Black History Month Honors Hometown Heroes

In the early 1960s, before classrooms in Olney were integrated, Arstine “Steen” Pace made a quiet but extraordinary decision that would shape the lives of Black children in this community for generations.

Segregated schools in Olney meant Black students attended a oneroom schoolhouse. Determined her children would receive a stronger education, Steen joined other Black mothers in petitioning the Olney School Board for a bus so their children could attend the all-Black schools in Wichita Falls — nearly an hour away.

When the board declined, Steen took matters into her own hands.

For two years, rain or shine, she drove her children — Michael and Brenda — along with several other children, including Maureen Ball, Chubby Fuller and Patsy Johnson’s children, to Wichita Falls. The younger students attended Holland Elementary; older students went to Washington High School.

Steen waited in Wichita Falls all day, every day, before driving them home.

After two years, the district provided a bus.

A Midwestern State University student, Billy Sullivan, drove the route until Olney schools integrated in 1965. That fall, Michael entered the third grade and Brenda the eighth as members of the first integrated classes in Olney ISD.

Steen Pace, who died in 2019 at age 93, was more than a determined mother. She worked at Haggar Slacks for 16 years, helped organize a Bicentennial Black History Month parade, served faithfully at Rising Star Baptist Church and was known as a steadfast prayer warrior.

But her daily drives to Wichita Falls remain among her most lasting contributions — a mother’s protest carried out one mile at a time.

Her son, Michael Pace, would go on to carve his own path.

A standout athlete at Olney High School from 1969 to 1973, Michael Pace excelled in football, basketball and track and was named Mr. OHS his senior year. Though baseball was not part of the school program, he honed his skills in summer leagues, eventually earning a spot at the University of Oklahoma.

In 1977, he became the first Black player to stand in the batter’s box for the Sooners.

That same year, the Philadelphia Phillies drafted him. Over three minor league seasons, Michael Pace recorded 208 hits and 144 walks in 239 games.

Today retired in Atlanta, Pace often credits his work ethic to his parents — Alfred and Steen — who built their lives in Olney through faith, discipline and sacrifice.

Long before integration arrived by policy, the Pace family was already moving this town forward.