Pea Ridgers this week said good-bye to one of our beloved community stalwarts, as Russell Walker passed away Saturday, Aug. 16, at the age of 97. Many of us have never known Pea Ridge without Russell and the other members of the Walker family. In fact, many Pea Ridge buildings constructed after World War II involved Russell's handiwork. He was a fine carpenter, and by his skills he made a great impact on our community.
Russell was born and grew up in the country area north of Pea Ridge, the area bounded by today's Gates Lane, Lucas Lane and Hayden Road. Until 1929, that area was part of the Shady Grove School District, and Russell was a student at Shady Grove School through the sixth grade. He remembered Faye Price as the last teacher at Shady Grove.
After the consolidation of Shady Grove into the Pea Ridge School District in 1929, Russell did seventh grade at Pea Ridge in the last year of the old Pea Ridge College building. Russell told us of sliding down the fire escape tube which exited from the second floor auditorium of the old building on his way to Agri Shop Class in the little concrete block building, which today we call our School Heritage Building. No doubt some of Russell's skills as a carpenter and farmer were developed there in the small school shop. But in those days, life on the farm was itself a "school" for building and repairing structures and using tools, and I have no doubt that Russell was already becoming familiar with carpentry and construction skills even before taking school classes in vocational agriculture in the early 1930s. After Russell's seventh-grade year, the old college building was dismantled, and in the summer and fall of 1930, the new one-story red brick schoolhouse was built just west of the older building's location. Russell's eighth-grade class was one of the original classes to use the new building.
The Walker brothers were longtime Pea Ridge Blackhawk basketball players. Russell's older brothers, Glen and Floyd Walker, were great players on the championship Blackhawks of 1926. In those days, very few of the smaller schools had indoor gymnasiums and basketball was often basically an outside sport. Pea Ridge teams of the 1920s played in the old Tetrick building, which was located near today's Park Motel and near the back of Fred and Mabel McKinney's home. The old Tetrick building had concrete walls, an oak plank floor, and backboards and goals fastened to the upper part of the concrete walls. There was no roof. Apparently they never came up with enough money to put on a roof. I have often wondered how players avoided killing themselves crashing into those walls when they went in for a fast break lay-up.
By the time Russell and Klyce Walker were playing on the Pea Ridge High team, the old 1930s gym was under construction. Some of us now refer to that old building, which lasted until the mid-1980s, as the "old, old gym." Its location is currently a parking lot next to the Heritage Building at the corner of North Curtis and Pike streets. Russell told of how the new gym was constructed bit by bit over a period of several years as money could be raised for materials and as volunteer labor could be organized. The gym floor was finally finished in about 1936 after some five years of work on phases of the building. That project is a reminder of several things about the construction of community buildings in those years; one, that they were often done with volunteer labor; and, two, they were often put to their uses well before they were finished. The old gym not only became a basketball center but a skating rink and a place for music shows.
Russell and his brother, Klyce, played on the 1934 District Champion Basketball Blackhawks, probably the grandest year ever for Pea Ridge High School basketball. The 1934 team also included John Black, Lynn Ricketts, Hugh Patterson, Nelson Hardy, Pryor Armstrong and Joe Price.
In those days, in tournaments, it was quite common for teams to play multiple games in a single day. The District Tournament was held at Alma. During the morning, Pea Ridge bested the Springdale Bulldogs by 36-24 and swamped Gentry, 36-17. Then in the afternoon, they were up against the defending champion Fort Smith Grizzlies. John Black told the story that as the Blackhawks began warm-ups before the game, Coach L.L. Horn told them just to act like country boys on the court. So they were missing most of their shots and acting like awkward bumpkins. But when the game started, everything changed, and Pea Ridge had the Grizzlies down 17-0 before the Fort Smith coach called time out to get his team re-organized. The Blackhawks won the game 46-32. Then on Saturday evening, the Blackhawks beat Alma in the championship game 47-14. Apparently the Blackhawk defense was something else.
-- to be continued.
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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
General News on 08/27/2014