English: Otis Boykin and the resister. Otis Boykin was born on August 29, 1920, in Dallas, Texas.[2][3] His father, Walter B. Boykin, was a carpenter, and later became a preacher. His mother, Sarah, was a maid, who died of heart failure when Otis was a year old. This inspired him to help improve the pacemaker.[4] Boykin attended Booker T. Washington High School in Dallas, where he was the valedictorian, graduating in 1938.[5] He attended Fisk University[3] on a scholarship, worked as a laboratory assistant at the university's nearby aerospace laboratory, and left in 1941