Theda V. Sanders Garvin: Longtime auditorium teacher at Terry Elementary

Theda V. Sanders Garvin taught almost every student at T.G. Terry Elementary in Dallas in the 1960s and '70s.

"They all got to have her for six years," said her daughter Mindy Bonner of Arlington. "They grew up in her class."

During their half-hour auditorium class with Mrs. Garvin, students were taught lessons from democracy to safety – throughout their elementary education. Those who memorized the presidents in the order they held office became members of the Presidents Club. Some of those students still have their notebooks signifying the accomplishment.

Mrs. Garvin, 92, died Sunday of complications of pneumonia at Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital.

Services will be 2 p.m. today at First United Methodist Church in Duncanville. She will be buried in Restland Memorial Park in Dallas.

Mike Rhyner with The Ticket (1310 AM) is among Mrs. Garvin's former students who can still recite the presidents in order. While he isn't absolutely sure he learned the presidents in Mrs. Garvin's classes, "somewhere along the line, all that stuff just lodged in the brain pan," he said.

The longtime sports-talk personality, however, does remember his auditorium teacher.

"I remember her quite well," Mr. Rhyner said. "She was just an ideal teacher, a very solid educator.

"She was very nice and someone I looked forward to having teach us in auditorium every year."

Mrs. Garvin was an integral part of T.G. Terry Elementary, where she sponsored the school's award-winning safety patrol and wrote, organized and rehearsed the holiday pageants, her daughter said.

Her plays changed the lives of some students, including Vashon Green, one of her students in 1982, the last year she taught.

Mr. Green's mother, Eltee Green, said her once-shy son blossomed and came out of his shell after Mrs. Garvin assigned him to the lead in the play, The Little Fir Tree.

"She was unique," said Mrs. Green, a media assistant at the Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center.

Vashon Green now lives in Sacramento, Calif.

"He still has the little costume he had for that," said Mrs. Green, who added that he later learned to play piano on his own. He now plays for his church.

Mrs. Garvin, who was born in Caddo, Okla., taught piano as a high school student. She attended Northeastern State Teachers College in Tahlequah, Okla., now Northeastern State University, on a music scholarship. She graduated in 1936 with a double major in music and elementary education.

She taught second grade in Oklahoma in Keota and Henryetta, where she met her husband, William Harold Garvin. The couple married in 1939. Mrs. Garvin taught in Weleetka, Okla., while her husband served in World War II.

Mr. Garvin died in March.

When Mr. and Mrs. Garvin moved to Dallas in 1945, she took a hiatus from teaching to raise their four daughters. Mrs. Garvin returned to the classroom in 1959, teaching for five years at Harry Stone Elementary, before being transferred to T.G. Terry Elementary, where she taught for 19 years.

When auditorium teachers were cut from the Dallas schools in the late 1970s, Mrs. Garvin returned to teaching second grade for several years. She was once again teaching citizenship when she retired.

"Everything she did was first class," said her daughter, an Arlington teacher.

In addition to her daughter, Mrs. Garvin is survived by three other daughters, Becky Segrist of Lubbock, Peggy Harrison of Argyle, Betty Garton of Arlington; a sister, Betty Burroughs of Tahlequah, Okla.; nine grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.