Jack Hall, a fourth generation descendant of early pioneer settlers of Sherman, died at his home on August 22, 2017.

Jack was born in Sherman on August 26, 1931, to his parents, Hugh Levis and Zena (Ellis) Hall. He attended Sherman schools, was an Eagle Scout in his youth and was elected Best All Around Boy in Sherman High School his senior year, when Jack also went to the state meet in shot put and set records that stood for decades at Sherman High. He also lettered in football. He enrolled at the University of Texas, where he earned a BBA degree with honors in 1955. At Texas, he was a member of Phi Delta Theta social fraternity and Beta Gamma Sigma and Phi Eta Sigma honorary fraternities. Jack interrupted his college career to serve as a First Lieutenant in the United States Army during the Korean War and met the love of his life, Alice Humphries, at the University of Arkansas on a blind date. They were married on July 22, 1952, in Little Rock, Arkansas.

In 1955, Jack returned to Sherman and entered the family business, Hall Furniture Company, with his brother, Levis Hall Jr. The firm had been founded by their great grandfather, Rufus Gaines Hall, who came to Sherman from Missouri in the 1850's. R.G.'s son, Jack's grandfather, Dr. H.L. Hall and wife, Laura Dorchester Hall, were members of Travis Street Methodist Church and gave a 12' by 16' stained glass window containing the figures of their three deceased daughters, which graced the south side of the sanctuary rotunda when the church was built in 1910. The window was moved to First United Methodist Church when the new church was built in 1955 and is now featured in the church parlor.

Jack started as successful general insurance business in 1962 and in 1983 combined it with David Bayless, Sr. and Jr. from Denison to form Bayless-Hall Insurance, the Texoma area's largest property and casualty agency. He served on several state and national insurance company producer councils and authored professional articles published in both state and national insurance industry magazines. The agency had grown to five offices in North Texas at the time of his retirement in 2002.

He was elected to the Sherman School Board in 1963 and immediately led the board in racially integrating the schools, one of the first larger school districts in North Texas to do so. The U.S. Department of HEW held Sherman up as an example of how a Southern school district could voluntarily integrate without a court order with minimum disruption. As board president in 1968 he steered passage of a bond issue to build a new Sherman High School after it had failed twice. The Sherman Chamber of Commerce named him Sherman's Outstanding Young Man of the Year.

A member of Sherman Rotary since 1955, a club his father helped found in 1923, Hall was club president when it celebrated its seventy-fifth anniversary in 1998. Hall was a Rotary Paul Harris Fellow and a two-gallon donor at Texoma Regional Blood Center. He was a charter commissioner of the Texoma Regional Planning Council when it was first founded and served many other organizations that involved benefits to the community, including United Way, Red Cross, Salvation Army, Goodwill Industries, Austin College fund and the Sherman Chamber of Commerce. He was a lifelong member of the First United Methodist Church and a member of the Climbers Sunday School Class and served the church in many ways, including Chair of the Administrative Board and Stewardship Chair. Jack felt a deep sense of love and commitment to his family, his church and to the community which had afforded him so much opportunity. His beloved wife of sixty-one years, Alice, died in 2013, but he is survived by three daughters, Susan Stancil and her husband, Jim, of Fayetteville, Arkansas, and their daughters, Lisa Payne and her husband, Bradford, of Springfield, Arkansas, and Sharon Florquist and her husband, Lane, of Rogers, Arkansas; daughter, Lisa Hall of New Orleans, Louisiana; and daughter, Carol Hare and her husband, Robert, of Ft. Worth, Texas, and their children, Jack of Ft. Worth, and Jeanice of Denton, Texas.

Jack was an avid reader all his life and developed a great interest in travel and understanding other people. He and Alice made fifteen independent trips to Europe, all carefully planned by them, and many dozens of trips all over North America. They always felt traveling independently and doing careful advance research gave them a more intimate feel of the place and promoted more interaction with locals that enriched the depth of the experience. He has now embarked on his final voyage after a long and fruitful life.

Funeral services will be held at 11:30 AM on Monday, August 28, at the First United Methodist Church with the Rev. Chris Dowd officiating. Mr. Hall will be laid to rest next to his beloved Alice at West Hill Cemetery with David Bayless, Jr., Joe Fallon, Joe Henderson, Tim McGraw, Robert Minshew, Ellis Olmstead, Dr. Oscar Page, Rad Richardson, Herman Ringler, and Mack Snider serving as honorary pallbearers.

The online register book may be signed at www.waldofuneralhome.com.