Walter Keith Weathersby

Walter “Keith” Weathersby, age 87, and a resident of Albuquerque since 1958, slipped quietly into the waiting arms of his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ on Monday, April 4th, 2022. He is remembered by friends and family as a Christian man of compassion and generosity, who loved the Lord and did all he could to please Him. One who had a vibrant personality, with a special sense of humor, and one who always knew how many days it was until his favorite holiday, Christmas…the birthday of Jesus!

In becoming a permanent member of Heaven, he is survived by his lovely wife, Susan of 60 years; his son, Todd and wife, Michelle, granddaughters, Ashley (husband Patrick) and Brooke (husband Tim); and great-granddaughter, Austyn all of Phoenix, Arizona. Other survivors include his sister, Linda, and husband, James Womack of Orange TX; and nieces, Janice (Tim) and Sheryl; and nephew, Stephen. He was preceded in death by his beloved mother, Mary Berniece Holmes-Harris; younger brother, Larry Weathersby; and niece, Cynthia Womack.

Keith’s ministry and personal testimony was always very important to him. As we were looking through his things, we found a speech he gave sharing his life story with an incredible sense of humor for members of First Baptist Church in April 2005. Reading his words touched us and we wanted to give him one last opportunity to evangelize… from the other side… Heaven!

Please join us in celebrating his life and a message that remains incredibly relevant in these challenging times! If any of you want to know more about Jesus and his love for you, please call Albuquerque’s First Baptist Church at 505-247-3611.

Who Am I? – A Personal Testimony by Keith Weathersby (April 2005)

Today I am a substitute speaker at your little gathering. You all know Bruce Rich is back in the hospital and not doing well. Janet called and asked me if I would lead your parade today. I said yes…thinking I'd be bringing a Bible Study, but no…she wants me to have a "getting to know you" session. I agreed, but I said I would have to spice it up a little and surely, I could get in some good licks from the Bible.

So, I thought…this is the way I see the Christian life… The Christian life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming. "Wow! What a ride!" Now that's the way I want to go... just like some of my heroes and heroines out there!

Then I thought maybe I ought to talk a little on the 10 Commandments… in Cajun. Y'all know about Cajun folk? Well, here's the Ten Commandments in Cajun.

1. God is number one… and das' all.

2. Don't pray to nuttin' or nobody… jus' God.

3. Don't cuss nobody… ' specially da Good Lord.

4. When it be Sunday… pass yo’self by God's House.

5. Yo mama an' yo daddy dun did it all… listen to dem.

6. Killin' duck an' fish, day OK.…people - no.

7. God done give you a wife… sleep wit' jus' her.

8. Don't take nobody's boat… or nuttin' else.

9. Don't go wantin' somebody's stuff.

10. Stop lyin'… yo tongue gonna fall out yo mouf!

Then I said to myself… self--maybe you should tell a joke. It seems there were two factory workers talking. "I think I'll take some time off from work" said one man. "How do you think you'll do that?" said his workmate, "cause I'd like to take some time off, too." He proceeded to show him…by climbing up to the rafters and hanging upside down. The boss walked in, saw the worker hanging from the ceiling, and asked him what in the world he was doing? "I'm a light bulb, " answered the guy. "I think you need some time off," said the boss. So, the man jumped down and walked out of the factory. His workmate began walking out, too. The boss asked him "where do you think you are going?" He answered, "Home, I can't work in the dark."

OK, so about now Janet is wondering if she made a mistake in inviting me! So, who am I?

"Me name is Jose Jimenez".

Seriously, I think I'm probably someone different to each of you. I think I'm probably the last staff person to give you a glimpse of my life's story. I know you've hosted just about everybody else. Believe it or not… I was a short, little, timid introvert growing up. In fact, I didn't come out of my shell until I had served 2 years in the US Army, fighting the battle of Juarez, and out of college and teaching school. Would you have guessed that? Now you know me as anything but that. During the last couple of years, I have been a Colonel, an African Chief, Ghost of Christmas Past, a hillbilly, a gorilla, a clown, Santa Claus, and of course, Elvis, The King of Rock and Roll, just to mention a few of the people I've been. What character is your favorite?

