Big Spring High School alumni giving back Dickie Wrightsil begins endowment for scholarships
A brother and sister team of Big Spring High School graduates traveled back to Big Spring last week to announce the endowment of a scholarship program honoring a local celebrity.
Dickie Wrightsil and his sister Chandra Wrightsil-Mayfield, were in Big Spring public schools when their house burned down.
“When I was 17 – Chandra would’ve been maybe 12 or 13 – we lost our house. Our house burned...I mean, to the ground,” he said, adding that the full impact of the loss didn’t hit him until the next morning, after spending the night at a neighbor’s home. “That next morning – I’ll never forget this – I got up and went to the bathroom, and I
MansfieldWrightsil Scholarship Award for Outstanding Academic and Extra-Curricular Achievement last week for Big Spring High School graduates. Standing, left to right, are Drew Mouton, Bob and Susan Lewis, and Big Spring Area Community Foundation Director George Bancroft.
wanted to brush my teeth and I realized I didn’t have a toothbrush. I’ve never forgotten that. That really, for me, put it into perspective.”
That same day, Mary Neil Mansfield
— wife of Big Spring’s own rodeo star, Coy Herman Mansfield (but known to all as “Toots”) — took the nowhomeless Wrightsil’s shopping for some necessities.
“She picked us up and she bought everything from toothbrushes to tennis shoes. I said this yesterday at the assemblies at the school. If you hadn’t know that had happened to us on that Friday...if you didn’t see it in the newspaper, or you weren’t in our circle... on Monday at school you would’ve never known,” Wrightsil said. “The thing about it was, it wasn’t like they bragged about it, and it wasn’t like, ‘You owe us something.’ or anything. Mind you, we were homeless. Technically, we lost our home. They put us up at the Ramada Inn for about six weeks. We never