To request a copy of this photo for your own personal use, please contact our state coordinator. If you are not a family member or the original photographer — please refrain from copying or distributing this photo to other websites.
Thank you for visiting the Texas Gravestone Photo Project. On this site you can upload gravestone photos, locate ancestors and perform genealogy research. If you have a relative buried in Texas, we encourage you to upload a digital image using our Submit a Photo page. Contributing to this genealogy archive helps family historians and genealogy researchers locate their relatives and complete their family tree.
Submitted: 11/10/21 • Approved: 11/10/21 • Last Updated: 11/13/21 • R467959-G467957-S3
Carroll
September 24, 1926-December 22, 2019
Vondell
December 30, 1930-March 2, 1994
*Photo/Information, courtesy of Edith Guynes Stanley
*Obituary Carroll
Carroll Killingsworth, 93, passed away on December 22, 2019. Memorial services will be at 1:00 P.M. on Friday, December 27, 2019 at the First Baptist Church of Shamrock with Mark Howard, pastor , officiating. Private interment will be in Wheeler Cemetery in Wheeler, Texas. The family will receive friends on Thursday, December 26, 2019 at Brooks Chapel in Canyon from 12:00 to 2:00 P.M. and from 5:00 to 7:00 P.M. at the First Baptist Church of Shamrock. T
he oldest son of Edward and Pauline Killingsworth was born on September 24th in Erick, Oklahoma. He spent his youth in Beckham and Wheeler counties raised on a farm during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. After graduating from Kelton High School and attending Wayland College, he returned to the Panhandle. While teaching at Briscoe, he met Vondell Starkey, a Wheeler graduate, and the two were married on November 20, 1951. They had 3 children, Russell (1957), Tonya (1960), and Michelle (1964).
He started his teaching career at the age of 17 in Kelton in 1944 during the war. Teaching in the fall and spring semesters and keeping up his studies in the summers, he graduated from Wayland College in Plainview with a degree in Education in 1949. And later in 1954, he graduated with a master’s degree from West Texas State College in Canyon. He also held a counselor’s and administrator’s certification. Affectionately known as “Mr. K.”, Carroll taught and served in numerous school districts in the Texas Panhandle including Briscoe, Wheeler, Plainview, Happy, Canyon, Shamrock, and Amarillo College as well as Sweetwater, Oklahoma as a teacher, theater director, coach, counselor, and principal. The numerous former students throughout the years include 11 family members: siblings, cousins, children, and grandchildren. All the world was truly a stage as he devoted most of his career in education to the fine arts directing plays and musicals, namely his memorable production of “Godspell” for sunrise service on Easter Sunday in Palo Duro Canyon in 1979. Mr. K. had such a devotion to teaching and a passion for kids that he could never truly leave the profession; he retired twice before finally closing the curtain on a 65+ year career in education in 2012. Carroll was a devoted fan of his beloved Wayland Flying Queens basketball team and an avid reader of Shakespeare, and he truly embodied the words of George Bernard Shaw: “I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.”
He is preceded in death by his parents, wife, and daughter, Tonya. He is survived by siblings Kenneth and his wife Koleen Killingsworth of Shamrock, Jerry Killingsworth of Wheeler, and Paula and her husband Marvin Welty of Hereford; son Russell and his wife Cara Killingsworth of Shamrock, and daughter Michell Killingsworth of Willis; grandchildren Lindsey Killingsworth of College Station, Leslie Montgomery of Stephenville, Anna Eban of Amarillo, Abby Walker of League City, David Bishop of Chicago, Daniel Bishop of Canyon, and Dawson Killingsworth of Willis; two great-grandsons and numerous nieces and nephews.
Source: brooksfuneral.com
*Vondell
Texas Death Index, 1903-2000
Name: Glennis Killingsworth
Death Date: 2 Mar 1994
Death County: Potter
Gender: Female
Contributed on 11/10/21
Suggest a Correction
Record #: 467959