The Gymnasium at the Mullinville High School has seen many different events over the years. The hardwood floor looks almost like it did the day it was put down because it was well protected for many years so it would stay in perfect condition.
Around the outside of the basketball court there is a red line painted on the floor. This line is about 3 to 4 feet in front of the bleachers and just outside the baskets at each end of the court. It was a rule (or law) that you couldn’t walk on the floor inside that red line with street shoes. Even the adults that came for events followed the rule.
We had to buy new tennis shoes every year for physical education class to keep the floor shiny and new. Our new tennis shoes never left the building all year; they were kept in our locker along with our gym suits.
In the 50’s the Chamber of Commerce brought in a Donkey Basketball team that played a game with the men in town. The donkeys wore special rubber hoof protectors so they could be on the court. I’m not sure how many men played on the home team but I know my dad was one of them.
Most of the men’s feet, when they were on the donkey’s back, hung only a few inches off the floor but they still had a hard time staying on long enough to get from one end of the court to the other to shoot. I remember that my dad was picking himself up off the floor more than he was actually on the donkey.
Some time in the 50’s the Harlem Globe Trotters came to town to play the Chamber of Commerce men. I think it was the real Harlem Globe Trotters but I wouldn’t swear to that. My dad played in that game also. He had been a basketball star in high during his high school days in Medicine Lodge.
But there was no chance against a team that had at least a foot in height and a hundred pounds on the men in town. Plus they were professional players. The Globe trotters ran circles around the local men. But they had a good time losing.
I’ve heard they brought in a sharp shooter for one of our programs at school and it had to be held in the gym instead of the auditorium in the high school. He supposedly shot one bullet and hit a piece of sharp metal sitting between two balloons and broke both balloons. Not sure I believe that one, it must have been a trick somehow.
Through the years there were lots of basketball games between our school and rival teams in our league. The grade school teams also used the court to play their games. Every few years one of the league tournaments would be in the gymnasium.
During my high school days our coach, Dick Brown, taught the gym classes and every spring we had to put on an exhibition for our parents. There was a lot of tumbling, scooter races and anything he could think of for us to show the parents.
I always did a floor exercise to music; it showed my flexibility, some minor tumbling but no flips. I was very limber and could do back bends very slow and control it both down to the floor and back up.
All of the Grade School Christmas programs were held in the gymnasium. The families sat on the south side in the bleachers and the kids sat, by class, on the north side. Mrs. McCormick and the piano were on the floor in front of us. Now that I think about it, how did she get by wearing her spike heels and pushing the piano onto the floor past the red line?
Since the high school closed in 1990, the gym hasn’t seen as much activity, but it deserves the rest after all those years of service. Every 4 years the town holds an all school reunion around the 4th of July. This year it is going to be on June 30 since the 4th is in the middle of the week.
A pot luck lunch is served in the gym and then the business meeting and reunion are held. The old law about no street shoes has gone by the wayside, but it feels strange to walk on the floor with regular shoes.
The reunion is always a lot of fun and we get to see a lot of former Mullinville graduates that we only see at the reunions. It also allows us to walk the halls of the high school and grade school. (Why do the rooms seem so much smaller now than we remember?) We spend a lot of time reminiscing about the fun times of growing up and going to school in our great little town.
So, the old gymnasium has served the little town of Mullinville faithfully since 1953 and has provided a lot of entertainment through its long life. To contact Sandy: [email protected]
