EDITORIAL

“This is hackberry that had started to rot,” said Frank Sears, 86, as he picked up a pen he had made from the wood.

 

The hackberry wood was from a tree that had fallen in the churchyard where he attends church. So, he collected it and now gives pens made from that hackberry tree to the members of his church.

 

“The history behind them means more than the pen. For the beauty part of this wood to show through, it had to die, and it’s the same way with a lost person. They have to die in order to see the beauty part of that person. It’s the history behind these pens, the history of something, that really adds value to it,” he said.

 

He picked up a bowl with a 3D pattern of squares at its center.

 

“A lady brought me a picture of bowl that was made with 3D,” Sears said. “It took me several weeks to figure out the angles.”

 

The woods Sears works with are all naturally-colored woods, from local cedar and mesquite to the more exotic woods found in South America and Africa.

 

“I got a local wood here, and it’s probably one of the most hated trees in Hopkins County — honey locust. It’s got all those thorns on it, but it’s how you work it out. It comes to be a really pretty wood,” Sears said.

 

Most of the woodworking Sears does today is called segmented wood turning. He glues smaller pieces of wood together then turns them against the tools in his shop to bring out the shape he’s looking for. He has even created a chart to help him determine how much wood he needs and at what angles to cut them to create the shape he wants.

 

“You can change your angles, but it will change your number of how many pieces it takes. There’s a little more to it than meets the eye,” Sears, who has lived in Hopkins County since 1986, said.

 

Sears is the man behind all the trophies handed out to the winners of the annual Hopkins County Stew Contest and Ice Cream Freeze-off. And this year, he’s created something special for the 50th anniversary of the Stew.

 

A LOCAL LEGACY

Sears and Billy Sam Elliot met while the two were working at Rockwell International. A short time later, Elliot became president of the Hopkins County Chamber of Commerce. Elliot also knew that Sears did woodwork.

 

“He wanted me to make all kinds of stuff. I’d been making trophies probably the first or second year he became president,” Sears said.

 

Not only did Sears start making trophies for the Stew contest, Elliot also came to him to make trophies for other events as well.

 

For a golf tournament, Elliot brought golf balls he had purchased to Sears to use. Sears said he made the trophies with the golf ball in the center of the wood. But he ran in to a problem.

 

“When I was getting through it, come to find out, none of the golf balls was the same size,” Sears laughed.

 

One of the more unique items Elliot asked Sears to produce was a miniaturized version of the Hopkins County courthouse in which he would place a music box. Elliot had a pattern and dimensions for Sears, who made several of them.

 

“I never got to see one of those after he completed it. I was hoping one of them would wind up in the music box collection [at the Sulphur Springs Public Library]. I don’t know if one ever did,” Sears said.

 

“He just amazed me. He was a good man, and I thought the world of him,” Sears continued. “He had such — and this doesn’t seem to be the right word — but he had such love for Hopkins County. He liked to present these trophies. He didn’t want to give a trophy that was made in China. He just had such love for this county, he just had me doing all kinds of projects for the judges and the winners. ...I had such respect for that man, because he just wanted to do so much for the employees and people that worked for the county.”

 

STIRRING THE POT

The Stew trophies Sears has made throughout the years have become a staple of the competition. And in order to keep the materials as local as possible, Sears builds the trophies out of wood from his own property.

 

The base of the trophies is made of cedar and the twig across the top are cut from limbs, both off his own property.

 

“We try to keep it all Texas stuff at least. That was one of his [Elliot’s] things, and we’ve tried to keep doing that,” he said.

 

For the 50th anniversary of the Hopkins County Stew, Lezley Brown, current executive director for the Hopkins County Chamber of Commerce, wanted to do something special. She talked with Sears about making something to reflect the occasion.

 

“The bowl itself is shaped to look like a stew cauldron, and the woods used in it were ordered and brought in from all over the world.  He told me that since it is the World Champion Stew Contest, the wood should come from different places in the world,” Brown said.

 

Sears explained that Brown wanted “50” on the big trophy.

 

“I worked on this for months trying to come up with it. I got the 50 made, so ... I knew I could build the pot around the number 50,” Sears said.

 

While it took him a while to get the shape he wanted, he was able to present Brown with a trophy he liked.

 

“She was well pleased with it,” he said.

 

“He smiled at me and at the trophy the whole time he described it and the process required to make it,” Brown said. ”I fought a lump in my throat while he spoke, knowing how much time and care he had put into it. He looked at me before he left and said, ‘It will always be the only one like it in the whole world.’  And, he’s perfectly right. There will never be another like it.”

 

He even had some scrap wood left over, so he “made Lezley a little bowl.”

 

“Over the years he has made Stew Contest trophies, Ice Cream Freeze-off trophies, new member frames, ornate bowls and even a clock in the shape of Texas,” Brown said. ”Everything Mr. Sears makes is beautiful, but the best part of his creations is how much love he pours into them. It is truly rare to find someone who loves a craft like he does.”

 

A LESSON IN GIVING

The pots for the stew trophies are ordered, Sears explained, and come with lids that he began saving over the years. Those little lids led him to a new idea.

 

“I got the idea I could make wheels out of those lids. You can make a little car, but what do you do with your little car?” Sears asked.

 

His wife had become involved through their church with a charitable cause called Operation Shoebox. Volunteers fill shoe boxes with items for children all over the world.

 

The little cars have evolved over the years.

 

“Very few of them are just alike,” he said, adding that he and his wife at one time owned a craft business. He uses the items left over from that to decorate and individualize the cars.

 

All of them are donated, he said.

 

“Last year, I sent 200 over there to the Philippines, and they use them with their kids over there. They ask these kids to do memory verses, and they get rewarded with the cars and various things,” he said.

 

He also donated 300 cars to Operation Shoebox last year and gave another 150 to his daughter to use at the school where she teaches in Sulphur Springs.

 

And he never charges for them.

 

“That’s one of the agreements I have with the Lord. I can’t charge for them. ... I just want to work on those things all the time. I kind of want to keep adding to them,” Sears said.

 

Last year for Christmas, he made pens to give as gifts. This year, he said, Sears is making pen holders to go with them.

 

In fact, most of what he makes, he gives away.

 

“I learned something a little too late in life about giving. A lady was visiting with me one time and said, ‘Don’t know why you don’t just sell all this stuff.’ I got to thinking about that and thought, ‘You know, if I sell it, the dollars I get will be all I ever get, but if I give it away in the name of Jesus, then there’s no limit on what I’ll get,’” he said.

 

Sears said it’s a big blessing that he is able to make the cars.

 

“Always before, when I gave something away, I really expected something in return. I hate to admit that, but down-deep, I did. I expected at least a thank-you or something else. I really learned that lesson too late in life. I wish I had learned it earlier,” Sears said. “I am so blessed. The lord just blesses me so much. ... I was blessed with a talent, and I’ve tried to use it to glorify the Lord.”

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Tag: Cover story

Source: Down Home East Texas magazine