By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
His body and his legs aren't as strong as they once were and it takes him a little longer to do the simplest of tasks now, but James Evansingston's mind still has the ability to take him to a time past with regularity and pinpoint accuracy.
Evansingston or just plain "Coach" or "Sing" to those who know him and played for him during his 31 years at Forrest City, was recently honored for a legacy that he and about 30 other men created.
A legacy that has lived for 50 years and quite possibly will for many more decades.
A portion of that legacy centers around Evansingston's time as a coach, teacher and an administrator for the Forrest City School District.
Before that, however, he was a part of another legacy which he recently was given the opportunity able to relive to a certain degree.
Evansingston was a member of the very first Delta Devils football team at Mississippi Valley State University in 1953.
This past October, Evansingston and nine other members of that team returned to MVSU to celebrate the 50th anniversary of football in "The Valley."
Evansingston said some of the players have since passed away, some were unable to attend the banquet due to health problems while others simply could not be found.
The former players attended a banquet and a reception prior to the 2003 MVSU homecoming game. Evansingston was the center of attention.
In 1953, the athletic system was segregated and the Delta Devils played only other Black colleges.
While it was not the first time Evansingston had been back to the MVSU campus since graduating, he was seeing his former football teammates for the first time in more than 40 years.
Nicknamed "Pig" by his MVSU teammates, Evansingston played every down on both sides of the football during his days at MVSU --lining up at nose guard and center on offense and linebacker for the Devils' "6-3" defense.
While he was small in stature, he made up for a lack of size by being one of the quickest players on the squad.
He earned the nickname "Pig" for being adept at "rooting out the opposing teams defenses."
"I was able to hear the snap cadence by the quarterback before he said it and at times I was able to get to the ball before their center even snapped it to the quarterback," Evansingston said.
Rarely, if at all, did Evansingston come off the field during a game.
The '53 Delta Devils played their first-ever football game on Sept. 19, 1953, losing to the Jackson College Tigers 7-6.
The Delta Devils got their first victory, 28 days later, on Oct. 17, when they defeated Little Rock Philander Smith College 20-12.
Upon coming to Forrest City, Evansingston was the assistant football coach for the senior high football team with former Lincoln Coach M.O. Livingston and was the head coach of the junior high football team.
He also coached basketball, leading his 1961 and 1962 junior high girls' basketball teams to AAA league championships.
In 1962, Evansingston pioneered the first Black Boy Scout Troop (No. 162) in the Forrest City area.
For 11 years, from 1977 until 1988, Evansingston, now 69, supervised the junior and senior high suspension school, which was housed on the old Lincoln High School campus.
As supervisor of the suspension school, he ruled with a "fair, but iron hand" watching each year as the numbers of students returning to suspension school became fewer and fewer.
"I had a job to do and I treated everyone the same," Evansingston said. "It didn't matter if they were black or white, there was no difference, I was straight with each one."
While supervisor of the suspension school, Evansingston had the authority to send kids home or keep them there or expel them. At times, he would ride the buses to monitor trouble situations and you could find him walking the streets, looking for those students who were supposed to be in school, but weren't.
"A lot of the kids thought I was a 'bad man' and some may have been a little frightened," he said. "but that was what I wanted them to think. I didn't want them to come back to suspension school. I think my way of doing things worked. Each year the numbers declined. And I believe that my years of coaching helped me to be a better supervisor."
He retired in the late1980s after a 31-year career at Forrest City.
In the early 90s, Evansingston began having some health problems and then suffered a stroke, which has left him at the mercy of a walker and a wheelchair.
When Evansingston needs to, he leans on his wife of 41 years, the former Barbara Reeves of Forrest City, for support.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
Dwight Lofton thought his Forrest City Mustang basketball team would be able to finish high in the AAAAA-East Conference this season.
Now, apparently, that line of thinking is being shared by others.
Today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, in it's coaches' preview of the Class AAAAA boys' basketball teams, think Lofton's Mustangs will finish third in the East behind West Memphis and Blytheville.
A year ago, the Mustangs finished fourth in the East with an 8-6 record and headed to the Class AAAAA state tournament for the first time since the 2000-01 season.
The Mustangs' first-round draw was El Dorado, the No. 1 seed from the AAAAA-South, losing 64-60 in a solid effort.
West Memphis is slated to repeat as the conference champs this season. Blytheville is off and running and stand at 7-1.
