During the ‘50s was my heyday in sports in the 20,000-plus population town of Pampa. I was a tall, lanky kid at 6’4.” Sports was my first love and the development of my coordination. Basketball was my thing, and during those years of 1953 through 1955, our team, the Hustling Harvesters, won two state championships and a “final four” record in our senior year, which stood at 85 wins six losses. This definitely gave me a sense of self-worth. In addition, the coach, Clifton McNeely, set a record of 321 wins and 43 losses over his 13 years he was at Pampa High School. In 2017, that record still stands in 5A basketball in Texas.
At 80 years of age, you do a lot of reminiscing about your life, and that’s where I am… remembering the good and the bad! One question I’ve asked myself many times is why Pampa always seemed to have better athletes, better teams, and better win-loss records than other communities around us. Putt Powell, the legendary sportswriter for the Amarillo Globe-News, once said, “Where does Pampa get all of their outstanding athletes?”
Well-sir, here is my theory for what it’s worth. Our parents grew up helping on family farms to put food on the table. They later fought in WWI and came home to the “Great Depression.” Then a few short years later, the U.S. was embroiled in WWII. These events molded them into what was later termed the “Greatest Generation.” It gave them determination and toughness to become people of character, of morality, and a dependence upon the great God above. And these values were instilled into the next generation… my generation.
Ninety percent of the folks living in Pampa during the 1940s and ‘50s were hard-working, middle-class people, living from paycheck to paycheck. We had ranchers, farmers, and oilfield people. Cattle was a big industry, and the wheat fields went for miles and miles. Many a kid in our town went to school and then rushed home to change into work clothes to climb upon a tractor and go to work until dark.
Then, there were the oilfields. They surrounded our little town. That was back in the day when derricks’ were scattered across the landscape as far as the eye could see, and refinery plants spewed their black smoke across the landscape. Dad worked for Magnolia Oil Company…the flying red horse symbol. He was a driller with a crew of six men, and they punched holes in the earth all over Texas for 30 years.
Well, this brings me to the reason for this epistle and the point I’m trying to make. It was instilled in us to be the best we could be at whatever assignment given to us…It was in our family genes!
Here is a perfect example of the guts and determination instilled in the children of the “Greatest Generation.” The time in April 1954. The team is the Pampa Harvesters Track Team. There were 22 young men who worked together and won 19 out of 22 track meets. At the end of the season, the best athletes in all of Texas were invited to compete in the Dallas Invitational Track and Field Meet (kind of like the state championship for track.) It was held at the Delmar Stadium in Dallas. Pampa only had five guys to qualify due to the rigid rules of the Dallas Committee. Pampa could not have afforded to send any more anyway! Many of the big schools like Amarillo, Lubbock, Lamar of Houston, and Highland Park of Dallas had 10 to 15 athletes. These guys were considered the best of the best.
The Pampa five took their bedrolls, and all of them stayed in one room of a cheap motel with the two coaches next door. The meet lasted for three days. Thursday was for qualifying, Friday was called the preliminaries, and Saturday night from 7 to 10 p.m. was the finals.
Talk about intimidation...the average guy looking at this massive stadium with all these athletes in their new fancy uniforms would have thrown in their towels, but not these five competitors. All five Pampa athletes qualified in their events. In addition, the relay team set a new state record of 41.5 seconds in the 440-yard relay event on Friday in the prelims (just an example of how determined our young men were.)
When Saturday night came, and the last starter pistol shot was fired, and the last measurement was taken in the field events, and the dust had settled, our five guys from the small community in the Panhandle stood on the highest podium holding the 1st Place trophy! Harold Lewis, Ed Dudley, Walker Bird, and John Darby in the track events and John Cantrell in the field events stood with their heads held high with the satisfaction of having accomplished their goal.
Our high school or the community never recognized them when they arrived back home. The three-foot trophy given for this event was placed in the front trophy case at the high school, but through the years, it has gone missing…but now has been replaced with a brand new one, and you can see the trophy along with photos of the five track stars in the Heritage Room at the PISD offices on Hobart.
Here was a moment in time when five guys shared their “grit and fiber” for Pampa and the Fighting Harvesters. What they accomplished has never been done again! They stepped up to the challenge and showed all of Texas they were the “Best of The Best.” They are to be congratulated and remembered in the annals of Pampa sports.
P.S.: Here is a supplement to this event I wrote about five years ago...There was a presentation made in the Pampa School Administration Building with approximately 150 people present. The First-Place trophy and plaque were presented by the three of the five trackers to the athletic director and track coach of PHS high school to be placed in the Heritage Room. Since 2017, when this presentation occurred, John Cantrell, John Darby, and Walker Bird have passed away to join Ed Dudley and Harold Lewis. Those fine young men proved to Texas that the Panhandle can also produce the “Best of the Best.”... GO HARVESTERS!
