Snapshots of History: Grand Valley High School gym
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Grand Valley High School gymnasium
Kellerton High School’s gymnasium was built in 1951 and beginning in 1952, the remaining Ringgold County Girls’ Basketball Tournament games were played here.
Prior to that, most of the tournaments were held at Beaconsfield.
The first tournament in the modern era was played in 1942 with the Delphos girls as champs. After that the Tingley girls won five tournaments in a row, thanks (in my opinion) to coach Melvin Hanks Obermeier.
Mr. Obermeier came to Tingley High School in 1940 as superintendent, teacher, and coach. After putting together an excellent girls basketball program, he spent one year at Beaconsfield before going to Shannon City for about four years returning to Tingley in 1950. The Tingley girls then won four tournaments from 1951 to 1955. They would win again in 1957 giving them ten championships in sixteen years.
The Tingley girls also qualified for the state tournament in 1952, 1954, and 1957. “Obie” would have more success after coming to Mount Ayr in 1959.
Maloy and Mount Ayr never participated in the girls’ tournament and Diagonal only fielded a squad in four, 1947-1950.
Interestingly, the Diagonal girls were the only team I found in the newspapers to be referred to by their nickname: the Redettes.
Diagonal finished in second place their first year (1947) in the tournament and the tournament was held in Diagonal in 1948. That was the first and only time.
Diagonal discontinued their girls’ team in 1951 and bought it back in 1957 as an intramural team, that is, the Diagonal High School classes played each other.
In 1958-59 they played other schools.
Delphos left the tournament after 1948 and Benton skipped the first two or three. In 1944, only the first four places are mentioned so I don’t know who missed that one.
Beaconsfield finished second in the tournament seven times, finishing first only once and that was 1956 when the girls finished the season undefeated and went to state.
The Beaconsfield girls were Tingley’s most common victims, losing to Tingley five times in the finals. But not in 1956 when Tingley finished second.
Another team that had much success in the tournament was Redding.
They finished first four times and second place twice. Of course, Maurice Carr was their coach most of that time.
The Benton girls won the tournament in 1949 when they fielded a strong and memorable team. Oveda Hall scored 24 of Benton’s total of 40 in the final game.
Apparently, 6-on-6 girls basketball ended in Iowa in 1993. But I don’t know when it started.
1957-58 was the last Ringgold County Girls Basketball Tournament as several schools merged with Mount Ayr in the fall of 1958. Maloy and Delphos had already discontinued their high school classes by this time.
But, if you ever want to see an old-time high school basketball gymnasium, Kellerton still has theirs.
