The Life and Times of the Old Gym

By Olive Mullins Campbell

On April 17, 2014 and again on August 14, a picture of the “Old Gym” was on the front page of Central Speaks. I don’t know who took the picture but the date is June 4, 1947. The person sitting on the porch is me. It was graduation day for 40 seniors. There was no money for decorations in post WWII years. We went out into the woods and gathered pine branches and palmetto and tied it to the porch. We graduated on that porch at 8:00 that evening.

My mother, two brothers, three sisters, my grandfather Mullins and a cousin walked one mile on Canal Rd, then a gravel road, (now called Hooper Rd) to see me graduate. Mr. Herbert Montgomery, the longest serving ever School Board member gave us our diplomas. He was a proud father that night as he gave a diploma to his oldest son, Thomas Herbert Montgomery. Other classes also graduated on that porch. Every time we pass it we are still seniors going out into a new world, not knowing what it would hold for us.

A lot of basketball was played in that old building. Camille Carpenter Kennard was on a District Championship team there in 1934. She, her sisters and some tall Carpenter cousins played ball in that gym. There were several other tall girls who played, but I don’t know all the names. Wallace Edwards remembered his sister Ella Mae was on one team. They called themselves “The Little Devils” and that emblem was on their uniforms. This caused a conflict with some of the area churches and had to be changed. Wallace also said his brother Allen Edwards was on a championship team in 1938. Clyde Gremillion, class of 1947, recalled that team also won a championship. Most of those players graduated in 1947. 1948 was a rebuilding year. Football came to Central High in 1948 and basketball took a back seat as football became the #1 sport.

Mr. W.S. Hubbs coached the boys’ varsity team and Mr. J.G. Bailey coached the junior team. Both of these men were math teachers in the High School. Mr. Hubbs had a Model A car that he parked directly at the front door of the gym. Wallace said he and E.G. Rogillio were throwing the ball at each other when it went through the door and smashed the windshield of the Model A. He didn’t say what the consequences were! Clyde Gremillon remembered Mr. Hubbs taking the team in the Model A to Monroe, LA to play in a tournament. No telephone out here made communications to arrange games very difficult. Mr. Hubbs once sent E.G. Rogillio in the Model A to Pride to schedule a game. Pride and Zachary were the main rivals.

The gym did not have electricity in early years. There was a Delco Plant across the road at the teacherage and a cable was run across the road when electricity was needed. A metal lean-to was built onto the back of the gym where the players could get a very cold shower. There was no heat in that building. There were two large coal heaters in the gym. They did not put out much heat either. One of them set the building on fire. Mr. Leon (Shorty) Aucoin managed to get the fire out. Most of us sat on the stage to watch the games. It was closer to the heaters. There was no room to sit on the side lines.

WWII would interrupt our quiet life in Central. Young men who once ran up and down that gym would now run up the bloody beaches of the South Pacific or trudge through war torn Europe. There were not many young men left in Central. The old gym was a quiet place! All three Campbell boys were in the service – Ed, Odom, and Cecil. Cecil played basketball. The Frank Devall family would send SIX sons to war – Julius, Vernon, Eugene, Clifford, Virgil, and Floyd. Three went to the Pacific and three to Europe. Can you imagine having six sons in battle? Fortunately all came home safely.  All of us at home sacrificed and worked hard to help win that war. For all of us during those trying times we earned a new title. We are what is now known as “The Greatest Generation.”

    Ms. Olive Campbell wrote another installation of “The Life and Times of the Old Gym.” Stay tuned for part two and please consider signing the on-line petition to save the gym on Facebook or at www.thepetitionsite.com/380/453/968/