Lynn Sheffield Simmons, Argyle educator, author and festival founder, dies at 88

Terry Lantrip, a longtime friend to Simmons, was working at the Denton Record-Chronicle at age 16 when a colleague mentioned a name that everyone knew. The newspaper librarian told him he was about to meet someone important.

“She said, ‘Lynn Sheffield is coming back, and she’s going to be the Newspapers in Education person,” said Lantrip, who works for a downtown Lake Dallas real estate company. “I believe she walked in with Mrs. [Vivian] Cross, [the newspaper owner’s wife,] who was like royalty in Denton.”

Lantrip got to know Simmons when she began writing for The Argyle Sun, a weekly newspaper that was launched in 1986 and shuttered in 2013.

“She was always active in all kinds of history projects, ladies clubs. She did a play called The Place Is Argyle,” Lantrip recalled. “She was always busy doing something and she was busy writing children’s books.”

Denton resident Crystal Wood, owner of Tattersall Publishing and a longtime friend of Simmons, admired the writer for years before they met: “I saw her first book came out in the paper, that she had written Sugar Lump, the Orphan Calf, and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s cool. Someone local has written a book. I’d like to write a book someday. I’d like to get to know that lady, somehow.’ And the opportunity came in 1999 when she and Larry and other associates wanted to start the North Texas Book Festival.”

Wood said her mentor-protege relationship with Simmons matured into a friendship that eventually felt like family, as it did with Lantrip. Both spent time with Lynn and her husband, Larry Simmons, who died in 2019. In fact, Lantrip, Woods and friend Johnny Beavers tended to Simmons’ needs and helped her stay as independent as she could.

“One of the last things she wanted to do was redo her backyard, ‘for the ladies,’ she told us,” Lantrip said. “Truth be told, a lot of the ladies were already gone. But there were a few, and Lynn wanted to do that for them.”

Mary Lynnette Mitcham was born Oct. 29, 1934, to Earl M. Mitcham and Mildred Barnett in McAlester, Oklahoma, and she was reared in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Her mother taught English at the University of Alabama.

Lynn graduated from Ensley High School in Birmingham, then attended Oklahoma State University for two years. She married Tread Sheffield and the couple moved to Dallas. Then they moved to Argyle, where she lived the remainder of her life. She and Sheffield had two sons, Tread and John.

Simmons followed in her mother’s footsteps. She graduated from Texas Woman’s University with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a master’s degree in special education. Her early career included teaching children with learning disabilities in public schools and as a private tutor.

In 1988, she married her second husband, Larry Simmons, a dentist in Denton.

Lynn Sheffield Simmons’ faith was central to her life, and it fed her volunteerism. She served as the publicity chair for Argyle Volunteer Fire Department Women’s Auxiliary in the 1970s, started the Argyle Volunteer Reading Program and taught volunteers how to tutor students on grade-level newspaper activities to help improve their reading skills. She served as the secretary of the Argyle United Methodist Church Board of Directors. She volunteered with the Denton Record-Chronicle for years, promoting literacy among children. She continued to be a freelance writer, writing the award-winning column Up a Creek, historical reviews and feature stories that appeared in newspapers and magazines.

She endeared herself to young readers with illustrated children’s books, including a series about Bo, a nosy black Labrador retriever, and the story of a talkative bird named Jack Crow.

She realized one of her big dreams in launching the North Texas Book Festival.

“I think the one disappointment of hers was that she was never able to get a public library in Argyle,” Wood said. “She tried for years. Just years. But the city leaders didn’t feel that Argyle was big enough to support it.”

Argyle is growing, though, and might one day open a library.

“If that ever happens, I hope they name it for Lynn,” Wood said.

Lantrip said Simmons’ biggest contribution were her years of research, writing and chronicling Argyle’s history. Wood said Simmons “knew everybody” in Argyle and Denton, and doggedly worked her phone tree when she saw a need to be filled. She was behind the Communities Civic League in Argyle, a group that raised money for community needs. She was also instrumental in the founding of Argyle’s senior activity center.

“When Lynn decided to do something, she had a role for everyone,” Lantrip said. “Even if you didn’t think you had the skills to do it, she knew you did. Larry was right there, always.”

Simmons’ personal papers, photographs, college essays, book manuscripts and documents of her years of volunteer work and writing are archived in the Lynn Sheffield Simmons Collection in the Woman’s Collection at Texas Woman’s University Library.

Simmons was preceded in death by her parents and her husband, Larry. She is survived by her sons; her brother, Thomas Mitcham; and her grandchildren. At Simmons’ request, there was no funeral, but a private graveside remembrance was held at Graham-Argyle Cemetery.