Together with my wife Susan, we've twice won the 50's Costume Contest here at First Baptist (that's the 1950's of course.) I am a man of many collections. Some suggest that I collect so much stuff because I grew up dirt poor without much of anything. Can you remember when we used to get just an apple and an orange in our stocking for Christmas?

Anyhow, I collect a lot of stuff. I give you all a personal invitation to add to any of my collections, and I am serious. In fact, my business card says, "Collector of anything of which there is two." When anyone shares something with me to add to one of my collections, I always try to put a label on it telling who gave it, when and where they got it. I am a serious collector of Coca Cola Memorabilia. There's a whole room in my house devoted to Coca Cola...in fact it is a museum and upon entry you would be given a pass to the House of Collectibles and admonished that there would be no mention of the "P” word (Pepsi), because Coke is it! You would also be asked to choose an item to dust.

Because of the timeliness in the news today, I brought one special coke bottle. It is the Royal Wedding commemorative bottle when Prince Charles married Lady Diana. Since he is getting married again this Saturday, I thought you might like to see a little piece of history. Anytime you go overseas, you are asked to bring me back a full coke bottle. Once in Brazil, Dr. Rick Davison was bringing me back a bottle of coke and he got too thirsty and drank it, but he brought the bottle. I sent him back the next year to redeem himself. I’m also a baseball freak and collect nearly anything from America’s pastime.

I collect marbles when I can find them. Got any coffee cans out in your garage with marbles in them? If so, I need them. I collect glass insulators, coins (of course I must get each uncirculated state quarter as it hits the banks). Betty Danielson taught me to start a new collection… $100 bills… I don't have any yet, so if you want to start my collection, be my guest. Some of you have seen some of my musical ties. I started out with Christmas ones and have since added most major holiday/events. At last count I had over 40 Christmas musical ties, so I wear a different one each day after Thanksgiving. I also have musical socks, and ssshhh… Santa underwear! And of course, there’s Beanie Babies—over 350 of them! And the Elvis Collection!

When I'm not collecting other things, I have a hobby of keeping tropical fish. Several years ago, I was President of the Tropical Fish Society of Albuquerque and helped sponsor the fish display at the State Fair. I won best of show three years in a row and decided to stop displaying and started judging the show. The Fair hasn't had a fish exhibit for many years now.

Well, what else should I tell? Not everything of course! I was born in Indiana during the Great Depression while my folks were running a telephone exchange. They moved back south to their home in southern Mississippi when I was one year old. In fact, Mom told me that when they were moving out the big old oak table that everyone in those days had, that I was running around it saying, "I big boy now."

After about 6 years in Mississippi, we moved to Southeast Texas and I grew up there, close enough to Louisiana that if you stood on the rooftops, you could almost look across the swamp and river into Louisiana.

A big part of my story took place on March 31, 1955, at Ft. Bliss Army Base in El Paso. I was a guided missile instructor, and a part of my job was to put on demonstrations for VIP Dignitaries. I would control a missile that was attached to a 32-ton erector on rubber tires by means of a remote cabled box which I held in my hand and used the toggle switches to move the missile from a horizontal transportation stage to a vertical launching position on a launching pad.

On this particular day, the show was over, and I moved back into position in order to maneuver the erector into place to clamp onto the missile and lower it into a transportable state and take it away. Everything went fine until the missile got into about a 45degree angle when the tip end of the warhead came into contact with the power line that supplied all of Ft. Bliss. I began to feel really strange, and I immediately reacted to try and throw that metal control panel away from me, but it wouldn't go away, instead I was being drawn into a ball and I remember seeing a green ball of fire getting larger and larger and the sound keep getting louder and louder until it went "pow.” And then folks, I was dead! You see, I had sustained an electrocution. The electricity entered through my right hand, went across my body, came out the left elbow, went into my left thigh, and exited through the big toe on my right foot. It had made a complete circuit through my body and turned the ground upon which I was standing into solid green glass approximately 6 inches deep. I had sustained over 13,800 volts and in excess of 400 amps...many times more electricity than is administered to kill a person in the electric chair. You see, if I had only had the volts, it would have knocked me into the next county, but the excessive amps just drew me together and I could not get rid of the source of the electrocution.

