Published: October 30, 2009 02:08 pm      

Coming home

For Anita Mallory Garrett-Roe, Homecoming is about so much more than dinner and a football game.

By Marsha Brown

WEATHERFORD — Anita Mallory Garrett-Roe, Class of 1964, hasn’t attended every Weatherford High School Homecoming since graduation, but she’s attended most of them since 1974.

As Garrett-Roe waited to line up to ride in the parade, she recalled her years at Weatherford High School and Weatherford Homecomings of past years.

“In high school I was nobody,” Garrett-Roe said. “I played the clarinet in the band. I was always marching in the back row in a hot, wool uniform. I never even had a boyfriend in high school.”

After graduation, Garrett-Roe went off to college, became a teacher, married and lived in Minneapolis. She missed a few homecomings.

“I lived so far away,” Garrett-Roe said. “It was too far to travel for each one.”

But, Garrett-Roe did manage to travel back to Weatherford for her 10-year reunion.

“The first Homecoming that I attended after high school was my 10th,” Garrett-Roe said. “That one was very important to me. I’d been with Mary Kay for a short time and had just gotten my first pink Cadillac. I was dying to drive that pink trophy to my reunion, but I was living in Minneapolis at the time and didn’t want to drive that far.”

But when Garrett-Roe mentioned all that to the then Mary Kay Vice President Pope McDonald, he suggested she borrow the Cadillac of makeup icon Mary Kay Ash. Garrett-Roe wasn’t going to ask, but then she received a phone call from Ash’s executive assistant telling her to come by Mary Kay’s home in Dallas and pick it up.

“When we got there, she was running late because of a bad storm,” Garrett-Roe said. “We waited in her living room with her husband, Mel Ash. They were both wonderful.”

Garrett-Roe now lives in Portland, on the Texas coast, she is the independent executive national sales director for Mary Kay, her husband is a doctor and she hasn’t missed a Weatherford Homecoming in years.

The Homecoming Parade was a highlight for her. She came dressed as a Barbie Doll.

“It was such fun,” Garrett-Roe said. “It was pretty chilly, but lots of fun. Our float is supposed to depict a toy we wished we could have had as a child. I’m driving my pink Cadillac XLR. It’s like a Barbie doll car. It’s a little girl’s dream car. I put my 1964 mum on the rear license plate. They didn’t have Barbie Doll Cars when I was a little girl so I couldn’t have had one. I brought another Mary Kay girl with me and we wore pink feather boas and tiaras.”

The car was a bonus from Garrett-Roe’s company.

“That car is a toy,” said Everett Kincaid of Jerry’s Cadillac. “It retails for about $80,000 and was designed for the customer who has everything.”

Garrett-Roe sees herself as having been a nobody in high school who went on to have a great life, a rewarding career and wonderful friends.

“I’ve been a pioneer for my company,” Garrett-Roe said. “I’ve had the privilege of opening up new territory for Mary Kay in Mexico, Canada, India and Brazil. I actually lived in all those countries while I worked there. I lived in Brazil for six months and learned Portuguese. Then I went back every month after for a follow-up.”

Seeing longtime friends is the main reason Garrett-Roe makes a point of attending each Homecoming.

“What stands out most about my memories of her is that I’ve never seen anyone as focused as Anita — always,” Jamie Bodiford said. “She’s always been very goal oriented. Another thing that stands out in my mind about Anita is attending her wedding. It was at South Fork Ranch and I had the pleasure of meeting Mary Kay Ash. She was delightful and thought the world of Anita.”

One bittersweet experience for Garrett-Roe was having lunch with Drew Springer, who was a Weatherford football standout while she was a sophomore. He was her former next-door neighbor and the brother of her high school best friend, Martha Springer, who died a few weeks ago.

Springer’s memories of Garrett-Roe are a little different from hers. While Garrett-Roe recalls herself as a “nobody” and “band geek,” marching around in a drab wool uniform with no boyfriends, Springer said, ”Anita was beautiful when she was in third grade. The reason she didn’t have any boyfriends in high school was because everyone thought her father was in the CIA.”

“Drew’s wonderful,” Garrett-Roe said, “but, no, my father wasn’t in the CIA. He was in the OSS. That was a forerunner to the CIA. But, yes, he was a spy … The wonderful thing about Homecoming is the feeling of being home again with old friends. It’s like getting a great big hug.”