Starlin Marion Newberry Marrs was born on January 2, 1862, in Gauley Bridge, Fayette County, Virginia, now West Virginia. At 16, he began teaching in rural schools while working in coal mines to make ends meet. He moved to Texas in 1881 and taught in Erath County, Hico, and Cleburne. He also earned a degree from Ohio's National Normal University and married Anna Hesup, also of West Virginia. In 1893, he became superintendent in Terrell. After a political fight between the school board and the city aldermen and mayor in 1897, he was fired and rehired during two years of turmoil, resigned to work at the Department of Education in Austin for a year, and returned as Terrell superintendent in 1899. After his first wife died in 1904, he cared for their four children and married Ina Cadell in 1909. Alongside his school and family responsibilities, he helped build Terrell's Carnegie library and supported changing the local government to a city commission model. He also served as president of the Texas State Teachers Association and on the State Board of Examiners. In 1918, he became State Supervisor of High Schools, worked under State Superintendent Annie Webb Blanton, became Assistant Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1921, and became State Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1922. In that office, he initiated compulsory school attendance and worked for better rural schools, stronger high school funding, and higher certification standards. He died in 1932 and was buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. In 1954, he was honored at the Texas State Fair as one of 100 heroes of Texas education, and his contributions to Terrell and to Texas remained significant.