For generations of Hull-Daisetta High School graduates, the Golden Oldies reunion has been a chance to come home, find familiar faces and remember the school years they shared. This year, the gathering carried a little more history than usual.
The annual Hull-Daisetta Golden Oldies reunion, held Sept. 4, celebrated the 100th anniversary of Hull-Daisetta ISD while also marking a first for Daisetta. Aside from its recent grand opening, the reunion was the inaugural event held at the new Daisetta Community Center next to Daisetta City Hall.
The celebration brought generations of Bobcats together under one roof, with alumni visiting over brunch, the Hull-Daisetta Bobcat Band performing and the Class of 1976 being inducted into the Golden Oldies as its members reached the 50-year anniversary of their graduation.
Charles Kaemmerling served as the primary emcee for a program that included school history, scholarships, remembrances and recognition of people who have helped shape Hull-Daisetta through the years.
Hull-Daisetta ISD Superintendent Tim Bartram told the alumni that the Golden Oldies reunion is one of his favorite events because it allows him to look around the room and imagine today’s students returning decades from now with the same friendships and memories.
“They love each other, they communicate, they just have lots of fun,” Bartram said of the Golden Oldies.
For Bartram, that enduring connection says something about Hull-Daisetta that cannot necessarily be found everywhere.
“I’ve been to a couple different school districts, and I will tell you that this does not happen all across the state,” he said. “And so it very much is a heartwarming blessing that the Golden Oldies are together.”
He thanked the organization for its longstanding relationship with the district, particularly its scholarship program and the support its members continue to provide.
The Golden Oldies tradition dates to 1978, when members of Hull-Daisetta’s Class of 1928 gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their graduation. Each year afterward, the group continued meeting and welcomed the next class reaching the 50-year milestone.
Another familiar face at this year’s gathering was Kitty Key, who for years was one of the driving forces behind the Golden Oldies reunions and served as emcee until this year. Charles Kaemmerling took on the primary emcee duties for the 2026 celebration.
Nelson Stovall was elected the organization’s first president and served until his death in 1988, when J.C. Bevers assumed the position. The group later established a foundation in Stovall’s name to provide scholarships to graduates.
The foundation received its state charter in 1989. Two $250 scholarships were awarded in spring 1990. By 1999, the awards had grown to three $1,000 scholarships. Today, five $3,000 scholarships are awarded.
The 2026 scholarship recipients are Alex Garcia, Kendryck Parrish, Mia Whitehead, Amaree Patterson and Kaylin Pavliska.
This year’s Golden Oldies induction belonged to the Class of 1976, but much of the program also looked further back into the history of the school district itself.
Rus Kaemmerling, Charles’ brother, has been researching and writing a history of Hull-Daisetta schools. He told the crowd that the close relationship between Hull and Daisetta that generations have come to take for granted was not always there.
“When people ask me where I’m from, I always tell them I’m from Hull-Daisetta,” he said. “I never say just Hull.”
As he began researching the district, however, Kaemmerling discovered just how separately the two communities developed. Hull and Daisetta began as farming communities, connected primarily by a wagon trail. The arrival of the railroad in Hull in 1907 helped spur development, and schools began taking shape as the communities grew. Then came oil.
The discovery of oil in the Hull field in 1918 transformed the area, bringing rapid growth and raising the stakes surrounding decisions about schools and development.
Kaemmerling said the Texas Legislature created the Hull Independent School District in 1921. Two years later, the school board approved a substantial bond issue as it began planning for new school facilities. The biggest question was where to build a new high school.
Hull and Daisetta were not merely neighboring communities at the time. Their schools were athletic rivals, Kaemmerling said, and both sides understood that the location of a major new school would influence the future development of the communities.
The dispute became serious enough to wind its way through administrative proceedings and the courts. At one point, a proposal called for placing the school roughly halfway between Hull and Daisetta, but the location presented practical problems, including water that Kaemmerling said could become deep enough that horses had to swim across it.
Eventually, cooler heads prevailed. The school was built on property known as the Humble Oil tract. Additional acreage was later acquired, and Humble Oil contributed another acre, creating the campus that generations of Hull-Daisetta students would come to know.
Construction began in 1925, and students entered the new school in January 1926. The elementary school was in Hull and the high school in Daisetta.
