Jack Earl Sheppard

Jack Earl Sheppard of Woodway passed away Monday night, January 4, 2021, at Providence Hospital. A graveside service will be 2:00 p.m., Thursday, January 7, at Oakwood Cemetery with Danny Mulkey, associate pastor of Antioch Community Church, officiating the service. Visitation will be at 1:30 p.m., at Oakwood, prior to the service. Jack was born February 22, 1935, at Rosebud, Texas, and grew up with his adoptive parents, Arvin B. Sheppard and Edna Cecile Sheppard, in the Turnersville community. He graduated as the valedictorian of his senior class in 1953. At Turnersville High School he participated in basketball and football. He also sang in the gospel quartets. After graduation he attended Tarleton Junior College for two years. While there he was in the R.O.T.C. program. He then transferred to Sam Houston State Teachers College, now Sam Houston State University. He continued in the R.O.T.C. there and upon graduation was awarded his 2nd Lieutenant Commission in the U.S. Army along with a B.S. degree in Education. While attending Sam Houston, he met his wife, Onetia Skelton. In August of 1957 they married in Lufkin, Texas, and both began teaching careers at Chester High School, where he taught science classes and coached football as well as boys and girls basketball. Then he coached and taught at Tarkington High School for two years. Their daughter, Londa, was born in 1960 at Cleveland where they lived. That summer he and his family moved to Waco, where he coached varsity boys basketball and football at LaVega High School. He also taught chemistry, physics and biology while obtaining certification in becoming a supervisor and counselor at that school. In 1966 their son, Brad, was born in Waco. Jack received a master’s degree in education from Sam Houston State University in 1969. He worked at Region XII Education Service Center as an educational consultant for a number of years before he became the Assistant Superintendent at Mexia High School before retiring. He also obtained his Principal and Superintendent certifications. After retirement he had a business selling educational software to schools throughout the state of Texas. He started Jack Sheppard Photography and took many sports pictures, wedding pictures and family portraits. Jack and his family became members of Woodway First Baptist Church in 1972 when they moved to Woodway, and for several years he taught adult men's Sunday School classes. He was an active member there until he began to have health issues. Jack was a proud member of the Gideons and loved giving and sharing a Gideon Bible with anyone. He also was a Mason and a member of Herring Lodge #1224 in Waco, and a lifetime member of TSTA/NEA. He was a devoted family man who loved his family and was so proud of his children and their spouses, grandsons and their wives, great grandsons and a great granddaughter. Jack and his family enjoyed the outdoors. Their activities were camping, fishing and boating activities, and playing golf. He was preceded in death by his parents. Survivors are Onetia, his wife of 63 years; daughter, Londa Carlisle and her husband, Dale, of The Woodlands; son, Brad Sheppard and his wife, Diane, of Pilot Point; grandsons, Blake Carlisle and wife, Jennifer, of Arlington, Lance Carlisle and wife, Lauren, of Magnolia, Samuel Sheppard and Mason Sheppard, both students at Texas A & M University; great grandsons, Jackson and Sterling Carlisle of Arlington; and great granddaughter, Whitten of Magnolia. Honorary pallbearers are all Gideons in the Waco Camp, P. 0. 721, Waco, TX 76703. Memorials may be given to the Gideons International. The family invites you to leave a message or memory on our “Tribute Wall” at www.WHBfamily.com.