Remembering Floyd Crider

SAN ANGELO, TX — Floyd Crider, community leader, pastor, and counselor for San Angelo youth died January 15 after a lengthy illness. I considered him a friend.

Crider was a tireless volunteer and advocate for the San Angelo community at large. He arrived in San Angelo after his discharge from the U.S. Army in 1992 during the post-Cold War drawdown.

His departure from the Army opened new opportunities for Crider. Those opportunities meant he had to go back to school at Angelo State University for a second baccalaureate and a master of education degree in counseling. He already held a B.S. in sociology from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, according to his biography.

In San Angelo, he served 10 years as a pastor at Galilee Baptist Church and the co-pastor of the Goodfellow Air Force Base Gospel Service. After graduating with two new diplomas from ASU in 1997, he was as an educator in the San Angelo ISD until 2011. He served as a guidance counselor to many of our youth at San Angelo Central High School.

Crider was a board member for many local charities and non-profit organizations, according to his biography. Those organizations included San Angelo Public Housing Authority (vice president), the United Way of San Angelo, Habitat for Humanity, a past president of the NAACP’s San Angelo chapter, past president of the Ministerial Alliance, Right Choices for Youth, the West Texas Organizing Strategy, Success By 6, San Angelo Living Together (SALT), Concerned Citizens of San Angelo, and the Neighborhood Revitalization Committee. He volunteered for a dozen more organizations.

Or, in Crider’s own words using Army lingo, he was “volun-told” to join some of them. He was very effective as a volunteer leader and much in demand.

Crider’s primary focus, however, was the Galilee Community Development Corporation. He was the founder and president emeritus there. GCDC’s mission is to create “decent and affordable housing for low and moderate income families in the Concho Valley,” according to the organization’s website. Primarily, the non-profit focused on new construction, older home rehabilitation, and home repairs in blighted areas of the city, including the neighborhoods of Reagan, Blackshear, Fort Concho, and Rio Vista.

His work at GCDC brought government grant money to San Angelo, as he once said during his unsuccessful campaign for San Angelo ISD’s school board, “to revitalize low socio-economic status areas making viable neighborhoods out of census tracts.”

In retirement from the public schools, Crider worked tirelessly to find solutions for San Angelo’s homeless. In 2014, Crider was selected by his peers to lead a coalition with other community leaders to find ways to break the cycle of homelessness in San Angelo. Crider held a realistic outlook on the issue. “The poor, we will always have with us,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have to minister to them.” The Homeless Planning Coalition remains active to this day.

Crider loved people and saw in all their potential as children of God, regardless of wealth or stature in the community, or political point-of-view. He remained engaged in his community and was as sharp as a tack, even up to his last days.

Often times, he disagreed with the path taken, and carefully but forcibly added his voice to the discussion. Using his intellect and his own folksy way of making an argument, he’d get his point across, and oftentimes he was right.

Crider served on the most recent City of San Angelo Charter Review Committee.

On that committee, he advocated for having those elected to city council positions serve four-year terms, not two years as was already in the City Ordinance at the time. “The learning curve may be steep. Though I understand you don’t have to be a rocket scientist, but it’s not really easy either. So, [in a two-year term] when you just get your feet on the ground and you know what you are doing, now you’ve got a campaign for re-election,” he argued at a 2015 forum on the charter. San Angelo approved four-year terms for council and mayor in 2016.

Crider was a man of fairness and facts. During the 2017 San Angelo City Council election, then-candidate Billie DeWitt was facing criticism from her opponent’s surrogates who accused DeWitt of being a leftist “community organizer.” She was a member of the “Acorn-affiliated” West Texas Organizing Strategies, they warned.

“They advocate ‘social justice,’ free everything: healthcare, education, food, housing, birth control, etc., in exchange for personal liberty. They are also in favor of open borders. WTOS meetings are closed to the public!” wrote San Angelo Tea Party member Lyleann Thee.

Such accusations can kill a candidate’s chances in conservative Tom Green County. So Crider effectively came to DeWitt’s defense.

In a phone conversation from San Antonio where he was receiving medical treatment, Crider debunked the Tea Party’s notion. WTOS doesn’t have individual memberships. Rather, area churches are members, he said. Besides, he argued, “Who doesn’t want better streets, sidewalks, better housing, less crime and other amenities in their neighborhood?”

Furthermore, Crider said, “And if you’re going to start accusing us for being un-American, I’m going to ask you to compare our DD-214s.”  A DD-214 is the paperwork one carries to prove service in the U.S. Military.

Crider had spunk. Today, we call her Councilwoman Billie DeWitt.

Crider was a confidant for me as publisher of this website. Early on, I gathered voices around me that did not always agree with my center-right point-of-view. Crider was always at the top of my list to call when I didn’t understand the other side’s position. Because of our shared backgrounds in the U.S. Military, we knew how to communicate with each other, even when we disagreed. Crider’s friendship reinforced the truth that in local politics, there isn’t just a left and right political position, rather finding the right solution for the common good was the way forward.

A woman who identified herself as a homeless veteran approached me out side my office one cold morning two years ago. It concerned me when she said she was denied help even though she was a veteran. I called Crider and explained the ordeal. After a few hours, Crider called me back. Her problem was solved, he said.   

I will miss Floyd Crider. San Angelo will miss Floyd Crider. But most of all, my heart goes out to Crider’s wife, Cheryl, his six children, his extended family, and close friends during this time of mourning.

Crider was 68.

Update Jan. 17 at 12:45 p.m.

Felisha Ewing, daughter of Floyd Crider, has confirmed that  Mr. Crider's funeral will be held next Tuesday at New Jerusalem Church of God in Christ at 1515 N. Chadbourne. As the family continues to finalize planning we will update the community.

At present Mrs. Crider and family are still in San Antonio, making their way back to San Angelo today or tomorrow. Felisha shared her thoughts about the community response to Crider's passing: "The outpouring of love from the San Angelo community is a blessing to our family. It's wonderful!" The next step will be bring Mr. and Mrs. Crider back to San Angelo, and allowing Mrs. Crider to settle into her home.

There will be an online portal put up in the next day or so for people to leave their messages for the family.