Rex Melvin Price

Graveside services for Rex Melvin Price, 87 of Gilmer will be held at 2:00 P.M. on Sunday, March 9, 2014, at Enoch Cemetery in Upshur County, Texas with Bro. Andy Plunk officiating under the direction of Croley Funeral Home in Gilmer. Visitation will be Saturday, March 8, 2014, at Croley Funeral Home in Gilmer. Retired veteran schoolman and minister Rex M. Price, a former Gilmer Elementary School principal and ex-Superintendent of Union Grove Indepedendent School District, died Wednesday morning, March 5, 2014, at Good Shepherd Medical Center in Longview. He was 87, and resided near Gilmer on FM Road 852.. It was Price who announced to Gilmer Elementary students on Nov. 22, 1963, that President John F. Kennedy and then-Texas Gov. John Connally had been shot in Dallas, and that the President had died. He became elementary principal in or before 1960, and remained in that post through at least 1966, later serving as Union Grove superintendent for part of the 1980s. Price, whose late wife Pauline taught math at Gilmer Junior High School in the 1960s, spent about 40 years in the field of education, said his daughter, Elaine Quarles. His career included stints as Daingerfield High School principal, junior high principal at Lake Jackson, and teaching in Longview ISD. He also had pastored two Baptist churches, including Macedonia Baptist in the Pittsburg area, after receiving a degree in divinity from a Ft. Worth seminary. Born in Livingston on May 1, 1926, Price grew up mainly in the East Mountain community of Upshur County, graduating from East Mountain High School before that school district was abolished by consolidating with Gilmer in the mid-1960s. He married the former Pauline Ray on May 14, 1944, and she died May 31, 2005. He received a bachelor's degree in education from what was then East Texas Baptist College (now East Texas Baptist University) as well as master's degrees in psychology, education, and education administration. He obtained the master's degrees from Stephen F. Austin State University, North Texas State University and East Texas State Teacher's College (now Texas A&M University at Commerce). Price had a rich baritone speaking voice, and Mrs. Quarles noted that a radio station once unsuccessfully tried to hire him. A daughter, Dr. Paula Price, preceded him in death. Price, who was an only child, is survived by Mrs. Quarles and her husband, Joe Quarles, of Gilmer; a granddaughter, Kendra Franklin of Gilmer; a great-granddaughter, Rebecca Garza of Longview; and a great-grandson, Carlie Franklin of Gilmer. (Written by Phillip Williams, student at Gilmer Elementary from 1960-1966).