A big old 300-pound Master Sergeant named Lowman had enough sense to know he couldn't touch me or the cable running from the erector, or he too would be electrocuted. He ran and jumped off the ground onto the rubber-tired erector and jerked the cable out of my hands. He then proceeded to give me artificial respiration for over 4 minutes. There was no heartbeat, no breathing, no pulse… nothing,… because I was dead.

After a little over 4 minutes passed and I can remember as if it were yesterday. I woke up long enough to say, "Thank you, Lord, thank you, Lord" and passed out again to wake up in the recovery room of the hospital. Now folks, you hear about near death, or after death experiences where the person reports to have seen a white tunnel, Jesus, and/or all sorts of things. I can truthfully say, I did not see any of that. I don't know what happened during that time, but I know something did, because I awoke long enough to say Thank you Lord, Thank you Lord.

Am I one of God's miracles? You bet I am. I am written up in the Army medical annals at William Beaumont Army Hospital as "no explanation for being alive." Now I had been in prayer meeting the night before, and I guess the Lord decided He was not through with me at 21 years of age……that He still had something for me to do before He calls me home.

Now if that didn't give you chill bumps, listen to this. This is 1955, long before the advent of modern plastic surgery. I was told I would lose my left arm and never use my right hand again. But there was a little 5'4" Army Captain that came to me and said "I want to try skin grafting, but I don't want you to get your hopes up, because maybe 1 in 100 of these will take. So, they take skin from my right leg and surgically transplant it to my right hand, my left arm, and my left leg. Again, with a warning that this was experimental, the Doctor removed the bandages in about a month, and guess what…all three places took 100%. I later had to have a second graft because I couldn't move the thumb on the hand, so they took some of my muscle and grafted it so that I could wiggle my thumb. I'm probably the only person you will ever see who has hair growing in the palm of my hand.

By the way, I got to march in the parade where Sgt. Lowman was awarded the Soldiers Medal…the highest award presented to a soldier in peacetime.

Wanna know what scripture was underlined in my Bible while I was in the hospital? I Peter 4:12-13 "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try (prove) you, as though some strange thing happened unto you, but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy."

Miracle? ….. You be the judge. I used to tell people that the Lord saved me twice and I finally realized that was the wrong message to send; rather, he saved me once and He preserved me another time.

Well, that only gets me past 1955. I went to college and came to teach at Valley High School in Albuquerque in 1958. During a Christmas party in 1960, I met Susan…and the first time I saw her, I slapped her hand. She reached for some candy from a bowl in front of me and I slapped her hand. She looked at me as if to say, "this is the guy I'm going to marry?" No, she likely thought what kind of a nut is this? Nevertheless, in three months we were engaged and in 3 more months we were married. We got married at 6PM at Fruit Avenue Baptist Church. I had been teaching until noon that Saturday and started teaching summer school again Monday morning. We had a short honeymoon at the old Western Skies Motel at the entrance to Four Hills. I had car trouble on Monday morning and had to call in and say I'd be late arriving… I haven't lived that down even after all these years with my colleagues from Valley.

That summer I was selected and awarded a full scholarship to get my master’s degree in Columbus, Ohio. I was being groomed to be admissions officer at TVI, but it was not finished in time, and I accepted a job in Cincinnati for a year before we returned to Albuquerque, Susan's birthplace. Our only child, Todd, was born in 1968 in the same home we bought in 1965 and still live in today. My career in APS spanned 34yrs, during which time I served as teacher, counselor, assistant principal, and principal. In 1976, after serving as assistant principal at Sandia High School for 6 years, I was named Principal of the largest high school in the history of the State with over 3800 students. And it was a great school.

