Dixie Butler Casteel

Dixie Anne Hollis Butler Casteel, 84, died March 11, 2026, at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle after several months of declining health.

A funeral service will be held on Saturday, March 21, at 2:00 p.m. at First Methodist Church, Columbus. Interment will follow the service at Friendship Cemetery. At Dixie’s request, there will be no visitation.

The second child and only daughter of Evelyn Dixie Hesse and Harry Newcombe Hollis, Sr., Dixie was born on June 2, 1941, in Memphis, Tennessee. Her father’s work as education director in Baptist churches took the family from Memphis to Owensboro, Paducah, and Lexington, Kentucky; to Jackson, Tennessee; to New Orleans, Louisiana; and to Knoxville, Tennessee.

From her parents, Dixie had an early love of music and inherited from her mother the ability to play the piano by ear; from her father she inherited a spirit of optimism and from him learned “to look for the best in people.” Those gifts would inform Dixie’s capacity for friendship and her lifetime commitment to education, to social and racial justice, and to community service.

Dixie graduated from West High School in Knoxville in 1959 and attended Blue Mountain College in Blue Mountain, Mississippi, receiving the Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education in 1963. After teaching first grade for three years at Springdale School in Memphis, she attended George Peabody College for Teachers (now part of Vanderbilt University) in Nashville from 1966 to 1968, receiving both the Master of Arts degree and the Education Specialist degree in Education. From1968 to 1969 she served as a staff member at Peabody’s Demonstration and Research Center, training graduate students to work with disadvantaged young children.

In 1966 Dixie met her future husband, Carl Hawley Butler, III,at Training Union at First Baptist Church in Nashville, and when he was offered the position of coach of the Columbus Swim Association (later the Golden Triangle Swim Club), they bought historic Temple Heights (1837) on Ninth Street North in Columbus on June 1, 1968. After their marriage on September 7, 1968, the couple made their home together in Temple Heightsfor the rest of Carl’s life, restoring the house and filling it with period furniture and with fine and decorative art. During the Butlers’ joint ownership, and under Dixie’s guidance after Carl’s death in 2003, Temple Heights was featured on the Columbus Pilgrimage for forty-six consecutive years until its 2016 sale.

Dixie and Carl opened Temple Heights for tours, for weddings, for receptions and parties; for suppers with colleagues, friends,and students; for dinners with Mississippi governors and senators and generals from Columbus Air Force Base; and for other distinguished guests, including a memorable dinner party with actors Patricia Neal and Joel Vig. The hospitality offered at Temple Heights - and Dixie’s delicious food - will be remembered down the years by friends and visitors.Furthermore, Dixie wanted Temple Heights to be like a “laboratory” for the people who visited and toured it, for everyone to learn something that would be of value to them. To that end, visitors to Temple Heights during the Pilgrimage would experience the home as “living history,” by listening to monologues relating the history of the house in the voices of former residents. Many of those monologues were performed by Carl’s history students, first from Lee High School, and then from the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, as well as by many young people who were the children of colleagues and friends.

For Dixie, the history of Temple Heights represented the history of Mississippi and the South, and she was ardent in her belief that all people needed to be represented in that history. To that end, she was able to contact Morris Henderson of Virginia, a descendant of Greg Brownrigg, one of the enslaved people who had lived at Temple Heights, and shared with Henderson extant letters by Richard Brownrigg, the original owner of the house,who with Henderson’s ancestors journeyed from North Carolina to Mississippi. For years during Pilgrimage, Henderson stood at“the little brown house” and told visitors the stories of his ancestors living and working at Temple Heights.

It is as an educator that many residents of Columbus will remember Dixie. She was a steadfast supporter of public schools, believing that democracy depends on free, excellent education for all its citizens. During her years in Columbus, Dixie taught first grade at Sale Elementary School (1969-1970), served as principal of Barrow Elementary School (1970-1976), and as principal at Stokes-Beard Elementary School (1976-1999). She ended her career in education as principal at Franklin Academy (1999-2004), the oldest public school in Mississippi, a fitting intersection of her zeal for both public education and historic preservation. Dixie said throughout her career she loved going to work every day; she knew that for many children, school was that “clean, well-lighted place” in their lives and felt she had the opportunity to offer some “positivity” for children and their parents. Additionally, Dixie mentored scores of teachers and strove to do everything she could to make it as easy as possible for teachers to do their jobsunburdened by extraneous paperwork.

