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GBHS picks Hall of Fame
class
Inductees include a
coach, an athletic director and a pilot
By DALE HOGG, Great
Bend Tribune
October
3, 2009
The Great Bend High School Activities
Department has announced the 2009 inductees into the GBHS Hall of Fame,
Activity Director David Meter said Friday.
This year’s class includes longtime
coach Jack Bowman, nominated by Todd Eric Kaiser, Air Force pilot and 1988
GBHS grad Lt. Col. Sean M. Murphy, nominated by Jack Bowman (no relation
to the inductee), and Big 12 Deputy Commissioner and 1976 GBHS grad Tim
Weiser, nominated by Randy Wetzel.
This marks the second group to enter the
Hall. The inaugural class included college/Olympic basketball standout and
Great Bend teacher/coach John Keller, micro-chip inventor and GBHS grad
Jack Kilby, and JanSport founder and GBHS alum Skip Yowell.
A committee (made up of administrators,
teachers, school board representatives and local residents) studied the
nominations and met to discuss the applicants. Nominees must be students,
teachers or community members who have gone on to make a positive name for
themselves.
The photographs of the recipients will
hang in GBHS.
There will be an induction ceremony for
this year’s honorees Jan. 8.
 Jack Bowman
Bowman graduated from Pawnee Rock High School in
Pawnee Rock in 1952, went to Bethany College in Lindsborg where he
received his BA in 1956, and in 1968, he received his MS from Kansas State
University in Manhattan. In 1988, he received his Administrative
Certification from Fort Hays State University in Hays.
He has served in high school teaching and coaching
positions in Burdett, Plains, Riley County, Ellinwood and Great Bend and
at Barton Community College. He began his career in 1956 and he retired in
2000. During this time, he served 30 years at the high school level and
seven years at the community college level. Bowman joined the Kansas
Coaches Association in 1957 and served in all offices of the association
and served as its president in 1970-71.
During his coaching career, he served as a head
football, basketball, track and field, and cross country coach. His major
interest was in track and field, cross country and football. As a head
football coach for seven years, he compiled a record of 39 wins and 12
losses.
In cross country and track and field, he coached
three of his teams to state championships, eight of his teams finished as
runners-up and 18 finished in the top ten at the state meet. Eleven of his
teams won regional championships, and 25 of his teams earned conference
championships.
In 30 years of coaching high school track, 267 of
his athletes and in 16 years of coaching cross country, 148 of his athletes
represented their schools at the state meets . Forty-eight of those
athletes became individual state champions or were a part of a team state
champion. Fifty-two of his athletes were on relays that became state
champions. In addition, he has a countless number of athletes who placed
second to sixth, earning medals at the state meet.
Bowman had 40 former athletes who went on to
compete at the NJCAA, NAIA, and NCAA Division II levels following
graduation from high school, and another 24 competed at the NCAA Division
I level. Twenty-three former members of Coach Bowman’s athletes went
into the coaching profession upon graduation from college. In his
seven-year tenure at the community college level of competition, he had 49
athletes that competed at the national meet. Bowman is also in the National
High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame, Barton Community College
Hall of Fame and the Bethany College Athletic Hall of Honor. He also
earned numerous state and national coach-of-the-year honors.
(story
continued on page 2)
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