The Paris-Henry County Sports Hall of Fame 2007 Induction Banquet

The Paris-Henry County Sports Hall of Fame
2007 Induction Banquet
April 14, 2007

Newest inductees lauded at Sports Hall of Fame banquet
By KEN WALKER, P-I News Editor

Huntingdon Mayor Dale Kelley speaks at the Paris-Henry County Sports Hall of Fame banquet Saturday night at the Paris Convention Center. Kelley worked 14 years as a Southeastern Conference basketball official, calling games in nine NCAA Tournaments a.

Involvement in sports can lead to opportunities and relationships later in life that one might never have anticipated, guest speaker Dale Kelley said during Saturday night’s induction banquet for the Paris-Henry County Sports Hall of Fame.

Five new inductees were honored during the banquet at the Paris Convention Center on East Wood Street. Also honored were The Post-Intelligencer’s sports editor and 12 local student-athletes.

The new members of the hall, which bring the total number of members to 70, are Doug Barner, Jerry Brannon, Earl Mann, Vayden Waddy Jr. and Virgil Wall. Mann and Waddy were honored posthumously.

Tommy Priddy, longtime P-I sports editor, received the Distinguished Service Award.

Local students Katelyn Wilson and Calvin McNairl of Henry County High School; Katy Beth Glover and Skylar Haley, Grove School; Katie Williams and Evan Smith, Lakewood School; Jessica St. John and Adrian Ford, Henry School; Carolina Covington and Chance Robinson, Harrelson School; and Grace Burden and Wesley Cox, Inman Middle School, were elected to the Students Sports Hall of Fame because of their athletic ability, leadership, good citizenship and dedication to their schools.

Kelley, Huntingdon mayor and a former state representative and state Cabinet member, is best-known in sports circles for his decades-long career as a basketball official.

Since he became a Southeastern Conference official in 1970, he has worked some of the biggest hoops contests in the nation and coordinates selection and assignments for officials in a five-conference group that includes Conference USA and the Big 12.

Kelley emphasized sports’ role in shaping a person for future contributions in life.

“I never made better friends anywhere than I did in athletics,” Kelley said. “For the young people here, you should know that what you do and what you participate in has an impact on what you do in life.

“The things you do now can help lead you to things you’d never anticipate.”

He said one reason he became a successful politician is because of the contacts he made while officiating games across West Tennessee.

He recalled getting his start in officiating and working a junior high school game in McLemoresville. The pay was supposed to be $5, but he joked that the school principal paid $7.50 if McLemoresville won the game.

The heavy sports influence of the former Grove High School in Paris during the 1930s through the 1960s was noted by Kelley, who said “Grove set the bar not just in this county, but all across West Tennessee.”

Three of the athletes honored were from Grove. Mann, Waddy and Wall all played football at Grove in the 1940s.

Mann later became a Marine and played football at Bethel College in McKenzie and at Pearl River Junior College in Mississippi, where he and Wall were teammates.

His son, Bruce Mann, accepted the honor on his father’s behalf. Earl Mann died in 1997.

“He would be proud to be mentioned with the greatest athletes in the county,” Bruce Mann said. “He believed sports helps make you a more well-rounded person.”

Waddy, who died in 1984, followed his Grove football exploits with a stint in the Air Force and also played at the then-University of Tennessee Junior College in Martin.

His daughter, Laurie Tucker, spoke on his behalf. She said he “would have been humble, humorous and long-winded” had he been there.

She said her father grew from a quiet, shy person in high school and college to a more gregarious adult. His participation in sports was important in his family. His brother, Vernon, was also an outstanding athlete and preceded him in the Sports Hall of Fame as a 1996 inductee.

Wall, who was a basketball coach at the former Buchanan High School after his playing days, became quite a community leader here in his adult years, during which he also worked as a TSSAA basketball and football official for more than 30 years.

Wall lauded the late Bobby Jelks’ influence on him and everybody else at Grove. It was Jelks’ guidance that led him to accept the Buchanan coaching job.

Wall joked that it was good to have played sports as a youth if only so that “you can blame your aches and pains on an old football injury.”

Remembering his high school days in the mid-1940s, Wall said “we were all little kids then. We had high school (football) guards that only weighed 145 pounds, and a tailback that was only 120 pounds.”

Barner was baseball standout

Barner, the youngest of this year’s inductees, was one of the best baseball players ever at HCHS. He went on to play collegiately at Middle Tennessee State University in the mid-1990s and signed a pro contract with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ organization, playing for various minor league teams for more than two years.

“I’ve always been consumed by sports. That’s who I am,” Barner said.

He expressed appreciation to his parents, Randy and Debbie Barner, for their devotion and support. He specifically remembered one time that MTSU was playing in an NCAA regional baseball game in Malibu, Calif., against Pepperdine University. His parents couldn’t make it to California, but drove all the way to Murfreesboro just to sit at MTSU’s stadium and listen to a live broadcast of the game.

“The best thing anyone could say about me is that I gave it my all when I played,” Barner said.

Brannon was a basketball star at the former Puryear High School in the early 1950s, leading the Hornets to a state tournament berth in 1951.

Brannon said he weighed 10 pounds at birth, and the doctor told his father “that’s gonna be your ballplayer.”

He remembered a humorous incident when Puryear was playing at Clarksburg one year, where the gymnasium was typically small for that era. He said he went up for a layup and a Clarksburg knocked him off the court, through a pair of double doors that was only about three feet from the court, down a hill and into the snow.

Brannon later had a successful career (he was a four-year starter) at David Lipscomb College in Nashville and enjoyed a long career in the publishing field in the Nashville area.

“I carried the same principles from playing into coaching and into the business world,” he said.

Priddy received the Distinguished Service Award. Hall of Fame president Bill Looney applauded Priddy’s devotion to giving the Hall of Fame good coverage in The P-I, and for his 21 years as sports editor.

Priddy gave credit to the athletes who provide the action that he covers. It’s because Barner hits a home run or McNairl scores a touchdown, for example, that allows him to provide exciting coverage for readers.

“It’s because they do what they do that allows me to do what I do,” he said.

Priddy thanked Ann Landini, who was journalism instructor at HCHS during his high school years, for helping him mine his journalism skills, and local photographer Lisa Green for helping him become a better photographer.

He also pointed out that his mother, Jo, was having a birthday Saturday, and she had said his receiving the award “was the best birthday present she could have.”