By Tracy Gupton
Longtime West Columbia veterinarian Burch Loggins served as president of the Columbia-Brazoria school board during my senior year at Columbia High School. It was 49 years ago so my memory is a bit cloudy as to who handed me my diploma when I walked across the stage at Griggs Field as a new 1975 high school graduate, but it could have been Dr. Loggins. I think it was Dr. Keith Thompson, the Brazoria veterinarian who also served on the school board at that time. But it isn’t important.
What is important is getting the word out that Dr. Reuben Burch Loggins IV, who served 18 years as a CBISD school board member, will be one of five former doctors being “brought to life,” if only for one night, at Old Columbia Cemetery in West Columbia on Saturday, November 2, 2024. This year’s Meet Your Ancestors event, co-sponsored by the Columbia Historical Museum and the Columbia Cemetery Association, will begin at 5 p.m. Saturday at the cemetery where many members of the Loggins, Dance, Winstead and Weems families are interred.
Dr. Loggins, who was born in Houston February 10, 1934, died 14 years ago at his West Columbia home on March 12, 2010, at the age of 76. Among the many friends and family members who grieved his passing were his son, Reuben Burch Loggins V, who will be portraying his father at Saturday’s Meet Your Ancestors program. “Bubby” Loggins serves on the Columbia Cemetery Board of Directors and has been preparing what he will say at the November 2nd event for several weeks.
I am the current president of the Columbia Cemetery Association board, and I told Bubby at Thursday’s CCA board meeting to just speak from the heart about his memories of growing up as the only son of Burch and Donna Ruth Loggins. Bubby said he wants to get all of the dates correct pertaining to his Dad’s milestones and many accomplishments, so he will prepare a few notes to refer to while speaking to visitors at Dr. Loggins’ gravesite. Bubby’s mother, Donna Ruth Chesney Loggins, who will soon celebrate her 90th birthday, told me she gave her son one of his Daddy’s pipes Burch used to smoke to use as a prop while acting as the popular longtime veterinarian.
Historical Columbia Cemetery is not only the resting place of Dr. Loggins but also to many of his ancestors who have resided in the East and West Columbia area since the 19th Century. His family continues to call home what was once the heart of the plantation of East and West Columbia’s founder, Josiah Hughes Bell. The famous Dance brothers, whose Civil War era firearms remain gun collectors’ treasures today, purchased the original Bell property in 1884 and sold an interest in the land to their sister, Elouise Dance Winstead, and her children in 1886. Zula Della Winstead married Reuben Burch Loggins II in 1891 and they lived on the property for many years.
This Reuben B. Loggins was an attorney born in Lodi, Mississippi, in 1865 who became a judge while residing in West Columbia. He came to West Columbia in 1890, first working as a school teacher. Judge Loggins was the county attorney for Brazoria County from 1895-97 and from 1909-13. Zula Loggins (1870-1957) was the daughter of Elouise Della Dance (1837-1909) and Stephen Hall Winstead (1826-1874). Judge and Mrs. Loggins were the parents of the local veterinarian’s father, Reuben Burch Loggins III, born in West Columbia on September 17, 1904. He married Edith Elizabeth Weems on June 8, 1930, and they became parents when Reuben Burch Loggins IV was born on February 10, 1934, in Houston. They later had a daughter, Carla Elizabeth “Beth” Loggins, in 1938. Burch and Beth’s mother died November 9, 1952, six months after Burch had graduated from West Columbia High School.
Burch grew up in Houston and West Columbia and graduated from high school with the West Columbia High School Class of 1952, later attending Texas A&M University pursuing his degree in veterinary medicine. Burch and his high school sweetheart, Donna Ruth Chesney, married on January 26, 1953, and enjoyed 57 years as husband and wife until Dr. Loggins passed away on March 12, 2010. In addition to serving as West Columbia’s animal doctor for half a century, Burch Loggins also could boast about 50 years of perfect attendance at West Columbia Rotary Club meetings. In addition to the 18 years he served on the Columbia-Brazoria school district board of trustees, Burch Loggins was a former president of the Brazoria County Fair Association, past president of the Columbia Historical Museum Association, and was a member of the Brazoria County Parks Board, the Brazoria County Appraisal District and the Texas Association of School Boards.
In his younger days Burch Loggins was a member of the Boy Scouts of America, having earned both Eagle Scout and Silver Beaver awards. He was a longtime member of the Columbia United Methodist Church where his funeral services were held in March 2010. It is easy to see, based on all of his many accomplishments, why Dr. Burch Loggins was named the West Columbia Chamber of Commerce’s “Man of the Year” for 1982.
But if anyone asked Burch what he thought his greatest accomplishments had been, it is without a doubt the good doctor would have pointed to his family. His wife Donna Ruth and their children, son Bubby Loggins (whose name is, of course, Reuben Burch Loggins V) and his wife Lynn Setzer Loggins, and Burch and Donna Ruth’s daughter, Virginia Elizabeth “Jenny Beth” Loggins and her husband Jeff Morrow; his sister, Beth Loggins Roberts; and the many grandchildren and great-grandchildren that Burch so adored.
