Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Grateful for twist of fate that gave us Guy Luscombe

While Great Britain and much of the world has focused this week on the death of a monarch, it was a loss much closer to home that has been in many hearts in eastern New Mexico, that of former longtime Dora School Superintendent Guy Luscombe. 

Luscombe died Friday in Portales at the age of 94. His funeral is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday at (where else?) the Guy Luscombe Gymnasium in Dora, the building whose construction he oversaw 50 years ago, and which was christened with his name in 1986. 

For almost three decades of Dora students, this pipe-smoking gentle giant of a man was “Mr. Luscombe.” 

I have loved, admired, and respected him for 55 years, since I first walked past his office door at Dora Elementary in 1966. It took me many years of knowing him after his retirement from Dora in 1990 to finally start calling him Guy. 

In multiple laughter-filled interviews with Guy over the years, I have always come away in awe of his memory and envious of his gift for spinning a tale.  

One of his favorite stories is also one of mine, because it is proof of the way that something as simple as a missed phone call has the potential to change hundreds — perhaps thousands — of lives. 

Guy was 34 years old back in 1962, living in Waurika, Okla., with his wife, Polly, and four of the five children they would ultimately have together. 

At Waurika High School, Guy was the basketball coach, assistant football coach, and taught four subjects, including shop and early history. 

After eight years of experience, he was taking home only $5,000 a year, he told me, and knew it was time to do something else.  

“It wasn’t working out too well that way,” he said. 

His job hunting brought him to eastern New Mexico that summer where he interviewed for two high school principal positions, one at Dora School and one at Floyd School. 

Both schools extended a job offer at the end of the interview, but Guy said he felt he should drive home and confer with his family before he made the decision.  

He felt the Floyd position had a slight edge, housing-wise. The provided “teacherage” that was a little larger than the one available at Dora, extra space for the six-member Luscombe family. 

 As he drove through Portales after leaving Floyd, Guy said he spotted an old telephone booth and decided on the spot to go ahead and accept that most recent offer. 

He pulled over, dialed the Floyd school, and asked to speak to the superintendent.  

Fortunately for all of us at Dora, Floyd’s top administrator had left for the day and wasn’t expected back. 

Guy continued on to Waurika, telling Polly when he got home that he had two offers and that he was just going to wait and see which one called first, “if either of them.” 

Thirty minutes later, Dora Superintendent L.C. Cozzens called and re-offered Guy the job. 

“I took it,” he told me. “I told Polly we’ll go out there and stay a year and then see what we’re going to do. Well, we loaded up our four kids and two dogs and everything and moved to Dora … and wound up staying 28 years.” 

In 1965, Cozzens left Dora and Guy moved to the superintendent’s desk, where he led our school and community with integrity, excellence, innovation, and deep compassion for the next quarter century.  

He changed — for the better — the lives of countless students, teachers, staff members, and all manner of other folks in our district and throughout our region and our state. 

I am grateful that one of those lives was mine. 

And I am even more grateful for a missed phone call 60 years ago, a fortuitous twist of fate that gave our community the extraordinary gift of Guy Luscombe. 

Betty Williamson believes that Dora won the jackpot when the Luscombe family came to town. Reach her at:

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