Frank Marshall Sherrod

Frank Marshall Sherrod, 93, died Tuesday, December 10, 2013 in Stephenville. Services will be held Friday, December 13 at the Stephenville Funeral Home Chapel at 11:00 AM with Jim Kirby officiating. Burial will follow at Johnsville Cemetery. Visitation will be Thursday from 6 to 8 PM at the funeral home. Marshall was born September 9, 1920 to George Tuttle Sherrod and Elva Dona Parnell Sherrod on their homestead farm near Johnsville in Erath County. A 1938 graduate of Stephenville High School, Sherrod was a two-sport letterman-basketball and football-and in 1937 played on one of the most successful early Yellow Jacket football teams. After graduation, Sherrod attended John Tarleton Agricultural College. He married his wife of 56 years, Cloye Era Little, on August 25, 1941 and began his career as an educator the 1941-1942 school year, serving as principal and teacher for grades five through eight at the two-room Johnsville Rural School (today part of Three-Way School). The following year, he taught and coached at Valley Mills High School until entering the U. S. Army in 1943. Before completion of his service in 1946, he was part of the 749th Military Police Battalion assigned to San Francisco as security for the meeting establishing the United Nations. Sherrod was part of the security unit welcoming President Harry Truman's plane and guarding the entrance where the President entered the Fairmont Hotel lobby. After the war, Sherrod completed his college education at Texas Christian University, finishing his bachelor's degree in 1948 and his master's in 1949. In the fall of that year, Sherrod began a long and productive career working in the Arlington Independent School District where he began as a teacher and coach. His final 22 years working for AISD were as the principal of Blanton Elementary School. During that time (and perhaps the accomplishment in which he took greatest joy), he mentored five vice-principals who went on to become full-fledged principals in the AISD system. Upon retirement in 1977, Sherrod and his wife returned to Erath County where they enjoyed the following 21 years in a hilltop retirement home they built on the Sherrod family property. In 1980, Marshall and Cloye (also a longtime AISD teacher and administrator) returned to Arlington for the dedication of the new Sherrod Elementary School named in their joint honor. During their retirement years Marshall and Cloye helped to revive worship at the Johnsville Church of Christ, the little church house where they attended growing up. Although never ordained, Marshall served as church treasurer. The efforts of the couple restored Johnsville Church attendance, and worship continues there today. Not long after Cloye's 1998 death, Marshall moved to Stephenville where he became a popular and much-loved presence about town. The embodiment of the old adage, "Once a Yellow Jacket, always a Yellow Jacket!," he regularly attended high school sporting events, delighting in the revival of the sports program coincident with his retirement years. Not long after his 90th birthday, he traveled once again to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington where he watched as the Texas Rangers-the baseball team which both he and his father before him religiously supported-won their first World Series game at home. Indeed, watching baseball was one of his favorite pastimes, especially in 1967 when his nephew George Sherrod posted the team-best pitching record for the Texas League's AA Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs organization. Beyond his love for life and passion for "his teams" on the field of play, Sherrod loved his family most of all. A living fulfillment of Proverbs 13:22-"A good person leaves an inheritance for their children's children"-he left an enduring example of living life well through each of its ages and stages. His family, friends, and all who loved him will miss him greatly, but will also draw inspiration from the example he set across the nine decades he lived as a shining light amongst us. SURVIVORS: His son, Ricky Lee Sherrod, and daughter-in-law, Annette Pierce Sherrod; his granddaughter, Heather Lee Sherrod Steed, and grandson-in-law, T. J. Steed, their sons Darius and Dante, and daughter Stasia, all of Florence, Tx.; Laura Ann Sherrod and her daughter Sierra of Kutztown, Pa.; his grandson and namesake, Scott Marshall Sherrod, and granddaughter-in-law, Marissa Hunt Sherrod, their daughters Makenna and Kelsee, and son Brayden, all of Gobles, Mi.; sister-in-law, Sue Porter Sherrod of Stephenville; sister-in-law, Helen McKeage Little of Houston, Tx.; nephews George Sherrod of San Marcos, Ca. and David Sherrod of La Mesa, Ca.; Jess Sherrod of LaCanada, Ca.; namesake Douglas Marshall Sherrod of Montgomery, Al.; Robert D. Sherrod Jr. of Grand Prairie, Tx.; namesake Marshall Wayne Sherrod and Larry Sherrod both of Stephenville; Randy D. Little and wife Kay Keith Little, and Tracy L. Little and wife Susan Moffat Little, all of Houston, Tx.; nieces Donna Sherrod Whitmer of La Mesa, Ca. and Debbie Sherrod of Raleigh, N.C.; and grand-niece Jo Lynne York of Austin, Tx. Memorials in lieu of flowers may made to the Stephenville Education Foundation, PO Box 314 Stephenville, TX 76401