KILGOROUND

He is well known in this area although it comes as quite a surprise to him.

"I'm famous?" he quizzes with a big smile across his face, like the thought never entered his mind that others speak highly of him. "The only possible thing I could be famous for is getting old," he said. "I am 86 years old and in six more days, (now three); I will have been doing this for 61 years."

"Doing this" refers to chiropractic treatment in which Dr. Hilton Head has adjusted the spines of numerous patients over the years, including that of three-month-old babies.

His practice can be found in an orderly building fashioned outside his home located on Magnolia Road, a rural area of Kilgore. He was caught working on a day one normally does not work, to help relieve those who were in pain.

His business card indicates he is closed several days of the week, but that

applies "only if I'm gone." Otherwise he is there for you. He opens the door to greet you and he opens the door and sends you off with a blessing upon the completion of each adjustment and for some reason, you can't wait to get back whether for just a visit or a good old fashioned back/neck adjustment.

Dr. Head came to Kilgore in 1935 at the age of 12. He lived in six different places the first year we were here and ended up living in Shell Camp. After his school years he went into the military where he served the 101 Airborne.

"I served two years and ten days overseas," he said. "I went over on the Screaming Eagle as a machine gunner; spent 200 days in a foxhole and made 17 parachute jumps, with two of them being during open fire. One of those took place at 1:17 a.m. D-Day, Normandy and the other was in Holland."

As a reminder of his war days, in his pocket, he carries a key he picked up from a desk in Hitler's house at Beghes Garden, Germany.

"At Christmas of 1942, I was at Fort Benning, Georgia; Christmas of '43 in England, Christmas of '44 in Bastogne, Belgium and in the United States in September of 1945," he said.

"After getting out of the service, I went to work for an old boy making 75 cents a day washing oil spots of tanks so they could be painted. One particular cold morning in December, I was up there working and I thought to myself, I could be sitting in a warm office somewhere.

"I started to chiropractic school that January and on January 10, 1948, I graduated and began my first practice in Henderson. The office was located inside the old First National Bank building on the southeast corner of the fourth floor.

"There was a time I closed up shop and became a roughneck/driller for Gibson Drilling for four years, then went to work for General Electric and retired at the age of 60. But, through it all, I took care of my patients at night."

He married a lovely woman by the name of Maxine, which he loves to make her out as "the bad one" of the pair and together they have raised two daughters.

They are members of Fellowship Baptist Church that currently meet in the Lion's Club Building. "Reverend Harry LaGrone and I are like brothers," said Dr. Head. "We go back a long way and this makes the third church I will help him build."

A sign hangs above his office door that reads, "Positively no insurance and no insurance papers processed." "Naw, we don't fool with that stuff," he said. "Look at me," he laughed, "I don't do without because of it.

"My hours accommodate the working people, when I can no longer do that, I am no longer needed. When will I plan on retiring? When you walk through the door and see me sprawled out on the floor -that's retirement day for me." And from the looks of him, he's got a lot of days ahead.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TODAY to Toby Wallace, Diann Reddic, Judy Lambert, Ron Jereb, Shannon Hooker, Verdna Williams, Donnell Sibley Robertson, Pauline Morgan, Elsie Williams, Ricky Philpot, Jackie Clayton, Leroy Stark, Florence Keep, Gary Collins, Jo Ann Smith, Samira Siddick, Thelma Cole, Jerry B. Roberts, Cecil Gene Matthews Jr., Sylvia Mae Clark, Cooper McRay Rawls, Jennifer Powell

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HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TODAY to Helen and Howard Alexander