to banquet winners

By AL GRANING

At the risk of redundancy, I offer my congratulations to the youngsters who were honored at last week’s banquet of the Miss-Lou Chapter of the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame.

Trinity’s Alex Allain walked away with the top honor of a $2,000 scholarship. Will Carter of Cathedral received the $1,750 stipend.

Will’s brother, Mark, won the top honor at the 2003 banquet. Their parents, Mark and Mary Ann Carter must be mighty proud, and rightly so. Dustin Case from ACCS, Jamar Bowman of Ferriday High, Trey Keith of Huntington, Edwin Murrell from Natchez High and Michael Fuqua of Vidalia High were also honored, and each received well-deserved help toward their college careers.

Jack Foster, who received the Contribution to Amateur Football Award, and Scott Kimbrell, recipient of the Distinguished American Award, were among the most deserving of these awards in chapter history.

The Miss-Lou Chapter of the NFF and HOF was founded in 1982. Jimmie McDowell, known around the South as &uot;Mississippi Red,&uot; was then executive director of the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame.

One such visit was to the annual clinic of the SEC football officials in Birmingham, and there he approached me about starting a chapter in Natchez. Our first meeting was at the old Side Track (now the Cock of the Walk), and from that meeting came the decision to hold an annual banquet and honor local high school seniors.

The money for the first scholarships came from individual donations. Those donations remain an important factor, but the annual golf tournament has enabled the chapter to enhance the value of those awards.

The speaker for that first banquet was George Morris, at that time still an SEC football official. A native of Vicksburg, Morris had played high school sports against Natchez High many times and knew several of the athletes and coaches there. George went on to play and make All-American at Georgia Tech and is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.

The first banquet honored Joe Fortunato as Distinguished American and the late Coach A. I. Rexinger for Contribution to Amateur Football.

Among the recipients of those two awards, several have spent at least part of their athletic careers in officiating. The late Louis Miller, Bob M. Dearing, Bob &uot;Red&uot; Owens, Fred Foster, Gene McGehee, Al Graning, Andy Pressgrove, Obie Brown, Clarence Bowlin and the late Malcolm Wallace are included in that number.

Past presidents of the organization who officiated included Graning, Pressgrove and Foster. The only banquet speakers involved in officiating were Morris and Art Demmas, an SEC official early in my career but moved to the NFL.

With but two exceptions (Clyde Ray Webber and Paige Cothren), all remaining speakers were college head football coaches. Ironically, none (except for the three most recent) remain at those positions today.

And that’s official.

Al Graning is a former SEC official and former Natchez resident. Reach him at

AlanWard39157@aol.com

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