NOVEMBER 2020
WEATHER WEDNESDAY THURSDAY
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The Voice of Seguin Today
Volume 55 • Number 219 830 • 379 • 2234
Bright future ahead for city Seguin Mayor Don Keil looks back on time in office By Darren Dunn
It’s just something that kind of happened organically,” said Keil.
(Seguin) -- Much has changed in the city of Seguin over the last eight years. It has seen job and population growth, the housing market is beginning to explode, and a number of new private and public facilities have opened in recent years. Many of those changes have occurred during the tenure of Seguin Mayor Don Keil, who officially ends his time in office today. Keil, who could not seek reelection due to the city’s term limits, says he has fond memories about his time in office. Keil reflected on his service during an interview with KWED radio and the Seguin Daily News on Monday. Keil says Seguin is his hometown, but he spent 25 years living in San Antonio. Despite his departure, he was able to reconnect with Seguin in a big way when he moved back in the ‘90s after the death of his first wife. He would later marry his current wife, Marty Keil, and that helped to bring him even closer to the community. He says that’s when he decided to devote more of his time to public service, which set him on a path that eventually led all the way to the mayor’s office. “I decided that I’ve got the time to do this, and there were some things in Seguin that were really sort of disappointing to me
It’s hard to look at Keil’s public service and not talk about his connection to the city’s Walnut Branch restoration project. Keil was part of the original committee that was tasked with looking at how this once pristine space along Walnut Creek, could be brought back from the ruins.
Seguin Mayor Don Keil and his wife, Marty, ride a tandem bike during a past Fourth of July parade. Keil’s term in office officially ends today. when I moved back. So I said, ‘man if I’m going to do something, I probably ought to do it now.’ I was in my ‘50s by the time I finally go into the public service end of it. It was about time for me to start doing something along the
public service line. It was something I felt I needed to do, one way or another. It just kind of evolved from boards and commissions to city council and then into the mayor’s thing. It wasn’t something that was entirely planned.
“I went to St. Joseph’s, which is now St. James (Catholic) School, and that creek was always down there. I always found it fascinating. It was a much different place during the 1950s. When I was growing up, we would go down there -- sneak out of school and go down there to catch crawfish and things. There was this beautiful arch bridge down there, right at the bottom of Convent Street. There were these walkways and things, that eventually just had been destroyed and washed away. At that point, we didn’t really understand the history and the importance of it all until later in life. As I grew older, I started learning about Walnut Branch and its importance to the city and how we wouldn’t even be here if not for that. So I got to thinking that this is something that needs a lot more reverence than just being a neglected overgrown ditch,” said Keil. See MAYOR KEIL, page 2