Notable Grad
Lake Highlands High School class of 1976
What he’s up to now:
Gibby Haynes was born into a show business family, the son of Jerry Haynes, aka. Dallas’ beloved children’s TV show host “Mr. Peppermint.” Although Haynes was a talented athlete, he moved toward a career in the arts. In 1981, he co-founded the Butthole Surfers, an acclaimed punk-rock band that has been making music for more than 30 years.
Three things to know:
1. The Butthole Surfers broke through the crowded punk scene in the early 1980s when Jello Biafra saw them perform in San Francisco and invited them to open for his band, the Dead Kennedys.
2. Kurt Cobain cited the Butthole Surfers as one of his core musical influences. When the Nirvana front man’s personal mix tape was released for public consumption after his death, it contained three of the band’s songs.
3. Haynes was a basketball star, both at Lake Highlands High School and at Trinity University, where he also was named Accounting Student of the Year. “I was always a real good shot,” he told Rolling Stone in 1996. “I may still have records in high school, but I made, like, 80 percent free throws and 50, 60 percent field goals and … what was the question? I was bragging.”
