The D-B Quiz

 

The Dobyns-Bennett Alumni Hall of Fame induction is set for Saturday (Nov. 5) at 11:15 a.m. at Meadowview Convention Center if you are interested in attending.

In addition to my classmate and friend John Walton ’65, the other inductees are Jerry Adams ’75, Jeff Chetwood ’67, Ken Roberts ’50, Don Roller ’55 and George Taylor ’61.

I was in Key Club with Jeff, I went to church with Don, I’ve cruised Broad with George, so I know almost all of them.

Over the years I have talked to many Kingsport civic clubs filled with D-B alums.

By the third go round for each club, I needed new material. So I came up with a D-B quiz.

 

I noticed in writing the above section that I refer to my alma mater as Dobyns-Bennett only once. The rest of the time it’s D-B, D-B, D-B.

In my three years of high school, in fact in my entire 18 years growing up in Kingsport, I don’t think I ever uttered the words Dobyns-Bennett.

It was D-B… D-B this and D-B that. Even our cheerleaders didn’t spell out Dobyns-Bennett. They spelled out Indians.

So in honor of dear old D-B, The Offical D-B quiz (the first version of this was assembled for a speech to the Kingsport Rotary Club.)

Grading is on the honor system.

 

1. Who was D?

2. Who was B?

Obviously they were Dobyns and Bennett. But who was Dobyns and who was Bennett?

James William Dobyns was the first mayor of Kingsport.

W. M. Bennett was the first chairman of the Kingsport school board.

J.W. Dobyns and William Bennett were both Kingsport pioneers.

Dobyns came to Kingsport in 1906 to run what would later be known as Rotherwood Farm.

Bennett came here five years later, in 1911, to run the Clinchfield Portland Cement Plant.

Both were involved in founding well-known local companies that would bear their surnames: Dobyns-Taylor Hardware and Bennett and Edwards Insurance. (It was Dobyns' son Flem who co-founded Dobyns-Taylor with George Taylor.)

Both were directors of the First National Bank, members of the Kiwanis and Kingsport Business Men’s Clubs and pioneering civic leaders.

Both died in 1923, within six months of each other, and both were age 56. (Bennett’s death was attributed in the newspaper to acute indigestion. Alka-Seltzer wasn’t invented until 1931.)

And in one more eerie coincidence, each’s older son died shortly before the outbreak of World War II, W.M. Bennett Jr. in Nazareth, Pa. in July 1940, Ben Dobyns in Kingsport in January 1941, also within six months of each other.

So when it came time to name the new high school in 1926, it was an easy choice for city leaders: honor the first leaders of the city and of the schools.

The result was a unique name known all over the state, Dobyns-Bennett High School.

We know a lot more about Dobyns than Bennett.

Because while the Dobyns’ sons stayed in Kingsport, raising families, staying involved in the community, Bennett’s three children and his widow had all moved away by 1930.

Dobyns’ first official act as Mayor was to declare April 8, 1917 as “Go to Sunday School Day.” When he died in 1923 while still in office, more than 2,000 people crowded Broad Street Methodist for his funeral. Incidentally he was appointed initially by the governor, then reelected to two terms. Women voted for the first time in the 1919 election, the city’s first. There were 750 registered voters, 15 percent of that total were women. 75 women cast votes in the election.

What we do know about Bennett is that he was intensely interested in the education of Kingsport’s children, both black and white.

When the city began its campaign of building schools, he pushed for a new building for the colored students. And in fact the board of mayor and alderman hired an architect to draw up plans for a new colored school building in the spring of 1920. It was to open in the fall.

That was pushed back again and again. One of Bennett’s last acts on the school board was to announce that the new colored school would be built in 1923.

After his death Kingsport’s black community voted to name the new colored school for him. The Kingsport Times reported the resolution read,  “We, the colored citizens, in a mass body at the Central Baptist church, voted unanimously to ask the city and board of education to name the school in honor of him who lived such a worthy life among us; we wish to do something so that it will be to his renown and stand in token of his goodness; a man in whose sight the color of skin or the texture of the hair had nothing to do with the person; to do him honor we ask that the school may be known as the ‘Bennett School.’”

The board had even passed on first reading a bond issue for the school. No colored school would be built until 1929, three years after Bennett had been honored in the name of the other high school. So instead the new colored school was named for Frederick Douglass.

Had the city not dragged its feet on building a new school for the black community, the name Bennett would have already been taken. And considering the athletic successes of Douglass over the years – winning state championships in both football and basketball – the name Bennett High School would have been famous all over the state.

