Hail to the 1963, ‘64 Gleason High School Bulldogs

GLEASON — More than three dozen Gleason High School graduates gathered here over the Labor Day weekend for the Tater Town Special with many not accepting the notion of an American novelist and rock band that “you can’t go home again.”
It did not take long for two classes of Bulldogs from the mid-1960s to be reminded of a blessed time in our lives. This year’s celebration began at the Bulldogs game with Bruceton-Hollow Rock when nine members of the school’s historic 1963 football team were honored on the field at halftime. The three players, two cheerleaders, a manager and two members of the homecoming royal court represented the highly-decorated team that won the school’s first Reelfoot Conference championship and its first bowl game.
On Saturday, 20 members of my Class of 1965 gathered at the Masonic Lodge after the annual Tater Town Special parade to celebrate the 60th anniversary of our graduation. Classmates from as far as Novi, Michigan, and Land ‘o Lakes, Florida (near Tampa), came to catch up with those folk they had spent 12 years with in school. They remember the glory days of the mid-1960s. Most agreed it was a blessed period in our lives.
The event that reinforced the “going-home” notion most strongly came on Sunday when the four-year-old Gleason School Alumni Association honored the 63-64 and 64-65 classes in a true Reunion. Members of those classes were asked to submit their favorite school memories.
Perennial 1965 class leader Bonnie Arnold Bullock, a Dresden CPA, and Martin resident Martha (Mott) Boone Sublett of the class of 1963-64 condensed and shared samples from each classmate with the other assembled Bulldogs. It brought home dozens of memories.
The most repeated memory was the smell of peanut butter cookies and hot rolls – fresh out of the oven — wafting from the school cafeteria. That brought smiles to the faces of those who remembered that aroma, but did not include it in their survey.
I was honored and flattered when Kathy Williams Lawrence, alumni association president, asked me to speak at the Sunday Reunion on “how great the 1963 football team was.” That was easy, it was simply the “greatest.”
So it doesn’t get forgotten, we were honoring two classes of GHS students. Together, they made up a team of young men who gave Gleason the best football team ever. It had seven seniors from the class of 1964, nine juniors from the class of 1965, three sophomores, and freshman Jere Jeter.
I was flattered that the alumni president was giving me credit for being able to remember enough 60-year-old facts to do the assignment justice.
Indulge me a little. I did not play on the 1963 team. I was a team manager with Robert Tuck and Richard Hodges. Did not play until my senior year because my grandmother, who had raised me, was afraid I would get hurt. I got knocked out cold in the fourth game of the season, but I never told her.
I covered the 1963 team’s success and exploits as the sports correspondent for the Dresden Enterprise and McKenzie Banner. And my classmates let me do it again my senior year when I was somehow chosen to be class reporter. It’s the stats I reported then that you’ll hear later.
That two-year experience launched a five-decade career in journalism. One of the first things I learned was that no matter how small a newspaper is its publication is the first draft of history.
I need to say thanks to my pals and classmates Diane Black Mayo and Bonnie Arnold Bullock for digging into their closets for much-needed research material. The clips were on yellowed newsprint and were stories written for The Banner and Enterprise. They came just in the nick of time.
The Fall of 1963 was a magical time and indeed brought historic events to Tater Town, particularly leading up to the 14th of November. I was a UT-Vols season ticket holder for over 30 years and I can tell you proportionally, the Bulldogs’ ‘63 season ranks up there with the Vols 1998 championship run in excitement factor.
Carolyn Travillian Roney was the senior class reporter in 1963, so she did the Gleason High School News column in the Enterprise and Banner. I did most sports as a junior and phoned in scores of all games – football and basketball — to the Nashville Tennessean and Memphis Commercial Appeal for $2 a game.
I deferred to Carolyn on sports one week and was glad I did. She was the better writer.
“Thursday night, Nov. 14, was the highlight of the Gleason football season,” she reported. “The regular school day ended at 1 p.m. There was a motorcade through the county at 1:30 and a bonfire following that. It was the most exciting game of the season. The Bulldog fans were wild with joy” as the game ended: Gleason 20, Parsons Red Tigers 14.
Since GHS did not have a band, the host team – Lexington High School – provided its pep band for the Rotary Bowl. Other fun facts: Parsons front line outweighed us by 20 pounds per player. The backfield players were 10 pounds heavier.
The mood in town was electric all season. People hung out at Hattie’s Dairy Bar, the only eatery in those days, long after every game and on Saturdays, talking about football and reliving the glory from the previous night. Edgar Settlers, the new coach and a star quarterback at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, had the town abuzz.
