Fred Allen Engle
After a recent column in which I wrote about trips to the state tournament by basketball teams from Red House High and Waco High, I received requests to reprint an earlier column about a 1931 state tournament trip by the White Hall High girls’ basketball team. So, here it is once again. Members of the 1931 White Hall girls’ team were Virginia (Hogan) Brandenburg, Stella (Emmitt) Bowling, Alice (Walters) West, Dorothy (Walters) Richards, and Margaret (Dunn) Martin, Gladys (Whitlock) Flannery, Audrey (Tipton) Weigott, and Edna (Cox) Strong. John Spencer Jones was the coach. The team won the regionals and went to the finals of the state tournament.
Diana Wells Ross brought this team to my attention. So Madison County had state tournament teams in 1929, 1931 and 1932. The team won the regional championship and went to the state finals of the state tournament.
Mrs. Thomas Newton Cotton wrote a poem about that team and a second poem about the boys’ team, and her grandson, Tommy Cotton, made them available to me. They are displayed above.
“To the White Hall Girls Basketball team - 1928
White Hall girls how we love you.
With all your good will and mirth
And with all your shining countenances
You’re the fairest gals on earth.
Your gentle ways and manners
Your morals and your worth
All give to you these banners
As the best girls on this earth.
Your passes, my what grandeur
Your guarding was fast and right
And the way you put the ball through the net
Was simply a vision of delight.
You girls are the dearest
To ere a school was given
And you were nearer to the trophy
Than any other school that had striven.
For of all the teams in the county
There was but one other which was as lucky
As the team that came from
White Hall High School in Madison County Kentucky.”
“To the Boys - 1928
Here’s to the White Hall boys team
Each separate and remote
Who are always on the job
To get the other team’s goat.
First there’s Minter the captain
Going down the court in a rush
Look! The ball is in the air
Then thru the net with a crush.
Then Meeks our six foot center
Who generally gets the tip
And carries the ball down the floor
And through the net with a cryp.
Next comes Harris our forward
One of the on our team
The way he plays basketball
Certainly is a scream.
Then comes Curtis our back guard
Of whom we are all proud
The way he steals the opponents’ balls
Just suits the White Hall crowd.
Then there’s Cotton our running guard
Who is here, there and every where
He is sure to get the ball
From the floor or from the air.”
Diana Wells Ross also provided a list of some members of the 1928 boy’s basketball team at White Hall High School. Included on this team were George Allen Cotton, Silas Minter, Tom Meeks, Overton Harris and William (Kit) Harris. She also recalled some other basketball players from that era: McClellan Dunn, Oscar Dunn, Joe Brandenburg, Earl Frye, Douglas House, Red Foley, Russell Forbert and J.A. Walter Jr.
These then are some of the Madison Countians who played basketball 77 years ago. Thank you Diana Wells Ross and Tommy Cotton for sharing this bit of Madison’s heritage.
Erratum — special information
The old Richmond Register building was located on South Second Street and not South Third. Sorry for the typo. Elizabeth Sallee Wells informs us that there was a school named Slick Rock in the Newby area. It closed around 1941. Harry Johnson tells me he was a full-time register employee for 50 years. That is wonderful — a record.
