Edna Holcombe SoRelle White
December 11, 1922 – December 10, 2016
Edna Holcombe SoRelle White of Waco died Dec. 10, 2016, in Baton Rouge, LA. The funeral will be held at St. James Episcopal Church in that city. Burial will follow in San Marcos, Texas, her family home.
Her parents were Laura Rylander and Herbert D. Holcombe, Sr., and maternal grandparents were Clarissa “Glennie” Malone and J. B. Rylander, all of San Marcos. She was born December 11, 1922. She graduated from San Marcos High School in 1939 and attended South West Texas State Teacher’s College (now Texas State) for three years. On August 22, 1942, she and Lt. Boyd “Jelly” SoRelle, USN, married at home in San Marcos. After the war, “Jelly” resumed his career in baseball and came to Baylor where he served as baseball coach until his death on 1957. Edna then finished her BS cum laude in Home Economics and then her MS in Education. After teaching in nearby Penelope, she was offered a position in the Baylor Office of Counseling and Testing.
During her thirty-year tenure at Baylor, she supervised national and in-house testing programs, served as assistant director for one of the first Upward Bound Programs and lectured in the Department of Home Economics. She served in the National College Board, especially with their SAT and Advanced Placement; she was then instrumental in promoting Credit by Examination at Baylor and statewide. Among her many civic and social activities, she sponsored the Delta Alpha Pi social club (now Theta), was president of the Baylor Round Table, and was a director of the Baylor Alumni Association. In 1987 Ralph White, Civil Engineer for McLennan County, met her at a conference of Christians and Jews and proposed shortly thereafter. Following their marriage, Edna retired as Director of the Testing Division of Student Affairs. They both then had time to enjoy the symphony, Brazos Forum, Waco Heritage and a number of other civic activities, to say nothing of bridge and travel. She continued to live in Waco after Ralph’s death, but her failing sight led her to move to Baton Rouge three years ago.
She is survived by many loving friends in Waco, and by her daughter and son-in-law, Barbara SoRelle Bacot and H. P. “Pat” Bacot, of Baton Rouge. She is also survived by a large and loving family whose home is San Marcos and her new friends at St. James Place in Baton Rouge.
In lieu of flowers memorials may be made to Lake Shore Baptist Church, Waco, or the Ralph and Edna White Scholarship of Texas A&M, College Station.