This story is the second in a four-part series, “Belles of the Ball.”

Copyright 1996 Omaha World-Herald Reprinted with permissionMarch 4, 1996 Monday SUNRISE EDITIONSECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1HEADLINE: A Town, a Team, an Enduring MemoryBy STEPHEN BUTTRYWORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Farragut, Iowa ― Young people still come to the school gym here on Sundays to play basketball. In the 1960s, it was the place where the girls of an Iowa basketball dynasty learned how to play the game. In the 1990s, it's about the only place in town where kids can gather since the cafe closed. Farragut has endured, but not thrived, in the quarter-century since the 1971 Admiralettes won the state championship. That team and other "Adette" squads that played regularly in the state tournament gave Farragut its identity across Iowa. "Whenever we would go anywhere and told people we were from Farragut, they said, 'Oh yes, you have that girls basketball program,' " recalled Postmaster Barbara McQueen. Those who say that today have long memories. Farragut's girls, known in their glory years as the Adettes, haven't played in the state tournament for 20 years. The boys basketball team provided Farragut's sports highlight of the past two decades, making a trip to state in 1992 from this town in the southwest corner of Iowa. In the years when Iowa's small schools ruled girls basketball, the sport became part of the town's identity for Farragut and other teams that won state championships or repeatedly visited the tournament. "It was just a tradition," said Barb Wischmeier Liljedahl, now of Mondamin, Iowa, the star of the Mediapolis team that Farragut beat for the '71 title. Mediapolis, with a record 21 trips to state and 12 in a row in the '60s and '70s, is one of four schools with more tournament appearances than the 15 by Farragut. The Mediapolis Bullettes and Farragut played three years in a row at state, with Mediapolis winning in the '70 semifinals and the '72 first round. A team that made it to the state tournament won the quick support of regional rivals hoping to share a bit of reflected glory for their corner of the state. As the Mediapolis team bus made its way to Des Moines, Mrs. Liljedahl said,

players and towns- people along the way lined the highway to cheer them on. A championship became a point of everlasting community pride. At the north edge of Farragut, the sign welcoming visitors and boasting of the girls' title and boys' track champions of the '60s was refurbished by the Community Club early this decade. With the fading of the Adettes as a girls basketball powerhouse, there is little to distinguish Farragut from hundreds of other struggling Midlands towns. Memorable community events since the girls' last trip to state have been few: the 1993 flood on the East Nishnabotna River, just a mile north of town; the 1987 campaign visit by then-Vice President George Bush to the Derryl McLaren farm north of town; the fuss over whether to keep Leo Humphrey as school superintendent; the 1995 closing of the Anchor Inn, Farragut's last restaurant.(SEE CORRECTION) "That hurts a lot," said Mayor Tom Shull. "It's a place for people to come in and visit, for farmers to come into town for coffee." Adettes from the 1971 team remembered the importance of the town's two restaurants. The Harbor, across from the school, was a place for team banquets. The cafe downtown was a place to gather after school or practice. "We'd spend a lot of time there eating supper and just hanging out," said Barb Young Lundgren, now of Shenandoah, Iowa, who played an important role in the '71 title game. Except for the cafe, this town named after Civil War naval hero David Farragut has most of the vital signs that measure a small town's health. The school has survived consolidation talk so far. Drive down Hartford Avenue, the town's main street, and you see a grain elevator, bank, tavern, gas station, senior citizens center, craft and ceramics store, accountant's office, fire station, tractor repair shop, grocery store and not one but two places to get your hair cut. A block or so off main street, you'll find the well-kept Methodist and Congregational churches and the Admiral Manor, providing subsidized housing, mostly for retired people. Work will start soon on an $ 814,000 project, funded largely by federal grants, to improve the town's sewer system. Along main street, vacant storefronts are visible but not dominant. Angle-parked cars on weekdays show a smattering of customers visiting the shops and offices.

"We've got so much to do I don't stop and visit much," said Bob Goltz, owner of Farragut Truck and Tractor Repair. Residents point to Goltz, 33, as a victory in the ubiquitous small-town battle to attract and keep young people. Goltz, a native of Falls City, Neb., used to work at a farm implement dealership in Shenandoah, eight miles from Farragut. He opened his shop five years ago and knows he represents a precious commodity. "It's very difficult," Goltz said, "to maintain a younger generation in a small community." Most of the '71 Adettes have moved away as adults. Farragut's high school enrollment has fallen about 30 percent since 1971. In the 1990 Census, 48 percent of Farragut's population was 45 or older, compared with 31 percent nationwide. The town's population has remained near 500 for most of this century, except for a brief surge in the 1970s that pushed it up to 603. A trailer park opened on the southeast edge of town to accommodate the growth. The trailers deteriorated and demand for them dropped, so the park closed in 1989. The 1990 population was 498, almost identical to the population in 1920 and '40 and '50 and '60. The population was not as stable along the valley of the East Nishnabotna and in the hilly countryside of Fremont County. As technology allowed and economics required farmers to work ever-larger farms, fewer farmers tilled the rich black soil and fewer farm girls shot hoops on dusty barnyard courts. The county had 2,600 farms in the early 1970s and has 1,400 today. Riverton and Imogene, the two smaller towns in the school district, lost 37 percent of their combined population since 1960. Imogene, an Irish town, used to have its own Catholic school. Riverton and Farragut schools consolidated in 1964. "The school is the hub of our community," said Emily Bengtson, a town council member, vice president of the Community Club and former owner of the cafe. How long Farragut will retain that hub is uncertain. Changes in state funding are pushing Iowa's small school districts toward further consolidation. Many expect Farragut to merge its schools with Hamburg or Sidney or both; or to be absorbed into Shenandoah's district; or possibly be split into pieces. "We're not going to be able to pull a rabbit out of our hat and say we're always going to have a school," said Dennis James, Farragut's grocer and school