Before and after her retirement, Dixie was active in many aspects of community and civic life. For years she served as records chairman for the Swimming Committee of the Southern Swimming Athletic Union. Additionally, she was program chairman for the Decorative Arts and Preservation Forum, which she and Carl founded. She also served as president of the Columbus Pilgrimage Association, president of Historic Columbus, and president of the Cherokee Garden Club. She served on both the Military Affairs Committee and the Education Committee of the Columbus Chamber of Commerce, was a board member of the Richard Holmes Memorial Foundation, a member of the Citizens Police Academy, a member of 100 Women Who Care, and a member of the Exchange Club, a civic organization whose values Dixie wholeheartedly supported. Furthermore, she established the Dixie Butler True Grit Award, a scholarship presented each spring to an area high-school senior by the Columbus Chamber of Commerce.

In recognition of her longtime commitment to historic preservation and to her community, Dixie was presented the Historic Preservation Medal by the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution for Outstanding Achievement in Historic Preservation (2010), she received the Book of Golden Deeds Award from the Exchange Club (2014), and she was awarded the Volunteer of the Year Award from theColumbus Chamber of Commerce (2017).

In April 2025, Dixie was able to attend the unveiling of the bronze statue of Tennessee Williams that sits outside the Tennessee Williams House Museum & Welcome Center on Main Street in Columbus; the idea for the statue and a generous contribution towards its creation were Dixie’s gifts to the city that was her home for almost sixty years.

A source of deep fulfillment for Dixie was playing the piano and organ for residents at both Trinity Place and Windsor Place for many years. Additionally, as an active member of First United Methodist Church in Columbus, Dixie volunteered in outreach efforts by the church. Of all her volunteer activities, the one that gave Dixie the most joy and deepest satisfaction was playing keyboard for the patrons who came to Loaves and Fishes when First Methodist served lunch. She would play by ear from her rich repertoire of hymn tunes and popular music, oftentimes taking requests. Another source of pleasure for Dixie, one perhaps not as widely known, was composing the lyrics and scores of country music songs. A CD compilation of her songs, “The Music of Dixie Butler,” was performed and recorded by Tabitha Pitts and Tony Wayne Hooper.

During the final years of her life, Dixie enjoyed many friendships at Trinity Place Retirement Community in Columbus. It was at Trinity Place where she met Tommy Casteel, whom she married in October 2024, enjoying with him deep love, as well as his committed companionship and dedicated care. She took pleasure in getting to know Tommy’s children and grandchildren, who were special to her.

In addition to her first husband and her parents, Dixie was preceded in death by her beloved brother, Harry Newcombe Hollis, Jr., and his wife, Peggy Self Hollis, and by her niece, Mary Melissa Hollis.

She is survived by her husband, Tommy; by Harry’s son, Newcombe Hollis; by Peggy’s son, Jay Mark Self, and his wife, Karen, and their children; and by Peggy’s daughter, Angela Self Breedon, and her husband, Fredrick, and their children.

Additionally, for over twenty-five years, Dixie was supported by the friendship and loving care of Lois Swindle.

The staff of Trinity Place gave conscientious and devoted care to Dixie during the last years of her life, first in Assisted Livingand latterly in Trinity Healthcare, for which her friends are grateful.

Dixie possessed an unbiased mind and a receptive heart, a mind and heart open to new experiences, new friendships, and new possibilities. She considered herself foremost as a preservationist, recognizing that the past must always inform the future, but she touched the future by her deep commitment to students and to teachers. She lived a faith in Him who was himself a teacher, and who taught people to love God and to love and care for their neighbors.

Memorials may be sent to First Methodist Church, 602 Main Street, Columbus, MS 39701.