Frank L. Arbuckle

Frank L. Arbuckle Jr., who led the Jefferson High School Mustangs basketball team to three consecutive city titles in 1932-35 and was an All-Greater San Antonio player in 1934-35, has died at the age of 89.

Arbuckle died on Wednesday after suffering a stroke Aug. 28.

Jefferson, which opened in 1932, decimated other local high school basketball teams from 1932 to 1935. 'We beat anybody we played,' Arbuckle, 'Buckles' to his high school friends, recalled in a 1997 interview. At 5-foot-8, he was the team's tallest player until a taller teen joined the Mustangs in his junior year.

'We could have won bi-district three straight times, but Harlandale caught us with our pants down and we weren't hitting in 1935,' said Arbuckle, a member of Jefferson's first graduating class. He joined the Navy after high school just like an older brother, Charles Arbuckle, had done. The brothers served together on the battleship USS Mississippi in World War II.

Frank Arbuckle was a storekeeper; his brother, a sail maker, was promoted to chief petty officer and was chief of the ship during the war. After 20 years' service, Frank Arbuckle retired in 1956.

He was already in his 40s when he began a second career in civil service at Kelly AFB. He remained at his job until he was 70.

'In retirement, we just had fun,' said his wife, Elouise Arbuckle.

He was divorced and she the widowed mother of two when they met at a dance on a Sunday afternoon in 1965. 'The first time we met, we were in a group of about 20 people that used to go dancing all the time,' she recalled, noting that her husband was a 'good dancer.' The two hit it off and after a courtship that included frequenting places where they could dance, they married the following year. The couple, who lived at the Towers on Park Lane, a retirement community, would have been married 40 years in October. 'I called him 'sweet angel man' or 'angel man' because he was my rock and he spoiled me,' Elouise Arbuckle said. 'He was a special guy.'

Survivors include his wife, Elouise; son, Gary 'Butch' Day, of Lufkin; a sister, Delia Sparks, of San Antonio; three grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his son, Jerry Day.