Hoyt Morgan
Hoyt Sleeper Morgan, 91, passed away Dec. 21, 2023.
A graveside service will be held Saturday, Jan. 6, at 2 p.m. in Center Valley Cemetery in Hamilton.
Hoyt was born Dec. 10, 1932, in Waco to Thomas Cary and Myrtle Faye Garrett Morgan.
He was the youngest of six children and raised in Waco.
He was legally blind in his left eye by the time he was a teenager, but that did not stop him from playing sports. He was the first player on the Waco High football team to have a helmet with a face guard. They were still using leather helmets at the time. He had broken his nose, and the coach gave him a helmet with a faceguard. After the first set of downs he played with it, he gave it right back.
He graduated from Waco High School where he was captain of the baseball team. He had a scholarship to play baseball at Sam Houston State College but ended up having to give up baseball because he was an agriculture major, and they had to live on and manage the college farm, which left no time for baseball.
He met Wilma Lea Burlin while at Sam Houston.
He received a Masters in Agriculture Science from Oklahoma State University. He taught high school agriculture classes before moving to the college level. He and Wilma moved to Torrington, Wyoming, where he taught ag at Eastern Wyoming College. While in Wyoming, their two sons were born, Daniel Thomas Morgan and Stanley Hoyt Morgan Sr.
After three or four years they moved back to Texas. He started working for the US Department of Agriculture Soil & Water Conservation. This job led to many moves around Texas over the next few years including Winnsboro, Brownfield, Dell City and Iowa Park. He had said “If I can find it on a map, I can get moved there.” He left the soil and water conservation and went to El Paso for a while.
He came back to the Central Texas area and met Margaret Southwell. They married and moved to Tyler, where he managed the rendering company.
In the mid 1970s they moved back to Hamilton where he was part owner of the rendering plant for a few years. This was when his sons came to Hamilton to live with him and attend high school.
From here he went on to manage a rendering company in Houston for about a year then returned to the Tyler Rendering Co.
Shortly after, he moved back to the Waco area where he managed the Waco pick up stations for the Tyler plant and had a cabin on the Brazos River.
In the early- to mid-1980s, he moved to El Paso. He managed cafeterias in many of the production plants and companies for a few years.
He then retuned to school in his late 50s to get his Masters Degree in Special Education from University of Texas at El Paso. From then on, he taught Special Education and alternative education in the El Paso and Clint area until he retired in May 2005. While in El Paso, he met Eva Salinas. They remained together until her passing Oct. 28, 2016.
He moved back to Hamilton after retiring in 2005. He was famous around town for his garden. People would drive by just to look whether it was the garden full of vegetables, flowers, butterflies, Crepe Myrtle trees or 12-foot sunflowers. He could grow anything anywhere. He loved working in the garden, sharing the vegetables and seeds and giving gardening tips. He always said that gardening was his ministry.
Another love of his was the Baylor Lady Bears Basketball and Coach Kim Mulkey. He had season tickets for the Lady Bears for many years. He also enjoyed watching women’s college basketball and softball on TV. If there was a game on, you can bet he was watching it.
Over the last several years he really came to enjoy the Hamilton Community Center. It provided a great place for him to have good food and fellowship. He had many friends there. He attended Littleville Baptist Church.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Thomas Cary and Myrtle Morgan; wife Eva Salinas; brother and sister-inlaw Dan Filmore and Leotia Morgan; sisters and brothersin- law Carey Lois and Leonard Simpson, Faye and Marvin Heine and Mary Dell and Roger Williams; infant brother Thomas Arthur Morgan; son Stanley Hoyt Morgan Sr.; and grandson John Richard Morgan.
He is survived by son and daughter-in-law Daniel and Arlene Morgan of Huntsville, Alabama; granddaughter and husband Heather and Andy Hansard of Hamilton; grandson Hoyt Morgan of Hamilton; great-grandsons Jaxon Hansard of Stephenville and John Carter Hansard of Hamilton; great-granddaughters Ashtyn Hansard and MacKinsy Morgan of Stephenville and Violet Morgan and Scarlett (Jack) Morgan of Hamilton; stepdaughters Magaly Lai and husband Nhan and children Aaron and Mia Lai and Nancy DeLaRosa, all of El Paso; and by many wonderful nieces, nephews and special friends that would help him in the garden, working in the yard or just sitting and talking on his back porch.
Memorials can be made to the Hamilton Community Center.
