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It was a special day in the LaGrange Academy gymnasium on Friday as the school inducted its very first class into the sports hall of fame. The inaugural class featured 38 inductees (Garry Spence – class of ‘78, Owen Brown – class of ‘81, Harriett (Anderson) Langford – class of ‘79, Jimmy Doerr – class of ‘82, David Bartley – class of ‘83, Saralyn (Bittick) Bell – class of ‘83, Cory Wiles – class of ‘84, Natalie (Knight) Hale – class of ‘85, Jeff Hobbs -class of ‘85, Gail (Knight) Gilmartin – class of ‘86, David Lock – class of ‘86, Todd Keith – class of ‘88, Eugene Freis – class of ‘89, Travis Moore – class of ‘90, Zak Knight – class of ‘91, Ford Wiles – class of ‘92, Tracy Heard – class of ‘92, Sarah (Bradley) McGuire – class of ‘93, Liz (Harman) Jones – class of ‘95, Cliff Willimon – class of ‘97, Ashley Schine – class of ‘99, Julie (Raiskums) Skehan – class of ‘01, Satomi (Morgan) Omae – class of ‘03, Gary Grizzle class of ‘04 and Charles Parke (athletic director since 1984) as well as supporters and donors Jamie and Melissa Keating, Jim Wiles, Steve Langford, Dr. Rusty Willimon, Phil Langford, Martha Ann Todd, Jimmy and Jewel Moore and Walt Knight.

“I had been toying with the idea for a couple of years because it seemed like we had kind of lost track of our alumni, and when Dr. John Mahaffey came in, he said, I want to get our alumni back involved in the school. I told him the one thing we need to do is to establish our first ever Athletic Hall of Fame,” said Parker, the school’s athletic director since 1984. “Really, the main reason we wanted to do it was to reconnect the alumni.”

The inaugural class was limited to when the school had its first athletic programs (1977) up to 2004. The plan is to add inductees to the hall of fame every year, including in 2025 as they look to bridge the gap between 2004 and now. 

“It took a lot of work, pouring over stats and yearbooks and everything, so we had to have a cutoff point,” Parker said. “Now, we will reconvene and start from there and work our way up.

“We know we definitely missed some people from before 2004 so we will be inducting more of those members too.”

Nearly 30 of the inaugural inductees were there on Friday night and even more will be present on Saturday at the alumni reunion. 

This was in large part the brain child of Parker, who has been a part of the LaGrange Academy family since 1984. He was inducted on Friday as well, leading to an emotional scene at center court as the gym cheered Parker on and the tears started to flow. 

“It was a complete and total surprise,” Parker said. “I was shocked. Even my daughter knew and she came down a day early for it. And I was kind of wondering about that, but I had no clue.”

The rest of the inductees were given a warning back in September that they were nominated and it allowed the gymnasium to be packed out as Parker was not the only one who shed a few tears reminiscing on their time at LaGrange Academy. 

“This was special and we plan to do this every year around this time,” Parker said. “We have kids coming back from school, it’s a great time to do it.”