Port Aransas South Jetty (Port Aransas, Tex.), Vol. 31, No. 25, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 21, 2001 Page: 1 of 30
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Bond dollars at work -
Work is under way on some of the
PROJECTS APPROVED BY VOTERS IN A SCHOOL
BOND ELECTION LAST MONTH.
Mail woes
Population growth and a loss of veteran employees
at the Post Office combine for mail delivery woes.
Page 1B
Page 4A
KANSAS
#********************MI*ED '
q09 00-00-00 193P 1j3S
SOUTHWEST MICROPUBLISHING «CO
2627 E YANDELL DR
EL PASO TX 79903-3724
TV Listings Page 7A
Thursday, June 21, 2001
Vol. 31 No. 25
SPS 946-0202
On Mustang Island, Texas
Women just catch more fish
Got fish?
Women fishing in the 17th
annual Woody’s Powderpuff
Fishing Tournament
certainly did catch fish - and
big ones. In the top photo,
weighmaster and director of
the tournament Glenn
Martin weighs a fish as
James Lemley looks on. At
right, overall winner Darlene
Rhodes of Corpus Christi,
who fished in the pro-am
division with guide Steve
Reupke, shows off her
winning stringer. See Page
9A for all the winners and
more photos.
Staff photos by Murray Judson
Trustee, civic volunteer
Paul Matthews succumbs
By Mary Judson
South Jetty editor
Paul Theodore Matthews, 56, a trustee
of the Port Aransas Independent School
Distrjct since 1995, died suddenly Friday,
June 15.
In Port Aransas he was,-
known as a tireless vol
unteer, particularly fori
the Little League; Ini
Nueces County and the
State of Texas, he was
known as a leader in the1
Texas Department of
Criminal Justice. L
“We went to a lot of
(Little League) games
and school board meetings together,” said
Keith Hamilton, president of the school
board and a Little League volunteer.
“He was always calm. He never yelled at the
kids in Little League and he never got real
upset at school board meetings. He was very
intelligent, very thoughtful and always had
the kids in mind, from Little League to
school board,” Hamilton said.
“We watched a lot of basketball games
t! f>\ \1
Paul Matthews
Anglers to fish
for scholarships
Anglers will fish for cash prizes this week-
end in the fifth annual F.O. December Me-
morial Saltwater Fishing Tournament to
benefit the American Agape Foundation,
Inc.
The foundation provides scholarships to
graduating high school seniors through five
different scholarship programs.
The tournament fields non-guided and
kids’ divisions.
Registration will he from 7 to 10 p.m. to-
morrow, Friday, June 22, at Roberts Point
Park. Late registration will be from 6 to 8
a.in. Saturday, June 23, also at Roberts Point
Park. Entry fee, which is tax deductible, is
$50 for adults and $10 for children 12 and
under.
Fishing hours are from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Saturday, and weigh in at Roberts Point Park
Please see ‘TOURNAMENT,’ Pali-: 10A
together, too. He was a good dad. He was
always there for his daughters and all the
kids from Port A," Hamilton added.
PA1SD Superintendent John Rouse said
he has known Matthews for the past two
years and has found him to be “the type of
individual who always considered the needs
of the students of our school district to be
his first priority as a board member. This
commitment to the youth of our commu-
nity carried over into his support for all
types of community youth programs."
“Paul’s sense of humor made it a pleasure
for me to work with him. He will be greatly
missed by this community,” Rouse added.
“My most vivid memories of Paul rest
with his love of music, sports and kids,” said
Ken Dunton, his friend and fellow school
board member.
“On the baseball diamond he was an avid
competitor. As a youth softball coach, his
love of the game transcended 13 years, four
daughters, and some 1 5 plus teams. His play-
ers recall him as a very positive coach, one
who raised their self-esteem and love ol the
game through constant encouragement and
support. Most important, he made the game
(un and saw the humor in the good plays as
well as in the misplays. He always remem-
bered to compliment youth athletes, no
Please see ‘SCHOOL,’ Page 10A
What’s inside
Church listing......................3B
Classified ads..................5-8B”
Editorial..............................2 A
Fishing report......................8A
Island Agenda......................3A
Island observer...................8B
Law enforcement reports .,„.2B
On the town.........................4B
Outdoors....................... 8-9A
Pastor’s Pen.......................3B
Tides....................................8A
TV listings..........................;7A
Weather...............................8 A
Youth.........................4A, 6-7A
Leola Shanklin is first woman in Boatmen’s Hall of Fame
By Carolyn Richards
South Jetty reporter
Leola Shanklin of George West is able to claim a lot
of “firsts” in her life.
She has another one, she’s the first woman to ever
be named to the Hall of Fame by the Port Aransas
Boatmen Inc.
Shanklin was extremely pleased to receive the honor.
“It was a nice surprise,” she said.
Shanklin was one of those women who didn’t need
women’s liberation, because she already was.
Until she learned she was a Hall of Famer this year,
she said she always had a little question deep inside
about being totally accepted as an equal by the Boat-
men. “Thik proves they do,” she said.
When she received her first (she calls it a “wheelbar-
row”) license, she was the first woman captain in the
8th Coast Guard District.
She said as boats got bigger and her clientele list in-
creased, she got her “tonnage” license.
