Robert Rhea Barton

Robert Barton ’56 entered Schreiner Institute in 1951 as a high school sophomore and continued through high school and two years of college to his Associate of Arts degree.
 

“Schreiner is one of the best things that ever happened in my life,” Barton said, “both for the education I received and the opportunities it opened for me—and I met my future wife there.”  Corinne Orr Carlisle, who also attended Schreiner, nominated Barton for the honor.  “I’ve known Bob Barton since the early ’50s,” she said. “He was always an outstanding student, officer in the Schreiner Institute Cadet Corps, lawyer, judge and American citizen. I’m proud to be a fellow Schreiner student and longtime friend of Bob’s.”

Not surprisingly in light of his subsequent career, he majored in pre-law and went on to The University of Texas and The University of Texas School of Law. He was a member of the Law Review, an honor reflecting well on both his scholarship and his writing ability.  After graduating law school, Barton hung out his shingle in Kerrville. He served the community as county attorney of Kerr County for five years, district attorney of the 2nd 38th Judicial District for four years and from 1977-1989 was judge of 216th Judicial District, which covers Kerr, Bandera, Kendall and Gillespie counties.  Barton taught criminal law for the Schreiner College law enforcement department from 1973-1977, and after retiring as district judge, Barton went on to teach law at the St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio. He retired as a tenured professor in 1998.

You’d think all this was enough to keep one man busy, but Barton had time to also write several books and journal articles about the practice of Texas law. He continues to update “Texas Rules of Evidence Manual,” which he co-authored with Hulen D. Wendorf and David A. Schlueter, and that is in its seventh edition, as well as “Texas Search and Seizure, which he wrote in 1992. As a district judge, Barton has more than once administered the oath of office to oldest son Clay Barton, who is a chief deputy with the Kerr County Sheriff’s Department.

Barton was a founding member of the Kerrville Optimist Club and was president of the Kerrville Jaycees in the early ’60s. He also was a founding member of The Poverty Playboys, a bluegrass band for which he played tenor banjo and was the lead vocalist. For a time, his wife Joyce (also a 1956 Schreiner graduate) and oldest son Clay played with the band. The Playboys played for Recall 1985 and “retired” in 2005.  “Bob was a pretty fair banjo player,” Carlisle said.

Barton is a longtime member of the First Presbyterian Church in Kerrville, where he has been both an elder and a deacon.  For the past decade, Barton has been a senior district judge for Kerr County and has continued to write about Texas law. He has co-authored the “Texas Rules of Evidence Trial Book” and written “Fundamentals of Texas Trial Practice.”  He and wife Joyce have three children and three grandchildren.

“I am pleased with what has occurred with Schreiner,” Barton said. “I think the changes were necessary, but I enjoyed the military environment, the structure, discipline and camaraderie of my time there.”

Grady Spencer Blocker

In his nomination letter for Grady Spencer Blocker ’51, Wendell Mayes ’42 wrote, “There are many different relationships that come to my mind when I think of Spencer, but my first thought always relates to Schreiner—to the dedication and loyalty he has shown to Schreiner through the years since he was a teenage cadet.” More than one person writing in support of Blocker’s nomination mentioned loyalty as one of his conspicuous virtues.  And he expresses that loyalty to Schreiner and to his community in Midland in concrete ways, contributing his time and donating funds to help both thrive.
 

Mayes said he knew of “no one who has been more active in Schreiner affairs than he has.”  “I was a student there only one year,” Blocker said. “Sometimes people ask me, ‘How come you’re so active, when you were there just a year?’ I tell them Schreiner was and is the most caring school in the nation.”  When asked why he didn’t return after that year, Blocker, who is from the much flatter Stanton area, said, “I got kind of claustrophobic with all those trees and hills around. I was dating my wife the year I went to Schreiner. Now that I think about it, that could have had something to do with it, too.”

Blocker has been a lifetime member of the Schreiner Former Student Association since 1989, and was president of SFSA 1995-1997. He also has generously supported Schreiner financially over the years. He has been a member of Schreiner Oaks Society since 1996. Schreiner Oaks are those who have remember Schreiner in their estate plans.

In Midland, Blocker has had a long career as a savings and loan officer, and in commercial real estate. He also owns family farms in Martin County, Tex. He was a longtime member of the Midland Jaycees, and organized a reunion of former Jaycee members in 2005. He has long been an active part of Midland Chamber of Commerce and has a perfect attendance record for more than 30 years with the Midland Rotary Club.  “Spencer has been a mentor to many of us on Midland Jaycees and Rotary International, and we are grateful for his guidance,” Texas House of Representative speaker and long-time acquaintance Tom Craddick wrote.

Blocker’s many civic activities over the years have included organizing Easter egg hunts and baseball and basketball leagues; Christmas for underprivileged children; and building a hill in Midland for the Soap Box Derby.   “At that time if was flat,” he said. “We didn’t even have an overpass. I spent one whole summer building that thing.”  The All-American Soap Box Derby organization credits Midland as a “breeding ground innovative Derby design” in the 1960s.

Blocker was modest about becoming a distinguished alumnus: “I keep telling everyone that this maybe waters down the honor.”  He wants to dedicate the honor to his wife, Anita, who died in 2006.  “She was the backbone of me,” he said.