'63-'64 Trophies

We started off just wanting to have photos of trophies which our classmates helped win. Hugh Allen knew that the trophies were being kept at the Avondale Estates City Hall because at some point in the past he had gone over to take photos of some of them as well as the "Flying A."

I (Jewell) went to City Hall, asked if Hugh could take photos of ALL our class' trophies (both as juniors and seniors). We dealt with Karen Holmes, a lovely woman married to an AHS alum from the Class of 1974. She showed me to an attic room containing all the trophies they had. The attic wasn't air conditioned -- in July. I sorted through all the trophies and isolated our class trophies. Many of them were damaged. The 1963 State AAA Football and 1964 State AAA Baseball trophies were missing. In the process I noticed that somewhere along the line ('70's? '80's?) the trophies stopped being constructed of metal, stone, and wood and started being constructed of plastic. The plastic trophies were almost twice the size of the older trophies. (What does that say about culture change?) I was also told that City Hall had the trophies because the alternative was to throw them away when Avondale High School was decommissioned. Thank you, City Hall!

When Hugh went to photograph the trophies in early August, he had 3 assistants: his favorite assistant -- wife Beverly, Stephanie Strand Blomeyer, and me. Stephanie brought 2 portable, individual battery-operated fans that she and Earle had used while exploring the Amazon. I wish we had a picture of Hugh peering through his camera at the trophies while Beverly positioned them for the best lighting and Stephanie and I stood pointing the fans at Hugh to try to keep him cool! Hugh's photos are in the 1st gallery below. Thank you, Beverly and Hugh!

Later Karen Holmes was able to get permission for us to use some of the trophies as memorabilia for the reunion. Having seen the poor condition of the trophies, Stephanie wanted to get them repaired/refurbished. She was heartbroken to see wounded Blue Devils! When we picked up the trophies, we took them to a trophy shop to see what could be done. All they could do was polish some of them and repair some of the scratches on the wood. They could not repair the metal figures on the trophies because they only dealt in plastic. Stephanie's brilliant solution was to take the trophies with broken figures to her silversmith. Two of the baseball figures were missing bats. One basketball figure who was standing on one foot was broken off at the ankle. Our most severely injured player only had two feet -- his body was missing. (The inscription on the base gave no indication what the sport was. Our trophy repair expert could not help us identify what the figure might have been although we searched his catalogs.) Stephanie's silversmith immediately said the baseball and basketball trophies could easily be repaired. He actually caressed them, saying that they were beautiful trophies and "they don't make them like this anymore." The repairman was a European craftsman. His first attempt at repairing the baseball figures with missing bats was to give them GOLF CLUBS! Fortunately, the mistake was corrected before Stephanie picked them up. The basketball player with the broken ankle was seamlessly repaired. Thank you, Stephanie.

To be continued... The Mystery of the Two Feet