Summer Meeting in Lafayette County

BY JIMMIE McDOWELL---Gas costs twenty fie cents more a gallon. At least that was the case when Ole Miss letter winners gathered for their annual meeting in Lafayette County as compared to mid-Mississippi petrol costs.

Mid=South sports scribes who covered the Rebels in the Forties, Fifties and Sixties are all about gone now except for Mississippi Red. I appreciate being included on the invitation list. Wobble Davidson prided himself in turning boys into men. I wrote about this crew in high school and college. They were champions ion those days and they are still now.

Walter Stewart, David Bloom and George Bugbee and Magnolia State writers and editors Carl Walters, Purser Hewitt, Dick Smith, Odell McRae, Leonard Lowery, Charlie Kerg, Bill Ross, Arnold Hedrman, Lee Baker, Wayne Thompson, Charlie Gordon, Clint Blackwell, Ace Cleveland, Dick Lightsey, Billy Ray, Ken Ernst and Paul Tiblier have all passed away.

Jack Hairston of Greenwood and Jackson has retired in Jacksonville, Fla. Mississippi Red was gone for 30 years but has been back 15 years. During that time in New York, New Jersey and Tennessee I still covered Mississippi football from time to time.

Eagle Day and his mid-Fifty crew gathered at the Downtown Grill for a dinner in memory of Frank (Bruiser) Kinard, the first Mississippi football player elected to both College and Pro Football Halls of Fame. Billy Kinard and his wife Kay were thee to represent the family. Billy, of course, was a key member of the Rebels' Cotton Bowl champion team and later the Ole Miss head football coach. He was also a member of Ole Miss' first College World Series baseball team.

This baseball team was well represented at this reunion with Bernie Schrieber, the second baseman, coming all the way from South Dakota to be there. Bernie and shortstop Pepper Thomas provided a great double play combination for Tom Swayze's baseball Rebels and they enjoyed seeing each other again.

Eagle was also a key member of the football and baseball teams as w ere Eddie Crawford and Billy Kinard. Crawford, the retired senior associate athletic director, gave an excellent report to the group as did George Smith, the Director of the Loyalty Foundation/ Ray Poole, honored a year ago, was on hand with his bride Wanda. His nephew Paige Cothren missed the meeting as he completes another book.

Buddy Alliston came down from Memphis. He was the Outstanding Lineman in the Cotton Bowl victory over John Vaught's TCU alma mater while Day was the MVP and has been elected to the Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame.

Chancellor Robert Khayat and Warner Alford, director of Alumni Affairs, were roommates at Ole Miss. They chaired the other M Club meeting of the late Fifties and this group voted to include the 1961 and 1962 Rebels in 2008 when they gather next summer. At this party wee such stalwarts as Charlie Flowers, Jake Gibbs, and Billy Ray Adams, all All-Americans, Bobby Ray Franklin, Ralph (Catfish) Smith, Chico Taylor, Louis Guy. Richard (Possum) Price, Wes Sullivan, Art Doty, Wayne Terry Lamar, Charlie Duck, Allen Green, and others.

Frankie (Hobby Horse)( Halbert was also there. He was Vaught's good luck player who was included on the travel squad. One day Vaught was putting the travel list on the wall and Frankie asked the coach "what time are we leaving.Coach" Vaught replied: What do you mean WE?"

Halbert countered:" Aren't you going, Coach?" Vaught added Halbert to the list.

Kent Jr. Lovelace, a member of both groups, was also there. He had a blowout driving from the Coast near Florence. I asked him did he change the tire and he said he did not do manual labor. His pal, Warren (Beaux) Ball missed the meeting because he was enjoying his summer home in Colorado where his neighbors were Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford once lived. Frank told me at Wellington Mara's funeral in New York that he had moved.

Reunions of champion teams are terrific. 0-11 teams never have reunions. Ed Orgeron hopes that his current Rebels can develop in to championship teams. Seth Adams seems to have won the Quarterback job just as Farley Salmon did in 1948 when Ole Miss went 8-1 and was not invited to play in a Bowl game. Time will tell.
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