One of the best events of the Logan County Tobacco & Heritage Festival each year is the gathering of Russellville High School Alumni in the lobby of deGraffenried Auditorium. That event starts tonight (Friday) at 6.
All alumni and their families are welcome. The class to be honored for having graduated 50 years ago is 1963. Here are some facts from that class, taken from the yearbook edited by Charlotte Holman and Betty Tucker (Martin).
The class president was Bobby Boren with other offices filled by Paul McDougal, Margaret Hodge (Hooper), Michael Ann Knotts, Bob Koester and Hattie Hunter (Carter).
Sponsors were Helen Carpenter, Katherine Lyle Stengell and Howard Owens.
Room mothers were Rhea Gaddie, Laura Carter (Stuart), Gina Russell and Audrey Koester.
Dickie Carter and Hattie Hunter were named Best All-Around. Others chosen in Superlative categories were Tommy Peveler and Ann Sosh (Leigh), Bobbie Dale Goley (Wood) and Wallace Herndon Jr., John Paul Stuart and Holman, Joe Anne Russell (Bennett) and McDougal, Bill Ballance and Hodge, Boren and Tucker, and Judy Johnson Gerhardt, and Eugene Powell.
Dickie Carter and Joe Anne Russell were Mr. and Miss RHS with Bob Koester and Ann Sosh as Mr. and Miss Senior. (Mr. and Miss for the other classes were juniors Mike Goddard and Sherry Johnson (Wilkins), sophomore Joe Hicks and Mary Lou Blue, and freshmen Mike Murphy and Janice Carter (Humble).
Herndon was president of the National Honor Society with fellow officers Charlie Honaker, Jane McComber (Herndon) and Hooper. Dickie Carter was Student Council president with Wallace Herndon, Russell and juniors Tommy Lennon and Billy Sawyer as officers.
Honaker was a National Merit Finalist with Knotts getting a Letter of Commendation.
Senior football players were captains Carter and McDougal along with Ronnie Simpson, Ballance, Bernard Bibb, Milton Gaddie, Koester, Jack McFadyn, David Duncan, Moses Gaines and Powell. They played for Coach Waymond Morris and assistants Stumpy Baker, Howard Wren and Buddy Linton.
Senior basketball players were Simpson, Koester and Bibb. Owens was the coach, assisted by Baker.
Among the deceased class members are Gary Bailey, Bill Ballance, Sheila Cabiness (Harmon), Richard Collins, David Duncan, Milton Gaddie, Reta Duncan Noe, Starling Murphy, Marilyn Vincent McCall, Frank Bonasso, Joy Smith Harbison and Jackie Smith.
This group was fortunate to have some of the most legendary teachers in RHS history, including Ruth Price Carpenter and her sister Clennie Sue Rector Riley, Geneva Helm, Hazel Carver, Eleanor Piper, Marie Turner, Roy Kirby, Katherine Lyle Stengell, Martha Raymer and Chuck Lynch, all of whom had great longevity.
R.E. Stevenson was superintendent, R.D. Reynolds principal and Dr. Walter Byrne chairman of the board. Other board members were Buddy Duncan, Bob Kirkpatrick, Bob Guion and Carl Page.
One of the highlights of the extended reunion was to be the presentation of a Lifetime Panther Spirit Award to classmate Jimmy Stewart.