Photos by Kelly Sue Photography
One of Kix’s greatest lifetime accomplishments was the 33 years he spent educating Conroe’s schoolchildren. He taught for 22 years and was the principal of Anderson Elementary School for 11 years before retiring in 1989. Kix was a lieutenant governor in the Conroe Friendly City Kiwanis Club and has been an elder at Conroe Church of Christ for 43 years. He is now an elder emeritus. “That means you can come to the meetings, but you can’t vote,” he says.
Lamp recently gave the Postcards team a rare peek into yesteryear, during World War II and through the years when Conroe was a small town.
What are some of your childhood memories?
My big year was 1936. They built the courthouse that year. Big things were going on. That was the Texas Centennial. I became a Boy Scout—Troop 143. It is still in existence. You had to be 12 years old to be a boy scout. When somebody got lost, they called the scouts out.
Do you remember the bombing of Pearl Harbor?
As soon as they announced war, we all started getting drafted. Instead of getting drafted, several of us went down to Houston and took a test and volunteered so we could get in the air corps. I had never even seen a plane. We were lucky to have Mr. Conroe. He was in WWI. He came to the high school and taught boys how to march, do calisthenics, and carry a rifle. He even made wooden rifles for us to practice with. That helped us out later on. In fact, I was made one of the leaders because I knew all that.
Tell us about your wartime military service.
The first place I went was Wichita Falls. It was hot and dry. We would be marching out in the middle of the desert. They would have water, but we would stop for a drink, and they would push us off. They were trying to dry us up to show us that we didn’t need as much water.
It was a long time before we even saw an airplane. It took three years to go through everything. This is something that other pilots didn’t do. Right away, we took college classes at Oklahoma Baptist University. After that, we went to Kelly Field in San Antonio. We took all sorts of tests, and I was about to give up. I was afraid it was too much for me. If men didn’t pass, they came out with their heads down. When I went up there, they told me I qualified for pilot, navigator, all of them, but they said, “We suggest you be a pilot.” We were hoping to go somewhere else after that, but we went right across the street to the San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center for more bookwork. Then we were flying at last. We went to Fort Worth to fly the PT-19, and I soloed there. Then we went to Greenville, Texas to fly the BT-13, and to Eagle Pass to fly the AT-6. We went to Victoria and flew the P-40. While we were there, we went to Matagorda Island for ground gunnery. We got our wings at Victoria.
Do you have any special memories?
Back then, we only had radios. The people who were entertaining the army were putting on a show, and they wanted to know if there was anybody in our group who could do something. A bunch of us got together. We would sing and play, four of us. We said we would give it a try. They announced us as the official air corps quartet. There had never been one before, so we were the official one. We became famous overnight!
After the war, did you think about being a civilian pilot?
Yes, and about 10,000 others did, too. The next semester, I went right into school at Sam Houston. That was one blessing Papa got to see. He thought I was the dumbest one. I graduated in 1950 with a master’s degree in general education. I was the only one in the family who went to college. After I got out of Sam Houston, I worked for four or five years at Cook’s Frigidaire. The big thing then was television, and we put up antennas and stuff.
How did you get into education?
I started teaching in 1956. There were so many who wanted to be teachers. Mr. Wilkerson was superintendent at that time, and he hired the teachers. He said, “Well, Lamp, I’ve got this little freshman speech class.” I told him I’d never taken speech, and he said, “You’ve got the book, haven’t you?” I had two years of that and loved it. I finally got to eighth grade math and stayed the rest of the time there until I got to be principal. Junior high was probably nothing like now; it was quiet, and kids were well-disciplined.
What makes a good teacher?
They have to love kids, love their job, and be in charge.
How did you meet your wife?
Her mother came up to Cook’s Frigidaire to buy a deep freeze, but she didn’t buy one. I was working on commission at that time, so I went to see her to see if she was interested in something. I ended up at her house, and she told me she remembered when I was a baby. Then Bobbie got off the school bus. We got married when she got out of high school.
What are you most proud of?
One time, I was taking a blind cockpit test, and it was raining bad. The people at the field said we couldn’t land there, but we were running out of gas. The guy who was testing me said, “If you can get us down, you will pass this test.” I have never seen anything like it, before or after. Lightning was going up and down the wings on my plane, spinning around the propeller. You couldn’t even see the field, but there was a landing system on that plane, and I hit it right on the money.
What is the secret to your longevity?
I’m trying to stay up with Bobbie. I try to walk every morning. I call it a “Lamp’s mile.” It’s really 8/10ths of a mile, but if you count all the potholes, it’s a mile.