Huckleberries Online

IHSAA Honors 1959 Kellogg Champs

Posted by DFO

March 30, 2009 10:11 a.m. • 1 comment

1959 Kellogg state basketball champs. Front row left to right, Don Zimmerman, Chris Milionis, Louie Jennings, coach Ed Hiemstra, faculty representative and team scorekeeper Ray Faraca, Bernard Blondeau, Keith Kilimann, Frank Winiarski; back row manager Sam Cummings, Ron Shreve, Ron Jarvey, Rodney Kamppi, Gary James, Rich Porter, Jeff Wombolt, Dennis Seagraves. Read Greg Lee’s Handle Extra story re: the Kellogg champions who were honored by the IHSAA with the “Legends of the Game” Award during halftime of the 5A state championship game at the Idaho Center in Nampa earlier this month here. (Photo Jon Nishioka/Nish’s Photo)

Question: Were you ever part of a championship team at any level of sports? Please share your memories re: that feat.

One comment on this post so far. Add yours!

JohnA on March 30 at 1:17 p.m.
I’m not sure an intramural championship counts, but our Town Mens Association team won at the U of I in the late ‘70s. Our TMA was made up mostly of Kellogg grads and we completed against the frats’ and dorms’ teams in everything from bowling and basketball to softball and track. The university awarded points in each sport and the team with the most at the end of the year was the champ.

After winning at flag football, I remember we needed to finish in the top four in softball to win the overall championship. We were playing a TMA of mostly Wallace guys in the semis, meaning the same rivalries we had in high school were revisited. Although they beat us that day, we won the overall championship and were feeling pretty good. We celebrated by joining them to compete in the jack leg drilling contest being staged across the street at the College of Mines. Since most of us had jobs underground to pay for school, we all did well in the contest. But the Wallace guys still had a softball game to play. I’ll never forget the coifed rich frat guys (and their sorority girl cheerleaders) as they looked upon this sorry lot of mud-caked miners getting ready to play them. We even stayed around to cheer them on just to witness the spectacle.

Anyway, Wallace whooped ‘em for the softball championship and we from Kellogg won the overall, so it was a true Silver Valley triumph.

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.