So D-B might instead have been Dobyns High.

There is another possibility for the first school name. The first city manager of Kingsport was William R. Pouder, who had been city recorder in Johnson City when Kingsport hired him away. He resigned after two years in office in a dispute “with certain citizens.” (Who do you think those “certain citizens” were? J. Fred Johnson? John B. Dennis? Both, since citizens is plural?) Pouder was instrumental in getting the city up and going since no one on the first board of mayor and aldermen had any previous municipal government experience.

What if we had named the high school after him?

Pouder High.

Wonder what the nickname would have been?

All I’m coming up with is the Pouder Burns, not a very appealing nickname.

 

 3. How old was Miss Elmore when you were in her class?

Grace Elmore came to D-B in 1926. She taught Latin until 1962. Miss Elmore died in December 1987. She was born December 10, 1891.

She was a legend. In 1949 Look magazine sent a reporter and a photographer to cover her annual student Bacchanalia.

At the end of her life, she told Times News womens’ editor Betty Benkey about her job interview with superintendent of schools Ross N. Robinson when she came to Kingsport in 1926.

"He told me I could not get married if I wanted to, that they didn't have any married teachers and were not going to have any married teachers. Nor could I go, if I was invited, to a dance. I must tell him the night before if I was going to a dance. I asked why was that, and he said 'so I will know not to expect you to be prepared to teach the next day.’”

Sally Chiles Shelbourne (D-B ’63) in a Kingsport Times News column remembered her time in Miss Elmore’s class. “Miss Grace always wore makeup and reapplied it at the beginning of every class without the aid of a mirror.”

 

 4. How old was Miss Ramer when you were in her class?

Ruth Ramer came to D-B in 1936 to teach English. She retired in 1964 as a guidance counselor and died February 1984. She was born February 19, 1898.

Incidentally Nancy Necessary Pridemore was born August 20, 1919.

The real veteran teacher in Kingsport City Schools was Home Ec instructor Lucile Massengill, who came to D-B the same year as Miss Elmore, 1926, but continued teaching until 1965. (She moved to Robinson in 1956.) She was born in 1899 and lived to be 100.

 

 5. What was the first D-B football game on radio? Who were the announcers?

D-B at Milligan Sept 27, 1940 on WKPT-AM. No, it wasn’t Martin Karant who announced the game. Bob Poole, who also did the Man on the Street radio show, did what the newspaper called “the running story” with Steve Douglas providing “color and statistical details.” Douglas was the station’s program director. WKPT had only been on the air for two months. The second D-B game on radio was at Erwin Oct. 18, 1940, three weeks later.

 

6. Where was the first D-B?

Trick question.

Wateree Street in the building now known as the old D-B.

Kingsport Central High was what we know as the old Washington Elementary. It was located on East Sevier at Watauga. The building has been renovated for senior living.

 

  7. Who was the first principal of D-B?

If you said Harry Groat, very good. Not correct but very good. Harry Groat was the first principal of Kingsport Central High School.

C.K. Koffman was the first principal of D-B in 1926-1927.  He was also the last principal at Kingsport Central High School in 1925-1926.

 

 8. Who did D-B defeat for its first ever football victory?

Kingsport Central High – not yet D-B – defeated Abingdon 7-0 in 1921 for its first ever football victory. It was the eighth game of that initial season.

D-B’s first ever victory came against Norton, Virginia on Saturday Sept. 25, 1926. D-B scored 30 times, winning 193-0, still a school record for most points and largest victory margin.

Teams normally played 12-minute quarters in 1926 but D-B line coach Charles Koffman – who doubled as school principal - asked the Norton coach Jay Litz at halftime if they wanted to shorten them to eight minutes for the second half. Litz readily agreed.

Litz went on to be a successful insurance broker in Wise, Virginia.

There’s a story (published in the 1964 Times-News) that Bobby Dodd was so bored near the end of the game he went to the sideline during the final quarter and traded his leather helmet for a cloth painter’s cap, turning up the bill as he ran back on the field.

 In 1983 Times-News sportswriter Ken Datzman found a Mendota dairy farmer named J.R. "Baldy” Baker who had been a tackle on that Norton team and remembered the 193-0 plastering well.

Baker said the game was played in Kingsport before 1,000 fans.

"That was probably the best high school team ever put together in Upper East Tennessee or Southwest Virginia," said Baker about the D-B team - coached by LeRoy Sprankle.

