TERRE HAUTE —
Terre Haute gets the chance to witness and appreciate the extent of its rich baseball legacy this Saturday. Its past and present will merge at Bob Warn Field.
Indiana State University completely renovated that stadium in 2009, giving the city a professional-caliber facility more than a half-century after its last minor-league franchise folded in 1956. The year before the Terre Haute Huts left town, a team of 15 teenage boys gave the city a national championship. In 1955, an all-star squad from Terre Haute won the 1955 Babe Ruth League World Series in Austin, Texas. Several members of that team went on to athletic greatness at the college and pro levels.
At 1:30 p.m. Saturday, the ’55 Babe Ruth champs will reunite at Terre Haute’s newest sports venue, Bob Warn Field, prior to a college game between the host ISU Sycamores and visiting Dallas Baptist. The stadium on North First Street, which today serves as home for both the Sycamores and the summer college-league club the Terre Haute Rex, will entertain surviving participants from one of the community’s greatest athletic moments.
These 71- and 72-year-old men deserve a hearty round of applause.
More than 56 years ago, they teamed up under the guidance of Coach Glenn Staggs to beat opponents from Stamford, Conn., Clarksburg, W. Va., and finally Birmingham, Ala., to claim the World Series crown. The eight-team field of the Babe Ruth World Series included future major-leaguers such as Mickey Lolich, Tommy Harper and Cookie Rojas.
None of the Terre Haute players reached the major leagues, but each found success in other pursuits. Terry Dischinger played on the U.S. Olympic gold medalist basketball squad in 1960, and then starred in the NBA, winning the 1963 Rookie of the Year Award. Jim Calvin coached basketball at the high school, college, pro and international levels, and earned fame by guiding the Kuwait national team to a victory over Iraq at the brink of war between those two countries, much to the displeasure of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Charlie Hall played basketball at Indiana University, and is enshrined in the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. Bobby Clements compiled an Indiana Football Hall of Fame high school coaching career. Gary Auten became a Little All-American in basketball at Kentucky Wesleyan. Gary Cunning and Willie Cheesman played minor-league pro baseball. Don Lanning was a three-year baseball standout at Rose-Hulman. Bob Kehrt played baseball and basketball at Purdue. Gene Jeffers became a pastor; John Roshel, an orthodontist; Larry Rush, a transportation director for a school corporation; Luke Montgomery, an administrative banker; and Marvin Haney, the founder of Legacy Homes in Colorado. Larry Lucas retired after 29 years with Cummins in Columbus. Jerry Porter now resides in Florida.
Back in 1955, they were the best team of Babe Ruthers on the planet. Fire trucks and a crowd of 2,000 locals welcomed them back home on Aug. 22, 1955.
Ten of the living members of the team will make another homecoming for Saturday’s reunion, said Terre Haute historian and attorney Mike McCormick. We tip our hat, once again, to those gentlemen who gave their hometown something to be proud of.
An honor for Valley women
The Wabash Valley took time to honor eight “Women of Influence” on Thursday morning and celebrate the many and varied contributions each has made to their communities. As the awards were handed out during a program on the campus of St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, it was clear that these women have made the Valley a better place.
The honorees were Karen Goeller, deputy superintendent of the Vigo County School Corp.; Susan Guinnip, retired Purdue Extension agent in Indiana and Illinois; Erika True, women’s soccer coach at Indiana State University; Nancy Hunt, retired educator and technology coordinator for the Southwest School Corp. in Sullivan; Boo Lloyd, owner and operator of Crossroads Cafe and Corner Grind in downtown Terre Haute; Sister Jeanne Knoerle, retired president of St. Mary-of-the-Woods College; Sally Zuel, director of human resources, Union Hospital; and Joy Sacopulos, community volunteer and founder of Trees Inc.
You can read more about these women in a special inserted section of today’s Tribune-Star.
The United Way of the Wabash Valley program shined a bright light where it needed to be shined. We congratulate these women for this well-deserved honor. Your communities appreciate you.
Editorials
TRIBUNE-STAR EDITORIAL: A salute to pride of ’55
Babe Ruthers take another bow
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EDITORIAL: Waging the ‘readiness’ campaign
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EDITORIAL: Insult to an independent press
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: Dashing finish for the Sycamores
It’s always thrilling to see Indiana State University’s athletic teams do well in high-level competition, and two specific teams rose to impressive heights last weekend in the Missouri Valley Conference outdoor track and field championships.
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EDITORIAL: Better monitoring needed to prevent local environmental messes
The nasty, hazardous messes lurking in the community raise a bottom-line, red-flag question. Could these environmental problems have been monitored and, thus, prevented?
