The 2019-2020 Hall of Fame inductees, Garvin McCarrell and Randy Ray, will be honored at PHS on Friday, September 20th. We are honored to share their stories with our students and community.
Garvin McCarrell
Class of 1972
Garvin McCarrell was born on August 6, 1954, at Highland General Hospital, Pampa, TX to Cecil and Thula McCarrell. His older brother, Gary, and sister, Sheila, both graduated from Pampa High School. He attended Travis Elementary, Robert E. Lee Jr. High, and Pampa High School, graduating in 1972. His love of sports, especially football and track, started in elementary school and played a huge role in his life.
After graduating from PHS in 1972, he attended West Texas State University on a football scholarship and graduated in 1976 with a Bachelor of Science Degree. A knee injury ended his football career his junior year. He later completed a Master of Ministry Degree from Bethany Theological Seminary and a Master of Divinity from Christian Life School of Theology. During the summers between 1974 – 1976, he worked at Camp Summer Life near Taos, New Mexico.
Upon graduating, he moved to the mountains of New Mexico and managed Camp
Summer Life. It was during the years living in a log cabin and interacting with people of diverse backgrounds and ages he knew God was calling him to serve Him in ministry. He moved back to Amarillo in 1978 and married his college sweetheart, Kim Smith, and started participating in the newly forming Trinity Fellowship Church, where he volunteered and served for 30 years.
The church grew from 75 people to over 9,000 before he moved in 2007 to Colorado
Springs to serve at New Life Church for 10 years as Senior Executive Pastor. He
retired after 40 years of serving at two churches. He is currently touring the USA
with Kim on their Harley and pursuing a patent on a motorcycle leather product.
Accomplishments and honors:
*PHS 1971 Runner up All School Pin-Up
*PHS 1972 All School Favorite
*PHS 1972 Carnival King
*PHS 1972 Vice President Sr Class
*PHS1972 District Football Champs
*PHS 1972 District Track Champs
*PHS 1972 Track- set the PHS 440 yard relay record-41.9 Ran 2nd leg
*PHS 1972 Track Team participated in State Track meet in Austin TX,
Randy Ray
Class of 1980
Growing up in Pampa, Randy Ray spent his early years like a lot of other kids in Pampa: riding motorcycles, water skiing at Lake McClellan and driving around “the drag.” He has told people that “all the hours he spent driving around the drag helped cause the U.S. fuel shortage of the 70s.” Pampa is also where Randy discovered his passion for music. “I have always loved music. I bought my first record at Gibson’s and I took guitar lessons at Tarpley’s. Pampa gave me a great musical foundation.”
Pampa is also where Randy discovered his love for the media, “I can remember watching movies at the Capri Theatre. I saw Star Wars, when it first came out in 1977, at least eight times. He goes on to say, “When I was 18, some buddies and I made a couple of 8mm movies. That is when the creative bug really bit me. I knew then that I wanted to be in some type of creative field.”
After graduating from Pampa High School in the fall of 1980, Randy enrolled as a Radio/TV major at West Texas State University. There, he not only fell in love with the media industry, he fell in love with learning. “I was NOT a very good student in high school. I was MUCH more concerned about cars, girls and rock & roll than I was about academics. Most, if not all, of my high school teachers are probably shocked that I am a teacher today.”
After college, Randy moved back to Pampa and put all of his efforts into his music. It was then that he became reacquainted with the love of his life: Anita Marlar (PHS Class of “79.) “I first met Anita when I was eleven. We went to church together and I was smitten with her from the very first moment I met her. But we were just friends for many years…much to my disappointment.” However, things changed after college. They dated for several months and were married in December of 1986. “I can say, without doubt, that without Anita by my side, I would not have done anything. She has supported me in every way possible. She is an amazing person!”
Randy and Anita moved to Nashville in 1987. He first worked as an audio engineer, working with some of the biggest names in music and on the speaking circuit. Randy reconnected with musicians Andy Denton and Billy Williams of Amarillo. The trio, plus guitarist Michael Jacobs, formed Christian rock band Legend Seven. Randy, who played bass guitar, swapped his engineering job for a recording contract. Legend Seven was signed to the prestigious Word record label and began touring. The group made two CDs, each selling 30,000 copies. The band toured the United States, Europe and had several top singles on Christian radio.
In 1994, Randy left the band and took a job managing Sunset Studios, which, at the time, was the largest sound stage and recording studio in the south. "I got to work with artists I had grown up listening to driving around the drag in Pampa," he said. Randy worked with Spike Lee, Lynard Skynard, Garth Brooks, Peter Frampton, Neil Diamond and other music and film greats at the studio.
While managing Sunset Studios, he was asked to teach classes at nearby Middle Tennessee State University. He went to graduate school while teaching there from 2000 to 2002. "I fell in love with teaching at Middle Tennessee State," he said. “I discovered that teaching at the university level gave me as much satisfaction as playing music. Seeing a student’s face light up when something clicks with them is every bit as cool as performing before a crowd of 10,000 people.”
While at MTSU, West Texas A&M University reached out to Randy and asked if he would be interested in moving to Canyon to teach and help them design the new Thirty-Two Million Dollar Sybil. B. Harrington Fine Arts Complex. “It was a tough decision,” he says. “Anita and I loved Nashville, our friends and our church. However, we knew this might be the only opportunity to get back home. So, we went for it.” In 2002, Randy moved back to the Panhandle bringing his wife, Anita, daughter, Rachel, and son, Luke with him. At WT, Randy used his experience in the recording industry to design and build the complex's radio and television station, audio suites, recording studio and the high-definition video studio.
Randy’s years at WTAMU, where he serves as Director of Broadcast Engineering, have been fruitful. His years in Nashville give him an edge at educating college media students. His students have won dozens of trophies and awards including Telly Awards, Nations Broadcasting Society Awards and Broadcast Education Awards. "Randy's experiences lend a lot to his teaching," said A.J. Swope, a Pampa High School and WT graduate. "He spent so many years in the industry, and he brings that to his classroom." "Randy's experiences allow him to relate to students on a personal level," said Alex Tomlin, a 2007 graduate. "The best thing about Randy Ray is that he is 100 percent there if you need him," Tomlin said. "He's genuine, and he really invests in his students." Randy hopes he can encourage his students the same ways he was encouraged as a Pampa High School student. "I try to express to students the same thing I learned from some of my teachers growing up in Pampa: to have high goals and work hard, and it can happen," he said.
While teaching at WTAMU, Randy has served as executive producer on two documentary films. Steps to Promise tells the story of four homeless and addicted women and their time in the Downtown Women’s Center of Amarillo. Reconciling Covenants is a travel film that was shot in Israel on such locations as the West Bank, the Golan Heights and Jerusalem. Randy also serves as executive producer on the TV series One Sessions. This live music series has won several national awards.
While living in Tennessee, Randy wrote a humor column for one of the newspapers. In 2012, Randy compiled some of his columns and had a book published by CrossBooks Publishing. Many of the stories in his book, Thank the Lord for Leroy, are stories about growing up in Pampa. “Most of those stories were written when I was homesick for family back in Pampa.” he said. “It was such a treat for me when I got the opportunity to get to read some of those stories and share my book at Lovett Library in Pampa a few years ago.”
Today, Randy stays busy. In addition to his job at WT, he serves as an elder for Hillside Christian Church and is a City Commissioner for the City of Canyon, Texas. In his spare time, he plays bass in the classic rock band Noah Jenda and is the host of two podcasts: Reflections from WT, The Heart and Soul of the Texas Panhandle with WT President Walter Wendler and The Texans for Israel Podcast with Mike Isley.
Published on 09/20/2019
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