Principal, coach dies from cancer
By LINDA TRIMBLE
Staff Writer
Last update: October 11, 2005
DAYTONA BEACH -- Still praying for his own cancer cure, Jimmy Kirton asked God two months ago to save a young child instead of him if there weren't enough miracles to go around.
It was an easy choice for a man who spent 32 years as a teacher, coach and mentor for thousands of youngsters in Volusia and Flagler counties.
"At least I got 61 years," Kirton said in an Aug. 17 interview. "I don't want to die, but I'm right with God. If I go, I go."
Kirton lost his battle with cancer Monday night, two years to the day since he'd undergone surgery to have his stomach removed. "He died in his own bed, with me at his side holding his hand," said his wife of 18 years, Eva.
Kirton
"It's like losing a brother," said T.K. Wetherell, former Mainland High School classmate of Kirton's and now president of Florida State University. "Daytona Beach has lost an awful good person."
Wetherell and Kirton had been friends since childhood, playing football together at Mainland High School.
The Daytona Beach native grew up working alongside his parents and siblings on the family dairy farm off Tomoka Farms Road where he still lived, learning a work ethic that followed him the rest of his life.
"He's one of the hardest workers I've ever known," said Kim Conaway, who played football for Kirton at Mainland and became a friend for life.
Kirton went on to Florida State University after his 1962 graduation from Mainland and returned to his alma mater in 1969 as a physical education teacher and football coach.
As a coach, Conaway recalled, Kirton was "fair and tough" just as he was as a person. "Whether you won championships under him was irrelevant," Conaway said. "You left there a stronger person. You gained toughness and confidence."
Kirton left the school system in 1977, after two years as dean of students at Spruce Creek High School, to work as a farmer and well driller. But he missed the students and campus life so much that he returned to Mainland as a substitute teacher three years later.
All along, Kirton continued to work on the farm and as a Daytona Beach reserve police officer. It wasn't unusual for him to finish a police shift at 1 a.m., rise at 5 to milk cows and then put in a full day at school.
He moved into administration in the mid-1980s and served as principal of Silver Sands Junior High and Deltona Middle School before taking the helm at Seabreeze in 1990.
He took Volusia's principal of the year honors his first year at Seabreeze, based on a nomination from the school's Parent-Teacher-Student Association. "Our students respect Jim Kirton because he respects them, he recognizes them individually and he refuses to accept any of their self-imposed limitations," the nomination read.
Over the years, Kirton took many students under his wing, letting them earn spending money and teaching them about hard work by paying them to do weekend chores around the farm.
"It was a great learning experience," said Tim Huth, whose son was one of Kirton's young farmhands. Huth coached and taught with Kirton at Mainland and is now deputy superintendent of Volusia schools.
He was one of many long-time friends impressed with the way Kirton handled his illness. "He's been an example in strength and humor as he has been all these years," Huth said in an interview before Kirton's death.
Not all of Kirton's gestures to help students were as visible as the farm jobs, but his colleagues and friends knew that he sometimes paid for prom dresses or braces to straighten the teeth of students whose families couldn't afford them. Some Seabreeze parents and other staffers also chipped in to help.
Kirton retired from Seabreeze in 2002 -- a year earlier than planned -- because of his bitter feelings over the way school district officials handled an investigation into accusations he interfered with a campus drug investigation. The probe cleared him of wrongdoing.
He went back to work a year later as deputy superintendent of Flagler County schools. Kirton retired from that post in May with his energy zapped by the spread of his cancer.
"I'll always remember his incredible sense of humor," said Flagler School Superintendent Bill Delbrugge. "He had some cowboy story about everything you can imagine."
As far as Flagler schools were concerned, Delbrugge said Kirton was known for his "total dedication to kids."
Other survivors include two sons, Kent and Tyler, Daytona Beach; two daughters, Shannon Peters, Daytona Beach, and Brandy Hogue, Deltona; his parents, Myron and Dot, Daytona Beach; three brothers, Tom, Port Orange, Kenny, Crawfordville , and Bill Carver, Friendsville, Tenn.; three sisters, Kay Wingard, Daytona Beach, Krys Muller, Long Island, N.Y., and Dorothy Morris, Phoenix, Ariz.; and nine grandchildren.
Funeral arrangements were incomplete Monday night. Baggett & Summers is in charge.
1944-2005
Well-wishers, 'little treasures' help 'Mr. K' battle cancer
By LINDA TRIMBLE and KATHY KELLY
Staff Writers
DAYTONA BEACH -- When Jimmy Kirton headed off to college at Florida State University in 1962, his dad said goodbye with a firm handshake.
When Kirton was recovering from surgery to remove his cancer-riddled stomach two years ago, his father kissed him on the top of his head three times and told his son how much he loved him.
