Category: HSHS Panther Football History

HSHS All-Decade Team: 1930s

The 1930s era of Heber Springs football was one that saw a great turmoil with the onset of the Great Depression. Through the struggles of the day, the Panthers continued to march on as the town was slowly growing, thanks in part to the Missouri and North Arkansas railroad.

The railroad helped develop one of the Panthers first rivals of the day, the Harrison Goblins. The two teams tied in their first meeting in 1930 at Harrison and then would each win at home over the early part of the decade. Though Heber Springs would continue to tangle with larger schools such as Conway, Searcy, Batesville and Morrilton, more and more schools were starting to add football and some modern rivals would first appear during the decade including Bald Knob and Clinton.

The best team of the decade was the 1935 squad under coach Hollis Ward. The Panthers would go 5-3-1 that season with wins over Cabot, Cotter, Judsonia, the Arkansas School for the Deaf and an independent team made up of former HSHS players and community members that played games across the state. The Panthers tie was a homecoming contest against Harrison.

The 1930s HSHS All-Decade Football Team

1933 – Elgin Barnett

1937 – Elmer Beasley

1933 – Phillip Bowen

1936 – Carl Holmes

1936 – Wendall Holmes

1935 – Paul Ivy

1934 – Clois Ray Morton

1933 – Otto Murphree

1932 – Jack Patterson

1937 – Joe Robbins

1934 – Tom Robbins

1933 – Ed Speed

1938 – Charles Smith

1935 – Weston Taylor

1935 – Guy Ward

PREVIOUS DECADES

The 1910s/20s HSHS All-Decade Team

HSHS All-Decade Football Team: 1910s/1920s

The 2021 season marks the 100th season of Heber Springs High School football. In honor of that feat, we here at MarkedTime.com are recognizing some of the great athletes that have roamed the halls of Heber Springs High School over that span with the naming of all-decade football teams.

The teams were selected by a panel after extensive local, and statewide, research was done. They are listed in alphabetical order with the last season that they played. No positions were listed because in the early days of Panther football, the players would often play different positions. In one game, they may have started on the line and the next in the backfield.

Heber Springs fielded its first football team in 1913, the same year the school district first offered 12 grades. Prior to that, the highest course offering for a student in Heber Springs was an 11th-grade education. For reasons, either not yet discovered or lost to time, the district would not offer a 12th-grade education level until the 1921-22 school year, which would continue to this day.

With the return of a 12th-grade education, the Panthers would return to the gridiron for the 1921 campaign. Neill Reed had the distinction of playing on the first Panther football team in 1913 and coaching the second one in 1921.

Success was limited in the first decade of Panther football, outside of the unbeaten first season of 1913, the Panthers would not win more than three games in a season during the decade. Heber Springs High School was one of the smallest football playing schools in the state at the time and with no conference schedule that the Panther teams enjoy today, Heber Springs played larger teams such as Conway, Searcy, North Little Rock, Batesville, Russellville and the University of Central Arkansas “B” team, among others.

A toughness, no-quit and take on all challengers, developed in those first teams and many members of this first all-decade team would later use lessons learned on the gridiron to help transform the community of Heber Springs into the town that you know today.

The 1910s/1920s HSHS All-Decade Football Team

1928 – Elmo “Shem” Barnett

1922- Odie Barnett

1929 – James Cheek

1927 – Victor Dickson

1928 – Ward Harness

1926 – Theodore Hodges

1923 – Ted Liles

1913 – Cloy Morton

1928 – Gaston Mullens

1922 – Foley Nunnally

1913 – Ralph Olmstead

1913 – Vern Olmstead

1913 – Neill Reed

1923 – Wayne Stark

1928 – Neil Thomason