Legendary Diboll timberman Arthur Temple honored at Angelina Chamber banquet

Buddy Temple holds the Angelina Award, presented posthumously to his father, Arthur Temple, while the Golden Anvil Award was presented to Sallye Darmstadter at the 87th Annual Lufkin/Angelina County Chamber Banquet Thursday evening at Pitser Garrison Civic Center. (Joel Andrews/The Lufkin Daily News 2007)

Jay Shands of First Bank & Trust East Texas, stood before a filled-to- capacity Pitser Garrison Civic Center audience last Thursday night to present the Angelina Award. This award is given annually to someone who has given a lifetime of service to his or her community. Shands said, “This award should have been given to Arthur Temple years ago, but those who knew of his reluctance to accept honors and awards will understand why it could only be given after his passing.”

The announcement came at Thursday night's 87th Lufkin/Angelina County Chamber of Commerce Banquet. Temple, who passed away in April of last year, is the third posthumous recipient of the award and was accepted by his son, Buddy Temple, on behalf of the Temple family.

Temple said his father achieved all that he did not just because of his own abilities but more so because of the people he hired.

Arthur Temple was the legendary East Texas lumberman that took his family's business from a sawmill operation to a publicly owned paper and building materials giant and Fortune 500 company known today as Temple-Inland. He was one of the most influential and successful businessmen in the state. Mr. Temple, who joined the family company in 1938 as a bookkeeper, took over the company from his father in 1948 and is credited with helping Diboll prosper as a progressive small city as other sawmill camp towns died off in the 1930s and 40s. He was also a philanthropist and social activist who helped encourage the schools in Diboll to integrate before the Civil Rights Act and before other schools in this region. As a result, he was named the business visionary of the 20th century by Texas Business and Texas Monthly magazine. Among the many businesses he started, financed and encouraged was the Diboll Free Press.

Stubblefield Learning Center director Sallye Darmstadter was the recipient of the Golden Anvil Award, given for outstanding community service over the past year.

Darmstadter oversees Angelina County's ‘second chance' school for high school dropouts who was to obtain their high school diploma.

Guest speaker for the event was Dr. Rick Rigsby. The Texas A&M football team chaplain encouraged the business leaders to “keep on keeping on, to make an impact, not just an impression. If you can stand in the middle of hell and high water, you wan walk again,” he said. “Keep standing.”

Incoming board chair, Jim Brody, will now take over as chairman of the Chamber from Carl Ray Polk Jr., who served during 2006.