Dobyns-Bennett's multitalented backfield (the "Pony Express") included Bobby Dodd, James Duncan, Paul “Whitey” Hugg and Frank Meredith. "We spent most of the day on the ground," said Baker, who played four seasons at Norton. On the ground was face down.

Baker couldn’t recall any pep talk at halftime or chewing by coach Litz. "He grumbled about missed blocks and those things," said Baker, "but I can't recall anything in particular.”

D-B didn’t go on to an undefeated, untied season. Instead it finished 7-2. The team averaged 60 points a game, thanks in part to the lopsided opening victory over Norton. The first seven wins were all shutouts.

Dobyns-Bennett 193, Norton 0.

Dobyns-Bennett 41, Harlan (Ky.), 0.

Dobyns-Bennett 51, Milligan Jayvees 0.

Dobyns-Bennett 57, Greeneville 0.

Dobyns-Bennett 75, Elizabethton 0.

Dobyns-Bennett 63, Jefferson City 0.

Dobyns-Bennett 60, Johnson City 0.

The last two games were a different story:

Knoxville 3, Dobyns-Bennett 0

Middlesboro (Ky.) 15, Dobyns-Bennett 6.

Charlie Kohlhase kicked the field goal to beat D-B in the Knoxville game. Dodd, an All-American at Tennessee who coached Georgia Tech to three national championships, Paul Hugg and Kohlase became teammates at Tennessee.

Dodd told Datzman that D-B ran into a tough ballclub and lost in a "horrible, rainstorm" at Middlesboro.

You might think Norton went on to lose every game. But it didn’t according to Baldy Baker. "I think we broke even in our league (Wise County). We weren't that bad. We lost to Bristol 13-2. And they had Beattie Feathers and Gene McEver on their team. Dodd, Feathers and McEver went on to be All America players. All three played for Gen. Neyland at Tennessee."

 

9. That 193-0 defeat of Norton was not the first time a Kingsport football team had topped 100 points. When was the first?

Kingsport Central High, led by Frank “Gabby” Meredith, topped Bristol 100-0 on Saturday Nov. 14, 1925. Star Bobby Dodd, along with three other starters, didn’t play until the score was 56-0. They had been suspended for breaking curfew.

Jitney Blankenbecler told Bill Lane of the Times-News in 1983 that the game was played on the land between City Hall and Mead.

Lawson Reams, who was a cheerleader, told me the cheerleaders were rooting for the team to miss the extra point after the final touchdown – a three-yard run by Dodd – so the game would end 99-0.

 

10. Who was D-B’s first band director?

It wasn’t Paul Arrington – famous band director for my generation. The first was S.T. “Fess” Witt. He had been a student “under Kepler,” according to the yearbook. He came to Kingsport in the fall of 1926 from the Newport News Naval Band. He retired after the ‘51-‘52 school year (the alley next to old D-B is named for him) and was replaced by Paul Oxley, who left in 1955, replaced by H.L. O’Hara. Paul Arrington arrived in 1957.

Kingsport Central High didn’t have a band but had a Glee Club under the direction of Miss Augusta Riley, older sister of Mary Erin Riley, famous junior high English teacher.

The first music supervisor, beginning in 1919, was Miss Alice Feeney from Oxford, Ohio.

 

Two bonus questions about Kingsport, not D-B.

11. Where was the first paved road in Kingsport?

Broad, Shelby, Commerce and Cherokee were the first to get rock, according to the June 22, 1916 Kingsport Times.

Dale Street, near the Bristol Highway, was the first to get paved, according to Barney Pendleton, who said his mother told him that. I found confirmation in the Aug. 5, 1919 Kingsport Times.

 

12. J. Fred Johnson was the father of the town. What did the J stand for?

He died Wednesday Oct. 4, 1944. All stores in town were closed for his funeral. He was born on June 25, 1874, in Hillsville, Virginia, the son of J. Lee Johnson and Mary Pierce Early Johnson.

His first name was John and in the 1880 census his last name was spelled Johnsan

J. Fred Johnson was a charter member of Kingsport’s Rotary Club.

When the local Rotary Club was founded in 1923, the Kingsport Times published the list of charter members “with their classifications.”

Sam Pyle, contractor.

O. S. Hauk, physician.

Irwin Fuller, ladies' ready-to-wear.

Bill Jennings, banker.

"Doc" Hillman, 5 and 10 cent store.

Number six on the list:

“J. Fred Johnson, capitalist.”