Portraits of now and then

March 04, 2008 03:11 pm

— Debi Roach is all about family and community and the connections that inevitably grow from both.
In May of this year, Debi will begin her 20th year employed at Baldor-Nupar where she does payroll, accounting, supply ordering and special projects. Nupar is a Rogers County industry located in Tiawah.
In that position, Debi finds herself coordinating Nupar’s critical need blood drives. “This is my seventh year to do two blood drives a year,” Debi said. Critical needs are times close to the holidays when blood supplies are low. Debi also co-chairs Nupar’s United Way drives and is a member of the Rogers State University Alumni Board of Directors.
That short introduction is enough to know that Debi believes community service is important. However, Debi also believes family is paramount.
She has been married to Eddie Roach, another Rogers County native, since Nov. 29, 1969. They are members of Blue Starr Church of Christ and parents to four children.
Debi was a homeroom mother at Claremont Elementary for 12 straight years.
“I didn’t know what to do with myself until Darcy (her youngest child) became old enough to attend and then I did it five more years,” Debi said.
Darcy Z. Roach, a sophomore at Claremore High School and where she is the singer for the Jazz Band and is in choir and the school play. She was also one of Claremore’s Best and Brightest and is a member of the Claremore Symphony League.
Darcy portrayed “Annie” at Claremore Upper Elementary and has been in several productions including “Oklahoma” and “Hello, Dolly.” She is now one of the Little Red Riding Hoods in this year’s production “Into the Forest.”
Debi, who is also a painter and crafter, said, “I think our greatest creations are our children and grandchildren.”
Eddie and Debi are also parents to Bridgette Roach Seago, their eldest, a physical therapist at Claremore Indian Health Services, and mother of granddaughter Hailey and grandson Seth; Breanna Roach Weber, a case management specialist for DirectTV and mother of granddaughter Melody and grandson Ethan.
Their third child is Eddie Roach Jr. He is first assistant golf course superintendent at Jimmie Austin OU Golf Club in Norman. Eddie Jr. will graduate from Oklahoma State University in the this spring with a degree in turf management. He is also an alumni of Rogers State University and one of the founding fathers of the first fraternity on campus, Pi Kappa Alpha

Family
roots
Anytime you talk family with Debi, you are talking Rogers County history.
Her personal history begins in the old Franklin Hospital in Claremore where she was born Aug. 12, 1952, as Deborah Sue Hardison. She is one of eight sisters (three were born in the old hospital — the vacant building still stands on east Patti Page Boulevard).
“Our oldest sister Sheryl was born at the Claremore Hospital when it was downtown,” Roach said.
“My sisters, Ruth, Beverly and I worked at the old Yale Movie Theater and Drive In while we were attending Claremore High School,” Debi recalls. She also worked at the TG&Y when it first came to Ne-Mar Shopping Center while she was in high school.
But that’s recent history compared to the deep family roots she traces to before statehood:
Edward Rattlingouard and his wife Gertrude Rattlingouard, later shortened to Gouard, moved his family from Arkansas to the Verdigris area where Debi’s grandfather, James Thomas Gouard was born in 1905 on what is now known as Airpark Road in south Verdigris.
“My grandmother, Bessi Zola Miller Gouard Armbrister’s family, George Lucky Washington Miller and Pairlee Francis Connely Miller, moved here from Vian. It took them two weeks to travel the distance in a covered wagon,” Debi said.
“My great-grandfather had a blacksmith shop business on the main road of Verdigris known at the time, according to an aunt, as Silk Stocking Road. They later moved to their Indian allotment down the road from Verdigris School.
“In 1927, Bessie married James Thomas Gouard. My mother, Marjorie Ruth Gouard was born in a home next to the blacksmith shop. They later moved to my grandmother’s Indian allotment where she lived until she died in 1989. My grandmother was one of the last of the Cherokees to get a roll number. The books closed on her birthday, March 4, 1906, and ‘NB’ beside to indicate she was a newborn.
“My granny Gertrude Gouard lived on Highway 66 by the railroad track across from where the music store is in Claremore and my Uncle Taylor Gouard “Sug” had a barber shop there for a number of years.
“My grandmother Bessie Miller Gouard Armbrister wrote the Verdigris news for the Daily Progress for a number of years,” Debi said.
“My grandfather, helped build the old armory (at the corner of Patti Page and Lynn Riggs) that was torn down ... he also worked on the Verdigris river bridges. These both were WPA projects,” Debi said. Four of the rocks from the armory are now part of the Roaches’ patio.
And, not to be overlooked is her grandmother’s cousin, the infamous 1930s small-time gangster named Jack Miller.
Debi said Miller’s case is involved in a Supreme Court decision in regards to the Second Amendment. Miller’s case will make headlines again in about a month, when the U.S. Supreme Court finally takes up another Second Amendment challenge to gun control. It’s a case called D.C. vs. Heller, and centers on the handgun ban in Washington, D.C.
Debi is proud that her family has such a rich heritage in the Verdigris area.
“My birth father, Shelby Hardison, and dad, John Hipp, were raised in the same house — at different times — in Verdigris,” Debi said. “There are four generations, so far, in my mother’s family that have attended Verdigris School. My dad, John Hipp, and his family also attended Verdigris Schools, and, to date, there are three generations that have attended from his side.”
Personal
creations
“I did ceramics for several years. I did a cake decorating class. I have also made pins as gifts. I do wall arrangements. I started oil painting classes in 1993-1995 with Pat Crume.
The first pins Debi created were gifts for her mother and sisters. “I took pieces of old jewelry that belonged to our grandmother Bessie and put something that belonged to her on each pin.”
“I took a drawing class and faux painting with her also. For the last two years I have done two acrylic classes, mosaic class, and am currently doing a water color class and will begin a hand-formed pottery class the first part of March with Mary Grossman through the Vo-Tech adult classes,” Debi said.
“Painting is my favorite.”
Debi, her sisters and mother are now working on a family quilt.
“We purchased material that showed an interest of each one of us. Mine are hearts and Santas,” Debi said.
She has about 150 Santa figures, mostly from Branson, Mo.
“One of the most interesting Santa’s is one made from the ashes of Mt. Saint Helen’s. My friend Vickie brought it back for me on one of here trips there,” Debi said.
The center of the family quilt will be the Breast Cancer symbol. As my sister Jennifer and our mother are Breast Cancer survivors.
“They are my heroes,” Debi said.
Compiled by Clarice Doyle,
executive editor

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