board president. The district may have to share grades with another district but hopes to maintain some programs in Farragut, which has one of the best gyms among southwest Iowa's small schools. "We have an excellent facility," James said. "The town and the school and the board are committed to do what it takes to maintain a facility in our community." For now, the school gives the town an economic and social anchor. It provides jobs. It brings people to town for games and teacher conferences. It provides sports and other activities. Townspeople speak with pride of Dale Hackett's football teams of the 1960s, of the '65 track team that won the state title, of that '92 trip to state by the boys basketball team, of the 30 students who recently went to the state speech contest. But nothing in Farragut's history has matched the excitement the Adettes generated. "It was just that one, big, cohesive element that brought the whole town together," Mrs. McQueen said. When the Adettes played for the state championship, Mrs. Bengtson said, "They could have robbed the whole town of Farragut. I don't think there was anybody here." Girls on the team were looked upon with pride by elders, peers and the town's children. "As a little girl, you wanted to be part of that," said Barb Meek Bosley, now of Shenandoah, a senior reserve guard on the '71 team. Although Iowa girls were treated differently from girls in other states when it came to sports, that didn't necessarily translate into expanded career horizons. "When we talked to our counselor, it was teaching, secretary, nurse," said Janelle Gruber Bryte, who started on the '71 championship team. Mrs. Bryte taught math and science and coached Farragut's junior high girls for 14 years before moving in 1993 to Pomeroy, Iowa. She is pleased that even in small towns, girls today are encouraged to consider more options. Her sophomore daughter, Kelli, "is not afraid to try something else that most of the boys are doing." Mrs. Bryte and her husband, Jim, have chosen to raise their four children in small towns because they want them to have the same feeling of safety and familiarity they grew up with in the Farragut area. "It was like having another family." Mrs. Bengtson felt that sense of family in 1977, when she was severely injured and her first husband, Howard MacDonald, was killed in a truck accident. "When I got home, there wasn't a day went by but what somebody came and

brought something for lunch or supper or offered to do something," recalled Mrs. Bengtson, former owner of the town's cafe. "Then I really appreciated what a small town really is." No small town is immune from controversy, though. When feathers are ruffled, foes cross paths regularly, on main street and at ballgames. The 1992 ouster of Humphrey, now superintendent at the IKM School District in Irwin, Iowa, after 22 years as Farragut's superintendent, opened a rift that hasn't entirely healed. Hard feelings at the peak of the controversy prompted talk of boycotts against the grocery store and cafe. "It split the town pretty good for a while," said Becky Albright Head, the '71 Adettes' leading scorer, who lives on a farm near Imogene. Some people who were on opposite sides still don't speak to each other. Farragut was not so divided 25 years ago. Time and success in athletics had helped heal wounds from the consolidation controversy of the '60s. The town's 1970 centennial celebration, the second-fondest community memory for many, had lifted Farragut's spirits even before the championship season. For the '71 Adettes, Farragut was an ideal place to grow up. "I had a fairy tale childhood," recalled Bonnie MacKenzie, whose father, Keith Bickett, was the local funeral director and had a hardware, furniture and appliance store on main street. Like her teammates, Mrs. MacKenzie as an adult felt a sense of nostalgia watching the 1986 movie "Hoosiers," based on a tiny, fanatical Indiana town that won its state championship in boys' basketball. "That was Farragut," Mrs. MacKenzie said. Like most Farragut girls, Bonnie Bickett started playing basketball in the fourth grade. Elementary school girls would crowd the gym on Saturdays, when the coaches and varsity girls would teach them to dribble, pass and pivot. A couple of times a year, the young girls would get to play at halftime of the high school games. "It's the biggest thrill," said Jan Vest Vasek of Smithville, Texas, a sophomore reserve forward on the '71 Adettes. "If anybody scored a basket, we all went wild, no matter which team she was on." In junior high, they scored a lot of baskets, going undefeated for 10 years. In high school, they dominated southwest Iowa, going to state seven times in eight years

from 1966 to 1973, and drawing most of the townsfolk to the gym for every home game. "Every time I walk into that gym, even now," Mrs. Bryte said, "it feels like home." NOTES: Belles of the Ball. The Legacy of the '71 Farragut Adettes. Part Two. A series on the heyday of girls basketball in small-town Iowa as seen through the eyes of the 1971 state champions. CORRECTION. An incorrect date was given for the closing of the Anchor Inn. The online version has been corrected. GRAPHIC: Color Photo/1; SIGN OF PRIDE: The Adettes' girls basketball dynasty, capped by the 1971 state championship, gave Farragut its identity among Iowa's small towns. This sign boasts of the victory to motorists entering town from the north.; B&W Photos/2/1b; CLAIM TO FAME: Gathered by the sign recognizing the '71 Adettes' championship are, from left in back, Penny Phillips, Barb Meek Bosley, Becky Albright Head and Barb Young Lundgren. From left in front are Charlotte Livingston, former team chaperone and widow of Assistant Coach Max Livingston, with Tess Laumann Cullin and Janice Pierce Anderzhon.; ANCHOR INN: Mayor Tom Shull says the loss of Farragut's last restaurant "hurts. "; Locator Map/1; FARRAGUT: Most of the '71 Adettes have since moved away., Jeff Beiermann/World-Herald/1sf/2; World-Herald/1