“The congeniality, of course, by the time they made that decision, became Hull-Daisetta,” Kaemmerling said. “And the two became one. And that’s the fortunate place that all of us had a chance to grow up in.”
The district quickly gained recognition beyond Liberty County. Kaemmerling said Hull-Daisetta was invited in 1929 to become part of the Southern Association of Schools at a time when only about 200 of Texas’ 852 independent school districts held full accreditation.
He also shared some of the lighter pieces of school history. Hull-Daisetta’s teams were not originally known as the Bobcats. The boys were once called the Roughnecks, while the girls’ basketball team was known as the Gypsies. Kaemmerling said the Bobcat name began being used around the 1929-30 school year.
His research is continuing, and Kaemmerling asked former students and community members to share old photographs, school programs, newspaper articles and other materials that could help preserve the district’s history.
The reunion celebrated Hull-Daisetta’s past inside a building that represents part of Daisetta’s future.
Aside from the facility’s grand opening, the Golden Oldies reunion was the first event held at the new Daisetta Community Center next to Daisetta City Hall. Mayor Cindy Burchfield, who spearheaded the grant-funding effort that made the project possible, became emotional as she looked across the new building and saw it filled with people.
“I have dreamed of this day that this building was going to be filled with people,” Burchfield said.
She said her hope is that the center becomes such a permanent part of community life that today’s children someday will not remember Daisetta without it.
“I cannot wait for the day that the people who are children now can’t remember the time when this building wasn’t here,” she said.
Burchfield also recognized members of the Daisetta City Council and thanked those who had worked to make the community center possible.
State Rep. Janis Holt, R-Silsbee, joined the celebration and presented a certificate recognizing Hull-Daisetta ISD’s 100th anniversary and the Golden Oldies.
The certificate recognized the Golden Oldies for their “lifelong friendships, cherished memories, and enduring Bobcat pride” and honored the generations of students, educators, families and alumni who have shaped the district over the past century.
Holt, a former educator and school board member, said education remains especially important to her.
“Our kids are our future, and it’s up to us to educate them in such a way that they go on to be like all of you wonderful people here today,” she said.
Before leaving the podium, Holt had another presentation to make.
She called forward Kendryck “Tank” Parrish, an 18-year-old former volunteer firefighter with Liberty County Emergency Services District No. 2, and presented him with a state recognition for his role in saving a person’s life on July 5.
The proclamation praised Parrish for demonstrating “remarkable courage and initiative” while coming to the aid of a person in urgent distress and said his actions reflected his commitment to the safety and well-being of Liberty County residents.
Parrish, who has served as a firefighter for two years, also shared an update about his future plans. He has been accepted as a student at Stephen F. Austin University and ultimately hopes to earn his pilot’s license and fly for the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Holt’s recognition described his response to the emergency as showing “maturity and composure well beyond his years” and commended him for his service to Liberty County.
The mood became more somber later in the program when Lewis “Sonny” DeBarge led the annual roll call honoring Hull-Daisetta alumni who had died since the previous Golden Oldies reunion.
One by one, the names of the departed Bobcats were read aloud, along with their graduating classes.
Those remembered were Kenneth Riley, Class of 1966; Berchie “Skeet” Taylor, Class of 1984; Erwin Watson, Class of 1965; Nelson Speed, Class of 1957; Bobby Bounds, Class of 1988; William “Bill” Sims, Class of 1964; Sybil Johnson, Class of 1980; Lori Laughlin McCauley, Class of 1977; Margaret Stengler Sanders, Class of 1958; Dorothy Abraham Besch, Class of 1956; Yvonne Tuttle Randal, Class of 1948; Edward Taylor, Class of 1969; Jacqueline Bryant Burton, Class of 1979; Brenda Kliem Besch, Class of 1968; Danita Medina Hundley, Class of 1973; Eric Thraxton, Class of 1988; Billie Jean Daniels Hughes, Class of 1955; Granville Taylor, Class of 1973; Jackie Mann, Class of 1969; Carolyn LaCour Lenormand, Class of 1959; Lola West Wertzel, Class of 1954; Sondra Fregia Blaylock, Class of 1979; Catherine Broom Grand, Class of 1961; Larry Hiroms, Class of 1968; Henry Ferguson, Class of 1956; and Mary Beth Speed Golding, Class of 1954.