In 1982, at Christmas the Principal of Highland High School retired and the Superintendent told me he was transferring me there. I didn't want to go, but he had a policy that no one should be in one school longer than 7 years. I challenged that rule because I thought it made no sense. To me, if it ain't broke, don't fix it... and we were sailing along as the top academic school in the district. Nevertheless, he transferred me…and had to make 5 other switches in principals in order to accomplish the whole round robin thing. Anyway, in 1984-85, Highland received national recognition as a school of excellence…one which in the face of a declining neighborhood, was maintaining academic excellence. Highland was the only high school in New Mexico and only one of 117 schools of all categories in the nation to be so named. I got to go to Washington, DC to accept the award. I got to ride down Pennsylvania Avenue in a motorcade with sirens blaring, right through the gates to the White House, was ushered to a seat in the Rose Garden where we woke up President Reagan…not really, but he greeted us and told us how pleased he was to recognize us, and then we were presented with a flag and a pen. Here's the pen.

From 1989-92, after 31 years at the high school, I became Principal of Eisenhower Middle school…where puberty drove me to retirement… their hormones, not mine, ha. I was told that I would miss school and that by the time the bell rang in the fall, I would miss it. I insisted that I wouldn't, that my wife and I had studied it and that I wouldn't miss it. It was time to leave when I was still enjoying going to work every day and hoping I was making an impact on eager young lives. But you know what… they were right. In August when the bell rang, I rolled over, went back fast asleep… and missed the whole thing!

Of the many accomplishments during the 34 years, I was most pleased to have selected a motto when I first became a principal, which became my byword and everywhere I went, I took that with me. It said "In Pursuit of Excellence. Schools I Principaled won State Championships in Football, Baseball, Track, Swimming, Tennis and other team and individual sports…and I was very proud. In 1986 APS christened an Academic Decathlon, where a team of different abilities, not all could be "A" students, in fact 2 had to be "C" students, was chosen by the schools that chose to field a team and a state competition was started. I am proud to say that Highland High School's team won the first three state championships, and everybody at Highland would say "that's Mr. W's Baby!"

That's what I believe about the Christian walk, too. We ought to always be in Pursuit of Excellence. It was not the easiest assignment to be a Christian Principal and maintain Christian principles and ethics, but I tried to live and perform in such a way that I was respected for what I believed and even though I had to be careful about witnessing during the day, I could support Bible studies during the lunch hour, and before and after school. I was pleased to be a member of a small group of Christian principals who gathered from time to time for support and to be up to date on the latest rulings of what we could and could not do in public schools.

Susan and I, along with Todd, joined FBC in 1981. I have served as a Deacon and Bible Study Teacher all these years. Susan has been a Bible Teacher all these years, too. She and I are a team. June 3 will mark 44 years that we have been married. She is my best friend here on earth, and the best thing that ever happened to me other than finding Jesus as my Savior.

I served on the Search Committee that brought our Pastor here 4 years ago. He had no staff when he arrived. He asked me on four separate occasions to become Administrator of the Church. He needed someone to attend to the day-to-day business and free him up to do his ministry. I turned him down 3 times, but on the fourth time, I said I'll give you 20 hours a week and review it in 6 months. Well, here we are…never saw a 20-hour week and on July 2, if I make it that far, it will be 4 years. Well, that job lasted four years; I retired on Friday and was called back on Monday because the Pastor resigned. I reluctantly was Church Administrator for another 2 years… 6 yrs in all.

Let me close by stating what I believe to be my life's purpose. It is to focus on pleasing God through obedience, diligence, and love, in order to always be ready to give a good account of the glorious hope that is within me.

My life verse that I have adopted is 1Peter 5: 6-7 which says, "humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, casting all your care upon Him for He cares for you."

I'll be around to sign autographs after lunch for $20.00 each so I can start a new collection. Yes, I’m a man of many collections. But now I want you to meet my most prized and valuable collection. Here she is, my beautiful bride Susan – isn’t she gorgeous!

Thank You!