More than a week after many local sports greats came together for a banquet, one last milestone was needed to make the Jefferson County Sports Hall of Fame a reality -- a grand opening.
Pine Bluff/Jefferson County Main Library staff members and JCSHOF committee members welcomed the first official visitors, most of them honorees or relatives of honorees, into the Bill Carr Museum on Monday. The room inside the downtown library has been transformed into a shrine featuring 82 athletes who achieved greatness in the high school, collegiate and professional levels, as well as coaches, contributors and great moments on the local sports scene over the past 100 years, dating back to Pine Bluff High School's first national championship football team and Carr's early years on campus, seven years before winning double gold in the Los Angeles Summer Olympics.
"I think it's fabulous," said Sheila Cato, whose father Jim Hill was a longtime youth baseball coach and Taylor Field manager. "You never would think Pine Bluff would have something like this, and it's amazing how many people come from Pine Bluff that you never know. I mean, you have no idea."
Cato's earliest sports memories in Pine Bluff include being at Ed Brown Field where her brother Steve Hill or her father were umpiring. She said she would wait for the end of the third inning so her mother would give her money for the concession stand.
The initial JCSHOF class was enshrined in an April 26 banner at the Pine Bluff Convention Center. The class is broken into three groups: All-Time Greats Monte Coleman, Rickey Henderson, Torii Hunter, Don Hutson, Willie Roaf and Basil Shabazz; 15 Legends including Ben Pearson, Joe Barry Carroll, Fat Lever and Dante Wesley; 51 other athletes with ties to the county and 10 more who competed at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff including recent NFL retiree Terron Armstead and Pittsburgh Steelers great L.C. Greenwood.
Among special features of the museum: Replica jerseys of each All-Time Great are framed and spotlighted with frames of each one in action hanging above; a wallpaper montage highlighting Carr's life and career is on display, and flatscreens show videos of Carr's gold-medal runs and honors coaches.
[VIDEO: Watch Jefferson County Sports Hall of Fame Opening »pbcommercial.com/56hofopeningvideo/]
"I wanted to make sure we had a variety of categories, from the athletes to the coaches," said library system Director Ricky Williams, estimating the room at 30 feet by 15 feet. "Overall, I think this room came together pretty good. A lot of detail went into place as far as making this room what it is today."
A few others who did not attend the banquet were feted during a news conference next door to the Bill Carr Museum. Family members of late baseball contributors Charlie Kalkbrenner and Hill received plaques honoring their patriarchs' enshrinement. Alberta Jackson, retired Pine Bluff High School athletic secretary, was celebrated as a No. 1 fan in local sports, sharing that honor with longtime PBHS team manager Greg Walker.
And Curt Preston's father, former University of Arkansas at Monticello baseball and football Coach Carl Preston, is among the group of 51 athletes honored.
"He loved Pine Bluff, and he loved the Zebras," Curt Preston said of his dad. "My dad would have been really proud of this."
Richard Kalkbrenner, Charlie's son, said his father and other Pine Bluffians helped establish Little League, Babe Ruth, American Legion and other youth baseball programs.
"He was also on the Pine Bluff School Board for 20 years and was the chairman of the athletic committee, so he was responsible for hiring some of these great coaches," Kalkbrenner said. "Not only was he involved in baseball, he was an honorary coach for King Cotton in all the years of King Cotton basketball (the tournament's first stint was 1983-99). He even was an honorary coach 10 days after he had a hip replacement. He'd sit on the bench courtside on a walker. He and Louis Ramsay, in their younger years, officiated high school football around southeast Arkansas. I think he was quite influential."
Kalkbrenner also recalled meeting Hunter and Shabazz in his parents' house when he was in college.
JCSHOF committee chairman Jeff Gross said the reason for a large number of honorees was to play catch-up for the long-overdue recognition and added that the honorees were chosen from a pool of more than 300 names. The hall plans to induct new members each year.
Disclosure: I.C. Murrell is a committee member of the Jefferson County Sports Hall of Fame, along with chairman Jeff Gross, Jim Harris and Carl Whimper.
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