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

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

saw a bill. Food, everything, was taken care of. That’s just one. I can give you many, many stories of what they meant to us. So this, what we’re doing now, is just kind of paying it forward. It’s something that I had, for a long time, I knew this was going to happen.”

The siblings, along with Chandra’s daughter Destiny, are in the process of endowing the Mansfield-wrightsil Scholarship Award for Outstanding Academic and Extra-curricular Achievement, honoring Toots and Mary Neil Mansfield for going above and beyond to help their family in its time of need, and continuing to encourage them in their endeavors thereafter.

Ms. Wrightsil-mayfield explained the meaning of the scholarship’s title.

“Academics, of course, is Number One. That’s what we encourage at home with our girls,” she said. “Of course, our grandmother — and the Mansfields even — always encouraged us in academics. That’s what you go out there and get. Study hard, get those grades and everything. But extracurricular, the things that we did in extracurricular at the school, man. It helps out so much to get involved and just enjoy your high school years.”

Mr. Wrightsil expanded on the idea behind the scholarship.

I think Chan and myself — and there were other people involved with the development of the name — but what we wanted to do was get a student or students that wanted to apply for this to make sure that they are well-rounded,” he said. “As hard as it is to go to school and be a student... a student athlete, or if you’re in the choir, or the band, or you’re doing something in the community in addition to that .... I can remember

as a senior, I was a student first. I played basketball and baseball there at BSHS – I was okay. I wasn’t bad – but I also worked at Bonanza and I worked at the Big Spring Country Club. The thing about it was, Mr. and Mrs. Mansfield, they encouraged that. They wanted us to make those grades. Their daughter Dean Kelly went on to become a professor at University of Texas – El Paso. So the student part, they definitely encouraged, but they also wanted us to get involved in the community with our fellow students. Our fellow peers.”

Destiny, who graduated from Midland schools in 2012, said she’s proud that her family will be helping tomorrow’s leaders attend college.

“One of the things that I think is really cool about this scholarship, too, is to be able to see these students develop into future leaders,” she said. “That’s the biggest hallmark, I think, takeaway, is to be able to see them go through their senior year and then transition into college. And then, hopefully, these extra-curricular activities that they were involved in or their academics really push them to be the leaders that we need in our world today. So that’s exciting!”

Mr. Wrightsil said the only requirement to apply for the scholarship is that the applicant must be a graduating senior at Big Spring High School.

“This initial scholarship award will go out next spring, for graduation in 2022,” he said. “So any senior who’s attending Big Spring High School and wishes to further their education, is eligible for this scholarship.”

There are no limitations

what school the scholarship recipients attend, he emphasized.

“No, not at all. As long as their going to some school, and they’re not going to take this money and go to Costco, we’re good with it,” he said. “What we’re going to do is, we’ve got this all set up through the Foundation here, that we’re going to be under. We’re in the beginning stages of it, but we’re going to have it all set up in the spring where they’ll be able even to apply online. We’ve got a group of individuals who will be reviewing those applications, and then we’ll make a decision as to who we select. This is a perpetual scholarship award, which means it’s not a one-time gig. This is going to happen over and over and over. I’m hoping we’ll be passing this on at some point to Destiny and her sisters and keep the Wrightsil name as well as the Mansfield name, you know, keep it going.”