VAN -- Funeral services for Mart N. Hitt Jr., 95, of Van, Texas, are scheduled for 2 p.m. Monday, February 19, 2007, at Hilliard Funeral Home, with the Rev. Richard Stagner officiating. Visitation will be 1 p.m., prior to the services. Burial will be in Providence Cemetery.

Mart N. Hitt Jr., schoolman and cattleman, died February 9, 2007, at his home in Van. Mart N. Hitt Jr., son of Mart N. Hitt Sr. and Nancy Lynn (Hill) Hitt, was born October 2, 1911, in Buckholts, Texas, in Milam County. He graduated from Moran High School in 1931 and earned Bachelor and Master of Science degrees from East Texas State University in 1936 and 1942. He supported himself during his senior year of high school and throughout college by milking cows, feeding chickens, selling newspaper advertising, playing football and running track on scholarship. Nineteen thirty-five was a significant year for Mart. He ran on the record setting and winning Sprint Medley Relay at the Texas Relays in Austin and on the record setting Mile Relay at the Lone Star Conference meet in Denton. He also married his wife of 70 years, Margy L. McGee. Mart was elected captain of the track team in 1936. That same year, after graduation, he got a teaching job in Brownsboro High School, where he introduced football and track and began a 40-year career as an educator, coach and administrator in Texas Public Schools. In 1938, he moved to Frisco High School as a principal and coach and became superintendent in 1940 at the age of 28. Mart was known among friends and students alike as a first-rate story teller, and that, along with his gregarious personality and ready laugh, was part of his secret for success. "You had to get their attention to teach," was his philosophy of pedagogy. In 1942, Mart interrupted his teaching career to volunteer for the Navy. He received training as a cryptogapher and communications officer at Harvard War College and served in World War II as communications officer for the Mid Pacific Area at Midway Island. At war's end, he was transferred to the Naval Air Station at Dallas and retired LCDR, USNR, Ret. (1950). After the war, Mart resumed his teaching career as dean of boys and coach at Buckner Orphans Home until 1947, when he became superintendent of Wilmer-Hutchins ISD. He served at Wilmer-Hutchins until 1964, when he moved to Pine Tree ISD as superintendent. In 1977, he retired from Pine Tree and teaching to return full time to the cattle ranching of his youth. He raised cattle for 45 years in Dallas, Smith and Van Zandt counties. Mart Hitt loved Margy, people and cows in that order. He served God in many different churches as deacon, adult Sunday school superintendent, BSU president, adult men and boys Sunday school teacher, choir, director and chairman of personnel committees. He was a member of the Van First Baptist Church. Mart served a president of the North Texas School Master's Club in Dallas, president of the East Texas School Master's Club in Marshall, and chairman of North East Texas Region of the Southern Association of Accreditation for Secondary Schools and Colleges. He held honorary life memberships in Texas Association of School Administrators, the American School Administrators and the National Congress of Parents and Teachers. Mart was a past member of the board of directors for the Longview Chamber of Commerce and the YMCA board, past president of the Greggton Rotary Club, and past president of the Retired Teachers Association of Van Zandt County. Mart Hitt's survivors include his two sons, Raymond W. Hitt and G. Preston Hitt, both of Grand Saline; sister, Geneva Quigley of Houston; and many beloved nieces and nephews.

Published in the Longview News-Journal on 2/18/2007.