The recently announced Wampus Cat Sports Hall of Fame is off and running. I’ll use this column to provide regular updates.

The board of directors met this week for the first time as a group and took care of some housekeeping items, including adopting a set of bylaws.

The bylaws and most of our procedures are mirrored after the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.

After 60 years, the ASHOF has got the process down to a science. So we figured there was no sense in reinventing the wheel.

We have a fantastic board made up mostly of former Wampus Cats, but have a few others involved, as well.

Board members include Austin Sullivan, Bill Johnson, Cliff Henry, Danny Reed, David Grimes, Eric King, Erika Setzler, Gumpy Thompson, Jack Bell, Jim Schneider, Mallory Lefler, Matt Baker, Nick Lasker, Roe Henderson, Shawn Fisher and Wes Holland.

CHS athletic director Clint Ashcraft and associate AD Janet Taylor are non-voting ex-officio members.

They are the board’s link to the athletic department and school administration.

There are three main reasons why the Wampus Cat Sports Hall of Fame was formed.


First and foremost, the main objective is to honor some great Conway High School players and coaches.

Each year, a class of six inductees will be chosen. Not coincidentally, six is of course the number of legs on a Wampus Cat.

The good news is that there are a lot of great players and coaches to pick from. The bad news is that there area lot of great players and coaches to pick from.

The board certainly has their work cut out for them.

The second reason is to raise money to help support Conway High athletics. There will be an annual induction banquet and proceeds will be used by the Wampus Cat Booster Club to help the athletic department with their many needs. The inaugural banquet is planned for May 2019.

The third reason is to help increase interest and membership in the booster club. To do this, booster club members will get the initial vote each year on the class of inductees.

The hope is this added perk will entice fans and former Wampus Cats to join the booster club so that they can vote for their former coaches and teammates.

Booster club members will receive a ballot each fall where they can vote on their top six choices.

Booster club votes will be tallied and used as the starting point for the board to pick the class of inductees.

The top vote getter from the booster club will automatically be the first inductee that year.

After that, the board will use the booster club results as a guide to make sure we induct a representative class among different sports and eras.