The Mustangs defeated Wynne Tuesday night to get to 5-3 on the year and will play Marianna Saturday. Forrest City will play in the Seminole Classic tournament, which begins Friday, Dec. 26, at Osceola. They will face Hughes at 2 p.m., Saturday.
Lofton says the projected order of finish is "about the way I thought it would be."
Lofton said his selection form differed in that he had the Mustangs picked second and Blytheville third.
"I think I was in line with the way most everyone else voted," Lofton said. "Being picked third takes away some of the the pressure of being picked second and it keeps everyone from being mad if they had been picked fourth. We have the talent to be there. We just have to go out and take care of business."
Walter Scott
Have you ever tried hunting at a leisurely pace?
There is still one wary old buck sneaking around the timbers at the farm.
Some friends have second season tags, so on a recent Saturday, I took them out to try to corner that old buck.
Since I did not tag a deer in the first season, I was still legal to hunt with a landowner's tag.
The landowner's tag is always the last one in camp to be put on a deer since it can be good for both seasons.
The weather that particular Saturday was awful for almost everything, except deer hunting.
Large snow flakes were falling at a brisk pace and the roads were slowly but surely becoming slick and treacherous.
But the timber was perfect.
A person could walk through the woods quietly and see any movement of the deer.
My buddies, Jeremy, Rick, Tim, and myself, made the precarious trip to the hunting cabin to plan our strategy.
The first drive we planned was located on the farm's "South Timber" area.
The same area we covered using nine people during first season, we would try to cover this time, with only four.
We dropped off Jeremy with instructions to walk north until he came to a fence where he would take a left and hopefully meet up with me.
Tim was dropped with plans to walk north, parallel to Jeremy's route, where he would eventually meet up with Rick.
Simple plan, lack of execution.
I neglected to mention to Jeremy the fact that an electric fence is not really considered a fence, so he took the left turn a quarter mile before he was supposed to.
Tim, with his usual keen sense of direction, went north for a while, and took a sharp right.
He and Jeremy crossed paths somewhere in the timber and roamed aimlessly about.
Between the lack of drivers and the muffling of the snow, no deer were moving out into the open.
Rick and I maintained our vigil at the most likely exits while the snow piled up on our guns and clothes.
We were on stand, but there is a limit to how long a stander can stand to stand.
My feet were getting cold, and there was enough snow building up on my orange jacket, that it no longer looked orange.
Dancing in place in the ever mounting inches of snow, in an effort to keep my toes from freezing and dropping off, combined with brushing the piles of snow from my clothes, probably did little to attract the deer.
I am sure they were resting beneath a cedar tree, watching my buddies wander around in circles, smiling all the while.
Eventually, I saw orange at the top of the hill and joined the rest of my hunting party.
I was pleasantly surprised to find all were present and accounted for despite the wrong turns and wrong judgement calls.
Back at the cabin the fire was warm and so was the chili.
We had moose chili, moose bratwurst, and moose meat sticks.
That was because Tim and Rick had been on a recent and very successful moose hunt.
It was not hard to sit in the cabin and watch the snow fall. Two eagles were hunting at the spillway and the three trumpeter swans were sitting on the ice.
With full stomachs, we were very comfortable as we relaxed away an afternoon.
Satiated, we eventually forced ourselves to make a couple more small drives around the hunt area. We chased the deer around a bit, and even got off a shot or two. We ended up with a doe, so Tim's family will not go hungry this winter, and we got our exercise by pushing Jeremy's truck out of the snow after he had gotten stuck.
We could not complain. We enjoyed a beautiful day in the outdoors. And it is a great day of hunting when a person can enjoy good food, good friends, and bit of fresh air.
What of that 'big buck?' He still runs free which continues to give us a common goal, which someday we may eventually reach.
The Palestine-Wheatley basketball teams will host Cotton Plant tonight in a three-game set at Patriot Gym.
The Junior Patriots will tip at 5:30 p.m., followed by the Lady Patriots and the senior boys.
The Patriots and Lady Patriots are coming off second-place finishes at the Thunderbird Invitational tournament played at Cross County.
It is the final game before the long holiday for the P-W basketball teams, who have opted not to play in Christmas tournaments this season.
Palestine-Wheatley returns to action on Tuesday, Jan. 6, when they play at Marvell.