New signage pays homage to football teams’ ‘heyday years’
The more years that pass since high school graduation, it seems the more those teenage years are appreciated.
The more years that pass since high school graduation, it seems the more those teenage years are appreciated.
Add back-to-back state championships by the football team, and you’ve got memories to last a lifetime.
For Sallisaw’s Class of 1982, Black Diamond football “holds a dear place in our hearts,” 1982 alum Kelli Erwin Timmerman will tell you. Forty years after graduation and those memorable football championships, the Class of 1982 looked to give back to its alma mater.
Tying it to football was an obvious choice.
“Our football teams were back-toback state champions in the 1980 and 1981 seasons,” Timmerman proudly notes. “Our reunion committee immediately agreed one of our goals was to create a loving honor for the football team.”
But how? “Back in the summer, we toured the field to relive the excitement felt by our SHS student body, as well as the entire community during those heyday years. It was real-life ‘Friday Night Lights’ in Sallisaw back then — a true sense of camaraderie and spirit.
“We visited the tailgating area that had been built west of the field in honor of Richard Hawkins, a brother and teammate for the 1980 championship squad. Sadly, the memorial sign had faded over the years. It became our mission to restore a piece of our Black Diamond Spirit,” she says.
So replacing the faded sign at the Richard Hawkins Memorial Tailgating Pavilion became a priority as well as a labor of love for the Class of 1982.
The reunion committee received donations to buy the lumber, and classmates Donald Middleton and Dr. Raymond Denny supplied all the labor replacing the sign. Timmerman went to her neighbor and creative artist Linda Pedon with a general idea for the new sign. Pedon put together a freehand design reminiscent of earlier years “that was exactly what we hoped for. It worked out beautifully.”
The class planned to present the sign to Hawkins’ family Friday before the final game of the season. But violent storms forecast for Friday forced moving the game to Thursday, so the planned presentation wasn’t possible.
Nevertheless, the new sign was installed Saturday at the tailgating pavilion as a tribute not only to Hawkins, but to the 1981 and 1982 state championship football teams.
“ The sign now stands for future tailgating,” Timmerman says. “We hope y’all remember this: It’s amazing how far you can go just because someone believed in you.”
Members of the 1982 reunion committee included Timmerman, Middleton, Denny, Leslie Rape Fisher, Anna Miller Brown, Shannon Richardson Ridener, Stacey Fornaszewski England, Angelia Wiseley Marks, Patti Lattimore Branham and Mike Brown.