The uncharacteristic emotional exchange is one of the "little things" Kirton treasures in his ongoing battle against cancer.
"Little," maybe, in the sense they can happen any day without warning, but never small in the strength they provide to Kirton in his fight to survive.
Like his network of loving family and loyal friends so vast that Kirton uses an alias to keep from being overrun by visitors when he checks into Halifax Medical Center for treatment.
Or the note from a former Seabreeze High School student, now a cancer researcher, who apologized for not yet finding a cure to help heal "Mr. K," her beloved high school principal.
"It's very humbling when you get something like this," said Kirton, who was principal at Seabreeze for 12 years and spent the last two years as deputy superintendent of Flagler County schools.
With his energy sapped by the cancer's spread and the prospect of more surgery and chemotherapy, the 61-year-old Kirton retired in May to concentrate on getting better.
He spends most of his time these days at home, surrounded by the 900 acres of Kirton land off Tomoka Farms Road where he grew up working side-by-side with his parents and siblings on the family dairy farm.
All Jimmy Kirton ever wanted was to be a cowboy, but his father, Myron, insisted he go to college first before deciding on an occupation. That led to a 30-year career as a teacher, coach and administrator in Volusia County schools.
Down from 204 to 130 pounds and looking pale, Kirton is frustrated he can't ride horses, mend fences or herd cattle the way he has all his life.
Still, he said, "it beats being on the other side of the grass."
With his wife, Eva, at his side and constant canine companion, Josh, at his feet, Kirton talked recently about his life and his illness with optimism and a very healthy dose of humor.
The Kirtons both wear yellow LiveStrong bracelets -- gifts from a friend -- as daily reminders of cycling champion Lance Armstrong's successful battle against cancer.
The couple married 18 years ago. Just as Kirton's parents before him, they blended two families together, now boasting of four grown children and nine grandchildren.
"It brings you closer together," Kirton said of his illness. "It makes you fall in love with your wife more."
He credits his wife with his recovery from that first surgery in 2003. She was his toughest taskmaster, insisting that he get up, shave, shower and get dressed every day whether he felt like it or not.
Without that, "I would have lain there and died," he said. Eva Kirton is not a nurse, but her years as a unit coordinator at Halifax Medical Center have taught her the importance of working hard to bounce back.
She's constantly researching treatments that might help her husband beat the cancer that threatens to cut short his life. Kirton himself is "looking for that miracle" to restore his health.
Beyond the physical care from his wife and doctors -- many of them parents of his former students at Seabreeze -- Kirton is focusing on the spiritual side of life to recover.
Although Kirton was not at odds with anyone personally, a friend's gift of a Bible verse on the need for forgiveness caused him to focus on the future and not the past.
Even his once-bitter feelings over the way school district officials handled a complaint that he interfered with a 2002 drug investigation at Seabreeze have mellowed. Kirton was cleared of wrongdoing, but retired a year early because of hard feelings over the incident.
"In order to get better, you've got to forgive," he said. "You forget all that and put your energy into getting better."
For Kirton, the support of former students, their parents and lifelong friends like T.K. Wetherell, who played football with him at Mainland and now is president of Florida State University, is critical.
"Jimmy and I were probably closer than my own brother when I was growing up," said Wetherell, a 1963 Mainland graduate. "We literally were brothers."
Wetherell laughed as he recalled the times they spent together.
"I taught him to hunt and fish, and he taught me about girls," he said.
Wetherell was diagnosed with prostate cancer just a month before his longtime friend learned he, too, had a malignancy. Their bond, if anything, has strengthened since then.
Earlier this month, Wetherell visited his old football buddy on the farm.
"That dang fool was out there riding a horse," Wetherell said. "He's gonna be OK."
Wetherell was part of a steady stream of visitors to Kirton's farm that included Jim Surratt, a former Volusia school superintendent who retired to Port Orange last year after several years in Texas.
"There's never been a person who's ever been an ideal cowboy better than Jimmy Kirton," said Surratt, pointing to his friend's sense of "honor and doing what a man is supposed to do."
Former coaching colleague and longtime friend Tony Melachrino compared Kirton to Will Rogers, a popular movie actor and newspaper columnist in the 1920s and 1930s known for his folksy, Western sayings.
Jimmy Kirton "never met a student he didn't like; he loved them all," Melachrino said.
Many of those students are now returning the favor by calling, writing and visiting their former coach and principal.
As for himself, Melachrino frequently prays with Kirton for healthier days ahead.
"It's going to take a miracle," Melachrino said. "But God can do that. God is in the miracle business."
linda.trimble@news-jrnl.com
kathy.kelly@news-jrnl.com