J Mack Slaughter, Jr. ’02

ALUMNI NEWS

Singer, songwriter, actor, doctor, philanthropist – that’s J Mack Slaughter, Jr. ’02. Born into a “Partridge Family,” he sang with his father, J Mack, Sr., and sisters, Lisa Slaughter Stovall ’99 and Sarah Slaughter Hughes ’96. His mother, Marti, a percussionist, was manager/sound engineer.

“Ms. [Christine] Nesvadba [formerly Derber, now Leuck] identified my comfort on stage in Lower School. I soon was singing solos,” said Slaughter, an FWCD Original. He even appeared in the Upper School musical Pippin as a first-grader. In Middle School, he worked with Pam Chernick and Tricia Franks. Melodee Halbach directed him in Brigadoon. “These teachers were my reason for being,” Slaughter said. “They provided me with confidence to excel.”

Slaughter felt less comfortable in a classroom, but he forged forward. “I didn’t have a favorite core subject,” he noted. “I did my work to spend time on stage or sing.”

At 15, he auditioned for a boy band through the Kidd Kraddick Morning Show. Intended as a radio bit, Sons of Harmony had potential, ultimately touring with Destiny’s Child.

When asked to go to Los Angeles, Slaughter looked to FWCD for help. “My mom was like ‘No way is my son getting a GED,’” he said. “We approached the administration asking to complete my senior year while in LA. Ms. [Peggy] Wakeland and Mrs. [Beverly Anne] Robinson [H’18] helped make that possible.”

His hope was to pursue music, but he took to acting. Slaughter garnered his first TV role in 2002 on What I Like About You, while completing academic work and submitting it to his FWCD teachers via AOL. He came home weeks before graduation to complete final projects. “My parents would not tell anyone other than my teachers that I was back,” he said. “They were serious about me graduating.” Returning to LA, he was cast in multiple TV shows, including Like Family, and the movie Fat Albert. He signed a Talent Hold with Warner Brothers, pausing work while they searched for more roles on their network. “I’ve got too much energy to sit still,” Slaughter noted. “I started thinking about the future and a family. This was not a family-friendly career.”

Slaughter returned to Fort Worth to determine next steps, which soon became clear. He enrolled in TCU’s pre-med program and learned he had been soaking in academics at FWCD. “Even though I was arts-focused, Country Day provided a foundation for me to rise to the top of my TCU class,” Slaughter said. “I gained a solid academic base without knowing it at the time.”

Merging passions, Slaughter created Music Meets Medicine as an undergraduate. The nonprofit donates instruments and teaching time to teenagers in children’s hospitals. He established fundraisers and teamed up with Kidd’s Kids to raise $150,000 for the Kidd’s Kids Music Meets Medicine Therapeutic Arts Room at Children’s Medical Center Dallas.

Slaughter earned his MD and completed his residency at UT Southwestern Medical Center Dallas. In medical school, he reconnected with FWCD classmate Rebecca Shaw ’02, a ballerina and fellow arts lover. They fell in love and built a family. J Mack ’33 is one of their three children.

The couple dreamed of a way to reward local student artists. After seeing FWCD’s 2019 spring musical, Chicago HSV, they created the Slaughter Family Arts Awards, a recognition and scholarship program celebrating fine arts excellence and effort. (Read more on page 19).

When not immersed in the arts or working philanthropically, Slaughter is an Emergency Medicine Doctor. “I get to do a hodgepodge of stuff,” he noted. “I like searching for that next thing that is going to fulfill myself and others.”

J Mack Slaughter, Jr. ’02

Photo credit: Rodger Mallison Photography