Memories of CHS State Championship 50th Anniversary: The Bus Drivers

By Elva Jo Crawford
    Just a couple of weeks before the great flood in August of this year, four of the twenty-two volunteer East Baton Rouge Parish school bus drivers, all ladies, who made the trip for the championship game December 16, 1966 got together to reminisce about their trip to Shreveport.   Now, in their eighties and nineties, they all had fond memories to share.  Even though most of the drivers have passed away, at least 6 of the 22 are still living and most still reside in Central.  Pictured above are four of them.  Seated, left to right Minnie Mae Jones and Daisy Lee Herpin.  Standing left to right Betty Brown and Jodie Mae Crawford.  Joanne Forbes was not able to attend.  Joanne says her driving partner was Cathryn Browning.  These buses carried the band members, Pep Squad, Cheerleaders, faculty, students and support staff for the team.  Each of the ladies drove half the way to Shreveport, stopping in Alexandria to change drivers, and then the other driver completed the second half of the trip.  And, the same routine on the way back, each drove half the way.
    Jodie Crawford's driving partner was Eula Mae Sanders.  Spouses were allowed to accompany their wives on the trip.  So, Jodie's husband, Bob, and Eula Mae's husband, Joe, also made the trip on the bus with them.  Betty Brown and Minnie Mae Jones were driving partners on the same bus that carried the Pep Squad; and, both their husbands made the trip.   Minnie Mae Jones was recently featured in the September issue of the "Samaritan's Purse" national newsletter, where her story of recovering from the flood was being told as she was being helped by the ministry's volunteers, having flooded for the first time in her home of almost 60 years.  Joanne Forbes says her husband, Kenneth, and Cathryn Browning's husband, Stanley, made the trip with them. Daisy Herpin's husband was not able to go since he was unable to get off  work.  So, her mother-in-law kept their then young children until he could get off work to pick them up.  Daisy's driving partner was her sister, Melba Devall, whose son Randy was a player on the team.  Melba's husband, Virgil Devall, was the Constable for Central at the time and drove his own car to Shreveport.
    Mrs. Herpin says that she well remembers their East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Deputy escort, Jim Rushing, whom she says did a fabulous job of getting them through so many little towns along the way to Shreveport in an expeditious manner.  There was no interstate from Baton Rouge to Shreveport back then.  She says because of his skill and planning they had to stop at very, very few red lights along the way.  Joanne Forbes jokingly says that the people on this caravan of buses saw very little of Shreveport going into town that day since they were driving so fast through the city, following Jim Rushing's lead.
    Like many people in the Shreveport stadium for the state championship game, another of the memories that Daisy Herpin had was of the Invocation for the game……or at least the introduction to it.  She was sitting with a group of people in the stadium next to the pastor from Zoar Baptist Church at the time, Bro. Jimmy Albritton, who had driven up for the game.  (Bro. Albritton had played on a championship football team when he was in high school in Picayune, Missisippi.).  Game night as the crowd quieted in preparation for the invocation, the priest from Jesuit stepped to the microphone to pray.  The silence was so profound that you could really almost hear a pin drop.  Then, across the public address system the minister's voice loudly sounded, almost like it was exploding into the microphone.  "LORD", he said……. "this is SHREVEPORT calling." (echo,….echo,……echo).  Then, the prayer continued.  I don't remember anything about the remainder of the content of the prayer. But, much later, after Central High had secured a victory, Bro. Albritton jokingly quipped, with good-natured pastoral humor, that he knew that Central was going to win that game as soon as he heard the invocation……….  He said our opponent "was having to make a long distance call———for us it was just a local call". 
    The memory they laugh about the most was cleaning their buses the Saturday morning after the game——–none of them had ever seen so many chicken bones on a floor to sweep up.  
    The most beautiful memory of their road trip, and a totally unexpected surprise for all, happened on the way home.  Coming over the bridge into downtown Natchitoches about the midnight hour there they were……….the gorgeously lighted Christmas decorations on the river.   No one could have prepared them for the absolutely spectacular site of those lights.  On the way going to Shreveport, passing through Natchitoches, it was daylight, and the decorations weren't noticeable.  But, on the way back in the dark it was a different story.  And, it was as quiet as could be on the streets that time of night.  Absolutely no one else was out but the folks from Central.  Wow, we were awe struck——what a blessed and beautiful site.  It was like the icing on the cake for the entire trip.   
    After Natchitoches, there were about four long hours of dark and monotonous driving.  Then, as their caravan neared home coming over the Mississippi River bridge into East Baton Rouge Parish, sleepy students began to come back to life, the windows on the buses started coming down, and the students began, again, chanting into the cold winter air—— "We're #1, we're #1," crescendoing all the way down Hooper Road to the school.  The eleven buses that had been immediately re-loaded in Shreveport after the game that Friday night heading back to Central completed their "all nighter," arriving home somewhere around 4 o'clock in the morning.  The best memory of all, and the biggest blessing of all, of course,  was that the trip was a safe one for every single person.  Thank you Lord.
    [I have not been able to obtain a complete list or verifiy the names of all the drivers who served the school and students so well 50 years ago by driving for the game.  But, a partial list of some of the other drivers’ names that have been given to me who were not mentioned earlier in this article are Dora Prather, Cibel Browning, Maybelle Cobb, Camille Kennard, Maybelle Strawbridge, Dot Watts, Winnie Fleniken, Shirley Wunstell, and Georgia Lea “Pete” Watts.  If anyone can help me to complete and/or correct this list I would love to hear from you.]
    Road trip Sideline story:  So, many people have such wonderful and interesting stories about how they struggled, sacrificed, and then managed to make that important road trip by car or truck to get to Shreveport from Central for that December 16, 1966 State Championship game to be one of at least 3,000 Central fans in attendance. The following is just one of them.  
    An 8th grader at the time, Ethel Shanks (Haik) says that after Central’s Pep Rally on Friday morning, December 16, 1966, she headed home on another school bus……..one that was not going to the game. She says she was so very disappointed that she was not going to be able to go to the championship game. It seemed to her like everyone else in Central was going to be there but her. But, not long after arriving home, she and her mother were looking out the window of their home and saw her dad pulling into their driveway driving a brand new automobile. Both of them were still in shock with their mouths wide open when her dad, Mr. Robert L. Shanks, stepped out of the car and called to them, “Everyone in the car! WE’RE GOING TO SHREVEPORT! “Her disappointment immediately turned into great joy – she was going to the game, driving with her parents in a brand new car.  She says the trip turned out to be a wonderful one.  Besides watching the game she  especially enjoyed the time that she and her family got to spend visiting with so many other people from Central during the game in the stadium stands.  She says it was like having a reunion party.
    Today Ethel and her husband, Bruce, live in Central on that same property that she grew up on in Greenwell Springs.  They have one grown daughter, Elizabeth.