Each year a committee of DHS graduates along with Decatur ISD recognize a DHS graduate as the "Coming Home Queen." This 2023 "Coming Home Queen" is Joyce Gotcher McDaniel, class of 1950.
2023 Coming Home Queen Write Up from Alumni
Our 2023 Coming Home Queen Is a graduate of the Decatur High School Class of 1950. She was born at home in the Allison Community, in May of 1933, delivered by a country doctor. At the age of three, her family moved to Greenwood where she started elementary school. It's hard to believe, but she was such a shy and bashful child that would get marked absent by the teacher because she did not want to answer "here" when the roll was called. At the age of 7, her family moved to Decatur, where she was enrolled in the second grade.
When her family moved into town in 1944 to a house on college hill, next to Decatur Baptist College, she would walk all over town exploring things with her sisters and watching the occasional movie at the Majestic Theater. She started her freshman year at Decatur Heh School in 1946. Her favorite class was shorthand. She was a member of the Future Homemakers Club, Library Club as well as the Pep Squad. She still has her pep squad uniform. She also enjoyed playing volleyball in PE. There was no team volleyball at DHS, but she continued playing in an area league after high school. She attended her Junior-Senior Prom in 195O which was held in the basement of the Lions Club Building just off the square. There was a dance held afterwards in the American Legion Hall which later became City Hall and then the Chamber of Commerce offices. She graduated with a class of 47 students. The senior class took a senior trip to downtown Ft. Worth where she remembers thinking how tall the buildings seemed and how different it was from Decatur. Her yearbook senior picture caption read "Pretty eyes, pretty hair, just a real nice girl.”
In 1950, she met her future husband and the love of her fife, even though he made a bad first impression. She worked at the Kenny Renshaw Drug Store on the square and he would come in to flirt with her. She thought he was arrogant and full of himself. As the story goes, they began dating her senior year. After she graduated, they made arrangements to leave for Carlsbad, NM
to get married. They were to meet behind the Greathouse Hotel on the square where her parents had a coffee shop and cafe inside the hotel. She recalls the day they left her sisters cried because they didn't want her to leave and her father gave her 99 reasons why she should not marry him. The number one reason being he was 11 years older than her! With her pretty dress bought at Perkins Timberlake on the south side of the square, they left and were married in the Carlsbad courthouse by the judge and ate a wedding dinner at a small cafe in town.
They (Joyce and Speck McDaniel) were happily married for 42 years until his untimely death. They raised 4 daughters who all graduated from Decatur High School.
In 2016, at the age of 83, she discovered Facebook and learned that she was a great writer. She began writing stories about her life, family and how things were in Decatur in the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and so on. She has become an unofficial historian of Decatur. She is especially proud to tell stories of the downtown square which played a huge role in her life. She has many stories to tell, most of them about the town she loves.
She enjoys working in her yard, spending time with her family and reading the Bible. She has been an active member of the First Baptist Church in Decatur, teaching the 5-year-old Sunday School Class for 55 years. She has 6 grandchildren, 5 of them Decatur High School graduates and one a Bridgeport Bull. She has 2 beautiful little great-granddaughters as well. Her motto in life is "'Never lose faith, always have hope, never give up” as well as Philippians 4:13.
The 2023 Decatur High School “Coming Home” Queen is Joyce Gotcher McDaniel.