The team was undefeated going into the Reelfoot Conference championship game. Its defense had allowed only two touchdowns in nine games. And then we beat Martin 15-6 for the championship title, pushing opponents’ TD total to three in nine games.
The Bulldogs dominated every team in eight of the first nine games. McKenzie was the only blemish — a scoreless tie. We scored 195 points to 12 in the regular season for an 8-0-1 record. That’s 27 touchdowns to two for the other side. When the season ended, we had scored 230 points to opponents’ 32.
Now for the heroes and heroics. The game provided plenty of drama. In first half, Junior Jimmy Morris intercepted a pass thrown by the Red Tigers 205-pound quarterback. Fullback Jerry Sanders then “dashed” for a 3-yard touchdown. We missed the extra point. Russell Byrd recovered a fumble.
Parsons scored a touchdown and point after before halftime to lead us 7-6.
On the first play of the second half, Junior halfback Jimmy Belew “scampered” for a 68-yard touchdown that “brought everyone to their feet.” Sanders ran the extra points.
The Bulldogs held Parsons on the next possession and moved the ball 73 yards to set up a 9-yard touchdown run by Belew. In my story, I said he “rampaged,” later to learn that was not one of the accepted sports-writing clichés.
Parsons scored a second touchdown on a 45-yard pass play, and Bulldog Quarterback Johnny Bradbury hit Junior Freddie Spain on two passes for 30 yards.
As Carolyn reported in the GHS News: “The Bulldog fans were wild with joy.”
We had 17 first downs to Parson’s 7. We had no penalties and no fumbles.
This “bunch of boys” as I described them, had a two-year combined record of 16-2-2.
I have no documents to prove it, but this team was certainly the most decorated in school history. It was runner-up in the Reelfoot Conference standings in 1964.
Stalwart Junior Glen Margrave, the amazing center and captain, was All Reelfoot Conference for three of his four years. He was Honorable Mention All-State, second team All-West Tennessee, Mr. Football and received the Dr. Jeter Award.
Freddie Spain was an all-conference end two years and honorable mention All-West State.
Senior Ronnie Dilday, heart of the defense, was All-Conference and Honorable Mention All-West State.
Junior Russell Byrd was all-conference at tackle and Most Valuable lineman.
Jimmy Belew, all-conference at fullback as a junior and honorable mention al- West-state, was a hard-running halfback who scored 96 points with the 1963 team.
Jerry Sanders was second team All-Reelfoot Conference, but with 98 points was the team’s scoring leader.
Larry Joe Freeman, last and certainly not least, was second team all-conference and received honorable mention for the All-West Tennessee team.
I was asked to say a little about Coach Edgar Settlers. Some may not know, but he passed away in 2020 back in Clarksville where he played college ball at Austin Peay State University. He was 94. He was obviously a good coach. Look at the results he got out of what he had – at a small school in a very aggressive conference.
Coach was also our senior class sponsor with Suzanne Heath Russell. I had a unique relationship with him. I was a team manager for three years, almost like an assistant to him. He was many things. If I had to pick one word to describe him, it would be personality.
Finally, to close the conversation about whether you can or can’t go home again, I asked my favorite teacher and class sponsor, Suzanne Russell in McKenzie to weigh in:
“Here are my thoughts as best I can express them on paper,” she wrote. “I finally captured the phrase that rings in my brain when I go back to the place where I grew up. It is from the novelist Thomas Wolfe who said, ‘You can’t go home again.’ Because the place and I have both changed, a true return to what I once knew is impossible. Those beloved familiar faces I once knew—those who loved, nourished, and sheltered me — are no longer there. Circumstances have changed; landmarks are altered or gone; so much of the environment is different.
“Yes, I can physically return to ‘my hometown,’ the place where I grew up, but it is no longer HOME!”
I moved away in 1965 to go to college. I returned occasionally – whenever I could – and friends in Gleason – even at the 10th, 40th, 50th and now the 60th reunion – made me feel that I had come home. Then I read Ms. Suzanne’s comments on the subject and rode up North Cedar Street in Gleason, where I grew up.
The four-room house with the closed-in back porch has been torn down and replaced by the one-big-room Rotary Community Center. The large yard I played in and the two gardens my grandmother toiled in hour after hour are now part of a sports complex.
By Ms. Suzanne’s circumstance and standard, I don’t have a “home” to go to either, but I cling to the “home is where the heart is” overly-used adage. Thus, for me, “home” is with my friends in Gleason and its environs who claim me as one of their own and always invite me to return “home.”
Frank Gibson is a retired reporter and editor at The Tennessean in Nashville and a member of the Tennessee Journalism Hall of Fame. He was named 2018 Journalism and Electronic Media Alumnus of The Year by the University of Tennessee’s College of Communication & Information.