She said when a fishing guide received a Coast Guard
license, the title of captain went with it.
Shanklin remembers that she received her first li-
cense in 1953 when she was five months pregnant with
her son, Carl, who still lives in Port Aransas.
“I must have really marked him” she laughs, “Because
to this day he’s possessed by the Gulf of Mexico.”
She remained a captain, moving up to bigger boats,
until Hurricane Celia in 1970. “That brought a halt to
my career,” she said.
Her two older sons were grown and gone from home,
but her younger two were teenagers when the hurri-
cane hit. She said she sent her mother and her son,
Art, up the country when the storm headed here, but
she and her son, Carl, stayed with her boat.
At the time she was skipper and owner of a 32-foot
twin screw Chris Craft, the Shellamar,” that was moored
at what she thinks was called the Edgewater Boathouse.
When the storm hit, the roof blew off the boathouse
and the water came over the seawall, she said she and
Carl went up in some apartments at the boathouse and
stayed there until the eye of the storm passed over Port
Aransas.
They had about 35 minutes of calm so they made
their way over to a boat, the Lady Lorraine, which was
owned by Butch Ousley. That’s where they rode out
the second half of the hurricane.
During the storm, Shanklin promised God that He
would never have to bother with her again if he only
spared her and her son.
When the storm was over, she quit guiding, sold her
boat where it sat and moved with her sons, Art and
Carl, to Bee County.
Celia was the “most dramatic thing” she ever went
through. In fact, she says, “It scared the hell out of me!”
To this day she can remember the fear and if the wind
blows 50 miles an hour, she turns into an ostrich. “I
just buty my head until it’s over,” she says.
After the boys had graduated from high school in
Pettus, they wanted to return to Port Aransas, but she
stuck by her guns and refused to move back here.
Finally, her four sons built her a retirement home on
the Nueces River near George West and that’s where
she has stayed.
Shanklin was born in Snyder and moved to Port
Aransas in 1937 when she was 12. Her father had been
killed in the East Texas oil fields so she and her mother
and her brothers, Melvin and
J.D. Littleton, came here. Shanklin’s mother worked
on the telephone switchboard and everyone called her
“Granny Littleton.”
Leola’s first husband, Lee Roy Milina, died in 1948
when he was pulling in a net on the Gulf beach. (His
brother, Bubba, is also a well-known Port Aransas fish-
ing guide and member of the Hall of Fame.)
After she married Jack Shanklin in 1950 and she got
her license, they both owned and operated their own
boats. His was the Riptide.
When Leola and Jack were married, he adopted the
two older boys, John Shanklin, a physician’s assistant in
Florida and a 30 year veteran of the Navy, and Roy Lee
Shanklin, who jus recently moved back to Port Aransas.
Leola also has 16 grandchildren and is about to have
her 14th great-grandchild.
She’s always thrilled to see a woman cross the gender gap,
which she found so “deep and wide" nearly 50 years ago.
All in a day’s work
After a day of fishing, Leola Shanklin ran home
to change clothes for work at Mathews charter
fishing agency where she had her picture taken
with her catch of the day *- two nice tarpon.
She managed to get every license she needed, even if
she had to “burn the midnight oil. 1 worked harder
than anyone else,” she says. She was also an inspector
and instructor in the Coast Guard Auxiliary.
She once again crossed the gender gap in the early
days she asked Shirley Whiteside to he her deckhand.
They made an all woman crew - another first.
When Whiteside couldn’t crew for her, she often
had Art or Carl help. “They grew up knowing what to
do," she said.
She likes things orderly in some ways. She says when
her son Carl joined the Boatmen he was sponsored oy
Doyle Marek, a former Boatman Hall of Fame mem-
ber. Earlier, when Marek joined the Boatmen, he was
sponsored by Jack Shanklin. But she can’t remember
who sponsored her membership in the Boatmen.
She always tried to learn something from everyone.
One time, Lloyd Dreyer, another Hall of Famer, asked
her to crew for him.
She accepted the job and when they got out in the
Gulf, they immediately hooked a blue marlin.
While the fight was going on, Dreyer called her to
the wheelhouse and told her to tell the angler, who was
Dr. Webb DeTar from Victoria, “to put the hurt on that
fish, we’ve got some weather coming in.”
The angler did and the fish was landed shortly. When
Leola went to do her chores for the landing, she says
the fish almost beat her to death.
She considers that a real learning experience because
the weather really did change.
Of her days as a charter boat captain, Leola says, “It
was all good fun, but Celia put an end to it.”
Leola and her first cousin, Grace Farley, who is the
widow of Hall of Famer Fred Farley, will be in Port
Aransas for the Deep Sea Roundup.
She wouldn’t miss that for anything unless there's a
hurricane on the way and then she’ll probably pass it
up. Third member of the Hall of Fame this year is the
late Bill Horn.
Today, Leola “works in her garden, fishes and runs
wild" on the shores of the Nueces River.
“Old captains never die," she laughs, “They just be-
come river rats!"
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Judson, Mary. Port Aransas South Jetty (Port Aransas, Tex.), Vol. 31, No. 25, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 21, 2001, newspaper, June 21, 2001; Port Aransas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth645796/m1/1/?q=dallas+voice: accessed July 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Ellis Memorial Library.