By JOAN SHERROUSE/Daily Sun Staff

He said he has taken something positive from every job he's ever had, but the foundation came from watching his dad and several other coaches in action.

"They would work 14 hours a day, six days a week, and eight hours on Sunday after church" he said. "You can't help but look at that and see that, if you work hard, you're going to have good things happen."

In fact, it was his dad who gave him his first job -- summertime employment in the house-painting business. While he admits he may have been more of a pest at first, he eventually worked his way up to the asset category.

"I was in the second grade, and I'd pick up the tape and the newspapers when they tore it off the windows," he said. "But, I worked doing that every year, and now, I can paint your house."

His first work experience outside the family group came when he was at Navarro College on a Collins Scholarship. He had set his sites on Baylor and knew financing would be a challenge, so he rolled the scholarship over and worked to stay in school.

"I had two jobs while I was at Navarro," he said. "I'd get out of class and work in the tutoring lab for minimum wage in the afternoons, and when I got done with that, I went down to a gas station and worked in the evenings."

He added that working 54 hours a week and going to school taught him a thing or two about time management, which he added to the work ethic he'd picked up as a child.

After he graduated from Baylor, he said he came back to Corsicana and went to work for Guardian Glass.

"Working out there, you get to see some of the hardest-working people in the world," he said. "They put their time in, do their job and they don't complain."

The lesson was not lost on him -- the dedication, the team work and the pride of accomplishment.

"Then, I worded for the Texas Youth Commission at the State Home," he said., "What I took from there was patience, because when you're in that kind of environment, and you have to learn how to balance what you need to do with patience and understanding."

The one thread that has run throughout his entire career -- from watching his dad work to sitting on the bench -- is teamwork.

"I don't know that there's a job out there where you don't need an effective team to get the work done," said Municipal Judge Lowell Thompson. "That's why the staff out front is so important to me, because they are so well trained and they do such a good job."

While he was in school, he said summer vacations weren't time off, they were opportunities to work and help fund future goals.

Had it not been for working his way through Navarro College and using his Collins Scholarship at Baylor, Thompson said his life would have turned out very differently.

"I'm convinced to this day," he said. "I probably wouldn't have this job, and I know I wouldn't have been able to go to Baylor."

----------

Joan Sherrouse may be contacted via e-mail at [email protected]

Reprinted with permission of the Corsicana Daily Sun
www.corsicanadailysun.com || Articles Index

All rights to this story reserved. Copyright Corsicana Daily Sun and Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc,. Content  may not be archived, retransmitted, saved in a database, or used for any commercial purpose without the express written permission of the Corsicana Daily Sun and CNHI.