He boldly got married before boarding the Enterprise.
Donnie Overton once drove his father’s tractor 5 miles and plowed a whole garden just to get a glimpse of Carolyn Crumby. “I did that because I wanted a chance to see her and I don’t think I even saw her once that day,” he says. “I think her parents probably got a kick out of it.”
Donnie and Carolyn first dated when she was in ninth grade — he was a grade ahead of her at Magnet Cove High School — and they started going steady the next year. She was a cheerleader and he was on the football team.
“We didn’t have any classes together but at lunchtime the cheerleaders and the football players kind of sat together,” Carolyn says.
Donnie escorted Carolyn to the athletics banquet that year, and they saw countless movies and made many trips to Turner’s Dairy Dip.
“Not very many people had new cars back then, and this old car — he had to push it almost every time he left. It was not very dependable,” Carolyn says. “When we would go to the movies he would park it at the top of a hill so it would roll and start when we left.”
At the end of the next year, in 1963, Donnie graduated from high school and he and Carolyn broke up.
“She told me she thought she should date other people and I should, too,” he says.
Donnie moved to Arkadelphia to go to Henderson State Teachers College (now Henderson State University).
“We quit dating, but I never forgot her,” he says.
Donnie was back in Magnet Cove almost every weekend, and he always passed Carolyn’s house at the end of the evening.
“Today you might call me a stalker,” he quips, “because I would drive by her house and make sure she got home safe.”
At the end of his freshman year, someone from Reynolds Metals Co. in Jones Mill called to offer a coveted job in the plant where his father as well as Carolyn’s father worked. He accepted and dropped out of school so he could move home and start working that summer. Shortly after that, Carolyn, who had just graduated from high school, left to start her own freshman year at Henderson.
He was working hard at his new job, but he found time to visit his friends who were still at Henderson. Sometimes he ran into Carolyn while he was there.
“I guess you might say that I chased her until I got caught,” he says. “I would try to make sure I was in the places I knew she was going to be.”
Donnie finally got Carolyn’s attention, and they started seeing each other exclusively again.
The Vietnam War was on and Donnie, who was in the Navy Reserve, got his notice from Uncle Sam that he was to report for duty. Carolyn’s mother went into the hospital for something minor around that time and that’s when Donnie asked Carolyn if she was ready to shop for a ring. She was.
“We left the hospital and went to look at rings, and then we went back to the hospital to show them to her mother,” Donnie says.
Her parents were pleased. They liked Donnie, even when he wasn’t plowing their garden.
Carolyn and Donnie originally planned to wait until after he returned to get married.
“Then his orders got moved
up and we decided we would go ahead and get married within two or three weeks, before he left,” she says.
They hurriedly organized a ceremony and were married on Nov. 5, 1965, at Meadow View Missionary Baptist Church in Jones Mill, the church Carolyn attended growing up and the one she and Donnie still attend today. They celebrated their 50th anniversary there recently with friends and family.
The newlyweds took a quick trip to Petit Jean, though they had to be at work and school on Monday.
Just two weeks after they exchanged their vows, he left for San Francisco to serve in the military.
“I was in college and we thought that when I finished that semester I would go join him, but when he got out there he was immediately shipped to Vietnam,” she says.
Donnie was aboard the USS Enterprise for nine months before docking again in San Francisco. Carolyn got to spend three months with him in California before he had to go back to sea for another nine months of active duty.
Life calmed down for them when Donnie finished that tour and returned to his job and his wife in Jones Mill. They raised two children, Dennis Overton and Caren McGregor, both of Lakeside. They also have four grandchildren.
Carolyn retired from teaching in Magnet Cove. Donnie retired from Reynolds but still works occasionally as a master electrician.
“It doesn’t seem like 50 years,” Donnie says. “It seems like it was just yesterday. The first few years went along really slow and then we had kids and as they grew up it seemed like time sped up and it seems like it’s just getting faster. But we’ve had 50 happy years.”