What can one say! - David Barton
He loved being around people, working on the farm and teaching. That´s not to say he didn´t have his ups and downs with each. I can´t say he ever had an outstanding year farming it always seemed to be more a hobby for him to get out of the house. I know we spent allots of hours on the tractor. I remember the radiator blowing up on him and the old minnies pop off cap event as well. Then there was a trip he took off the farmhouse roof.
His second love would indeed have to have been teaching. It was a job he never seemed to be done with. Coaching track and basketball at Udall and speeding almost all his down time at his office working on something or another.
I can say from my perspective I knew growing up I had better have an interest in the sports and the shop if I were going to see him much.
Well boy did he shock me. When he started teaching at Oxford High School. I knew I had better been in his class and better behave. You know he was just as proud of me in my other classes as he was in his.
I can remember a certain award ceremonies. I didn´t expect he and mom to be there but when they called my name they shocked me and they where there.
That was the way he was he was the consummate teacher he would show you how and let you do your thing. If it meant that you would fall well you fell and he was there to help you up.
I know the hardest thing for him was leaving OHS he loved the school and teaching it was a part of his soul. I know this because when I started teaching at the Art institute of Pittsburgh that was one of those moments. He never said see I told you would be good at it. And he could have.
He always wanted me to teach or at very least get a teaching certificate. When he visited the school, he never stopped smiling the entire time. He always wanted to know how the job was going. I´m not saying he didn´t ask when I was shooting photographs, but he just had more in common with teaching.
Growing up we always had a group of his students around the house helping on the farm or just shooting the breeze. They always came back to see Mr. Barton. That was his crowning achievement, not that he moved mountains but that he moves minds.
He was many things to allot of people. He would put the world aside to help a neighbor with most any and everything.
He took Scott in and made him a part of the family when I was away at school. I was shocked. But, you know that was dad. He was someone you could call on to help you with a roof, fix your car, or make you laugh with his laugh. I know that if I´m to this point with out crying my eyes out I´m not telling it right. But, then we are here not to cry, but to enjoy the life of a good friend, a great teacher and the best dad.
Hey! Daddy would be so happy - Dana Wagner
Hey! Daddy would be so happy to see all these people here in church. What can I say about him. Gary Barton, What a man! A Husband, Brother, Father, Father-in-law and Grandpa. He was a man with an ensasable laugh, a joke in every thing that he said and did and a person with a big heart.
Onry, is just one word to describe him. Some of the stories that I have heard over the years, such as when he and the 3rd hour FFA class placed the skunk on 1 of his classmates 38 Chevy Coup’s manifold. When the kid went to lunch 2 miles out of town, well you can only imagine the stench that was held in that car.
I guess he was a wild dancer also. Many years later, he tried his best to do his Elvis impression on the bar at the Bowling Alley in Ark City. I’m sure glad that I can only imagine what that was like. I guess that many of the people that knew him when, remember either him or doing dancing like Elvis.
This last year he celebrated his “50th” High School reunion, I know that he thought and pondered over the writing that he put into his class reunion book. When ever Daddy would talk about my brother David, his eyes would spark up and suddenly he’d appear to be the proud Daddy. Telling how David fell into the, “As Dad would say “The perfect job and it sure didn’t hurt that David followed in his footsteps as being a teacher, having the Pittsburgh Art Institute pay for him to go to school to finish up his Masters and enjoying every minute that he’s there.” Not that David wanted to be a teacher of any sort but that didn’t seem to bother Daddy, He was the proud Dad! I think that he was a bit envious of his Son Being the in the right place at the right time. “What Luck!” He would always say.
When I got married in 1989, he was so proud to walk me down the aile. I think that that was Daddy’s Cinderella Story. And I was so proud to have him there. But I don’t think he was no prouder than to be a Grandpa. I know that he has plans to have his “Grand Babies” to call him Grand Dad Barton but when Brent my oldest son came along and he started to talk just a bit that Pa Paw was all that he could say, Well that was the naming of Grand Dad to Pa Paw.
When the boys and I moved back to Kansas December 2004, I thought that Daddy was just tickled pink to have us so close. I was enjoying having him teach my boys things like Mowing the yard with the riding lawn mower and to weed eating the yards. To teach the boys to have odd jobs so that the boys could earn their own money was such a helpful task for me and something that was off of my shoulders. You see, the boys seemed to grow this year like a weeds right before our eyes. They both grew from a size 10 pant to a size 16. Just like puppies. I think that Daddy thought that they were old enough and big enough to do a bit of hard labor, which is good for all of us.
This still seems like a bad dream and I wish that I would wake up, but GOD,
has another reason for all that we do and he does for us. I will truly
miss my Daddy, and there will not be a day that goes by without me thinking
of him. I LOVE YOU DADDY!