III.
Her name appears as Mrs. I.W. Santry 37 times, including an important interview she gave to Le Kilgore in 1972, about learning to readapt to the world as a mostly-blind person.
The story relates how Santry began to lose her central vision beginning in 1970, due to an inherited condition her father also suffered from.
Kilgore notes that Santry has always been active, listing community theater, political campaigns and Sunday school among the many things that kept her busy.
And, that she had made a plan to stay involved.
Santry said that she had taken to walking to the local market instead of driving, and was busy working to learn Braille while some of her vision remained.
She said she would continue to lead active life.
She worked extensively with Angelo Civic Theater, and said she’d be helping out there “as long as I can swing a mop or a broom,” noting that it “may not be the most glamourous thing, but it is part of theater work.”
“I will not sit in a rocking chair. And I will maintain my autonomy, my independence to the absolute limits of my abilities.
“I’m lucky to have had sight as long as I did,” she added.
Over the next several years, Santry got even more involved in her community.
Whether it was with the theater, doing sing-alongs at the library or teaching camp songs to new scouts, she just wasn’t one to be idle for long.
In a 1980 article about Girl Scouts learning about the frontier at Fort Concho, the writer relates how Santry, dressed up in period costume, sat atop the piano, where she would get girls to call out names to her, which she quickly worked into a song.
Later that year, she was featured in the December-January issue of Girl Scout Leader” magazine, a national publication, where she spoke about her own scouting experience and ways she kept blindness from slowing her down.
In those days, she was also busy helping to organize the Friends of the Library Sale, and playing in the Fort Concho Frontier Band, in addition to working as a cook at the Lighthouse for the Blind.
When she wanted to return to teaching Spanish, she got someone to read the text book aloud on cassette tapes so she could memorize it.
But that took a little time. In the interim, she went into broadcasting, working as a disk jockey at KQSA-FM radio in downtown San Angelo, and KBIL.
But by 1984, she had learned her textbook, and her way around the Central High School campus for a second time, now staying busy in Room 3 of Newton Hall teaching Spanish.
She didn’t mince words with the reporter who interviewed her in November of that year, telling him “enough has been said about [my] blindness; I never used blindness as an excuse, and I won’t start now.”
Santry also said that it had taken her two years to get hired on in San Angelo, despite her experience, noting that it was very hard for blind people to get jobs.
Central High Principal Skip Casey called her a “great motivator” and praised her for her natural way with the students.
She began to accept speaking engagements, and was welcomed by many groups, where she delivered motivational messages like “Learning, Living and Loving,” and brought public awareness to important issues, such as human trafficking.
Not long after her official retirement in the mid-1990s, she continued teaching Spanish, and served as an unofficial ambassador of Mexican culture, having travelled to that country several times in her life. She believed immersion in a culture helped students learn the language better.
She participated in mission trips to Costa Rica and volunteered regularly at the local soup kitchen, and West Texas Rehab Camp.
Her name also turns up regularly as a donor for the Stock Show, in support of political candidates, and several civic projects.
She occassionally brought the Sunday message to Methodist churches in the area, or to the Christian Breakfast Fellowship.
She was honored as a Volunteer Angel by the San Angelo Schools Foundation in 2003, and again as a Woman of Distinction by The Girl Scouts in 2017.
Being interviewed ahead of that award, Santry said “It’s a well-known saying, but it’s so true that, ‘They don’t care how much you know, but they know how much you care.’
“I love kids, I love teaching, and I love learning; I guess you can say I get pumped up on people.”
This year, The San Angelo Hispanic Heritage Museum & Cultural Center honors her memory by presenting the Carol Santry Hispanic Educator Award to Joe Gándar, principal of Lincoln Middle School.
A celebration of Ms. Santry’s life will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20 at First Methodist Church in San Angelo, 37 E. Beauregard Ave.