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EDITORIAL: Memo to U.S.A.: You can ‘SPPRAK’ just as we do in Vigo County
Our kids, truly, are ‘Making a Difference’
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Some words in praise of boring government — Indiana’s
A conservative Republican governor has super majorities in both branches of the legislature. One might suspect such one-party government leads to major changes in public policy. This did not happen in 2013 in Indiana.
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EDITORIAL: Doc’s prescient prescription
Viewed through a 2013 prism, Doc Bowen’s response to the AIDS epidemic looks merely prudent, routine.
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EDITORIAL: Education remains worth the cost
Within the next few weeks, each of the local colleges will have conducted graduation ceremonies. A few days later, a different Class of 2013 will don caps and gowns for commencement — the seniors at five Vigo County high schools. It is still a smart, worthy aspiration for those high school grads to replicate the achievement of those college students by earning a higher-education degree.
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EDITORIAL: Good news for downtown
For decades, it seems, downtown Terre Haute has been in the throes of change
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EDITORIAL: Overall, state budget step in the right direction
For average Hoosiers uninterested in political point-scoring, the budget crafted by the Indiana Legislature inspires only muted, if any, fanfare.
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EDITORIAL: The lessons of organ donation
The range of emotion surrounding life-saving transplantation of a vital organ is extreme. It is the ultimate “good news-bad news” scenario.
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READERS’ FORUM: April 26, 2013
• Pence’s tax cuts benefit wealthiest
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
This does not qualify as a surprise in any way. But the Wabash Valley’s response to widespread flooding of recent days has been nothing short of impressive, even inspirational.
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EDITORIAL: Still waiting for the jobs reward
The forces in control of Indiana government for most of the past decade need to show some results to Hoosiers in one primary category.
Good-paying jobs. -
MARK BENNETT: Littered with irony: Why do people callously discard their trash, and who are they?
Though they aren’t acknowledged by the U.S. Census Bureau, there are basically two demographic groups of people … Those who would dump their old toilet on the banks of the Wabash River or a rural roadside. And those who wouldn’t.
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EDITORIAL: Doing the dirty work to clean up tossed trash
A first-of-its-kind, coast-to-coast project to remove litter from U.S. roadsides brought the Pick Up America crew through the Wabash Valley two years ago.
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EDITORIAL: Keep school security a local issue
The decision to provide armed security inside a schoolhouse should be made locally.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
Indiana’s parks need your help.
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EDITORIAL: The return of terror
Emotions today remain strong and raw in wake of Monday’s terror bombings near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
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EDITORIAL: A solution to distracted driving … stop it … now
You’ve got to stop. You know you do it. It’s a miracle you haven’t caused a tragedy already.
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EDITORIAL: ‘Women of Influence’: 2013 selectees have given much to their communities
For the second year, United Way of the Wabash Valley has teamed up with local sponsors to select and honor a group of women who have made outstanding contributions to their communities, professions and families.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: A new honor for our veterans
A commendation goes out today to state Rep. Clyde Kersey, a Terre Haute Democrat who led the charge this week in the Indiana House of Representatives to pay tribute to the nation’s Purple Heart recipients.
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EDITORIAL: Shifting view on marriage
One could argue, as many have, that Sen. Joe Donnelly did the right thing last week when he dropped his support of government-sanctioned opposition to same-sex marriage. It wasn’t a radical move, considering most Democrats have now made the switch.
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MAX JONES: The American Newspaper: Changing? Yes. Dying? No way!
It happened again this past January when all those “looking at the year ahead” stories started popping up on Internet “news” websites and broadcast “news” programs. Under a provocative headline reading something like “Five industries/businesses doomed to tank in the coming year,” there it was, a prediction based on an unsubstantiated “expert” analysis that the newspaper industry will continue in 2013 to suffer its slide into oblivion.
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EDITORIAL: A chance to change our bad cultural habits
The sight of diligent, eager young people dragging trash out of the Wabash River wetlands is both inspiring and sad.
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EDITORIAL: Maintaining high standards
Standards
It’s the raging buzzword in education circles these days. Everyone insists that higher standards must be met. Anything less is, doggone it, unacceptable. -
Noteworthy in the news
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EDITORIAL: Crack down on dumpers
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Season of Day 2s arrives
Calendars in Cincinnati contain one extra holiday — Opening Day, traditionally the first Monday in April.
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Congress fails to recognize problem of education costs
Who hasn’t gotten this message yet? The cost of a college degree has become unaffordable for a wide swath of middle-class America.
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