by Tammy Kasterke DTM Fellow Roanoke Member
The Roanoke Texas Toastmasters Club is remembering a special club member, Hollis Omar Davis.
Hollis passed away earlier this year. He left us quietly and humbly, mirroring how we came to know him 6 years ago when he joined our club.
Hollis was 88 years old then. WOW! He was a testimony to “you are never too old to learn something new”. He brought our club a tremendous amount of joy and wit. He loved being funny. He loved dressing and gesturing the part to enhance a speech. Wearing overalls to demonstrate the cutting and gathering of broom corn, he captivated us with his youthful spirit. Farming was only one of his joys. Hollis also excelled as a baseball pitcher, college football player, a professional composite chemist, a guitarist, an author, and a poet.
It is hard to know what he loved most in life… he enjoyed and embraced all life brought his way. I will say, in his later years, poetry was a priority. He faithfully wrote a poem a day. For a speech, he shared several short poems to have the club vote for their favorite. Lone Leaf won.
It’s A Lone Leaf
On the end of a branch
Still hanging tightly
Moving with the wind
Like the blade of a windmill
It is a marker of direction
Which way is the wind
Blowing today
The lone leaf hangs on
North or south winds
Do not remove the leaf
How long will it hang on
Through changes of wind
All the other leaves
Have been released
Attachment not so good
Left with the wind and rain
But not the lone leaf
I see now the foreshadow of this poem. In many ways, Hollis was this lone leaf. He clung to life and enjoyed it to the fullest. Like all leaves, Hollis was released from the branch. Drifting peacefully down, we captured Hollis forever in our souls… it is said catching a falling a leaf is good luck! Hollis is synonymous with falling leaves… a reminder of the joy and wit he brought to us at the Roanoke Texas Toastmasters club. Thank you, Hollis. Rest in peace, Lone Leaf.
