Beloved father, grandfather, great-grandfather, brother, brother-in-law, uncle, cousin, colleague and friend Don Squibb, age 86, of Jonesborough, passed away Tuesday, June 30, 2020 at the Johnson City Medical Center.
Devoted son of the late Hal and Maude Sherfey Squibb, Don grew up on the family farm in Sulphur Springs with his older brother Bill and younger sisters Kaye and Faye. A farm boy at heart, Don possessed many other gifts. The gift of a loving family, the gift of storytelling, the gift of laughter, the gift of a beautiful voice, and the gift to blaze a baseball from the mound or at bat.
Don was modest about his God-given talents, but embraced them with perfect pitch, from his early days singing songs in church services and Sulphur Springs High School talent shows to his college days on baseball scholarship at Lincoln Memorial University, where he earned a degree in business, and was later inducted into the LMU baseball hall of fame. It was at LMU that Don met Joyce Ellen McMurtury, the future mother of his children and the love of his life.
Early in their marriage, Don was drafted by the Cardinals and they set off for Alabama to pursue his professional baseball pitching career, until injury made other plans.
Settling back in Tennessee, Don began a career as an insurance agent with Oldham Associates in Johnson City. Then in the early 1970s, the cattle were lowing and the farm boy listened. Don and Joyce bought the Hunt house at auction right across from the family farm, where he began raising cattle and tobacco with the help of his sons, Brad and David, who affectionately called him “George Foreman” for his determination to make them as farm boy as his beloved nephew Johnny Squibb.
Still the cattle kept lowing and Don heeded the call again. He landed the part of Curly in a Johnson City Community Theater production of Oklahoma! Then the roles kept rolling in, as Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, Fredrik in A Little Night Music, Harold Hill in The Music Man, and too many other musicals to mention, until Don was firmly established as the Community Theater’s leading man.
A member of Kiwanis and other clubs, and a popular and highly regarded man, at the turn of the decade Don was encouraged to seek public office, and so he ran and won his seat as Washington County Circuit Court Clerk in 1982, a position he held, unopposed election after unopposed election, for 20 successful years.
When Joyce passed away in 1998, Don found love again. He married Barbara Summers of Johnson City and they shared life, family, the farm, and cruised the world together, until Barbara’s passing in 2013. Don found peace in his long-time passion for collecting multitudes of interesting things, including an eye-popping collection of toy clowns. Maybe it was the Frederik from A Little Night Music in him. “But where are the clowns? Quick, send in the clowns. Don’t bother they’re here.”
Forever a favorite wedding and funeral soloist, throughout his later years, Don’s love of music and theater thrived through his role as a prominent player in The Jonesborough Repertory Theater, managing the box office and performing in countless musicals, including the annual fan favorite USO Show, with his equally talented daughter Sharon, right until the beautiful end.
Left to cherish his memory are his daughter, Sharon Squibb, two sons, Brad Squibb and David Squibb, daughter-in-law Bonnie Squibb, grandsons Blake and Brady Squibb, and wife Nicole Squibb, great grandsons Connor Squibb and Gage Woods and great granddaughter Kensi Squibb, and sisters Kaye Atwood and Faye Squibb, sister-in-law Alma Lee Squibb, nephews Johnny Squibb and Mark Squibb, nieces Ramona Bird, Paula Maupin, Paulette Winkle, and Sarah Squibb, as well as the extended Squibb and McMurtry clans.
Due to the Covid-19, there will not be a receiving of friends, but there will be a viewing, and guests may sign a register book at Dillow-Taylor Funeral Home 9:00 AM -4:00 PM Tuesday, July 7, 2020. The family will have a private graveside ceremony.
In lieu of flowers the family request donations in Don’s memory to the Jonesborough Repertory Theater, P.O. Box 585, Jonesborough, TN 37659.