Football season is finally upon us — the Christmas of athletics in America. For the residents of Benton and Bryant, a new season and school year bring another opportunity for the rival schools to duke it out on and off the playing field.
It’s time for the Salt Bowl, the night when more than 26,000 faithful fans file into Little Rock’s War Memorial Stadium, separated into seas of maroon and royal blue, each side hoping its town takes home the coveted Salt Bowl trophy.
“My first year at the Salt Bowl, there was Bryant Hornet blue from end zone to end zone, easily top to bottom,” Bryant High School Principal Jay Pickering said. “I thought to myself, ‘Oh my!’ I had never seen anything like that before, and I realized, ‘Once a Hornet, always a Hornet.’”
And for the past eight years, the trophy has sat at 200 NW Fourth St. in Bryant, the home of head football coach Paul Calley and his 7A/6A South conference champions.
There is a lot of pride in Bryant, and with each win over Benton, the pride grows stronger and bluer. For those new to the rivalry, the Hornets are the best — just look at the Salt Bowl record. But Benton and her loyal fans haven’t forgotten the way it once was.
As the record books show, the rivalry began in 1974 with the first gridiron meeting between the two schools and the start of Benton’s dominance over Bryant with a 28-0 shutout. Over the next 25 years, the Panthers would win all but four football games, giving Benton a 22-4 series lead.
But the fans kept showing up, and eventually, they were being turned away because the two schools didn’t have enough room to accommodate the thousands who wanted a peek at the biggest rivalry in Saline County.
With a new millennium came a new tradition, and in 2000, the Salt Bowl was born.
After much consideration, then Benton Athletic Director Ronnie Kerr came to an agreement with then Bryant Athletic Director Tom Farmer that the schools would square off at War Memorial Stadium.
“[The Salt Bowl trophy] is a sign of the hard work and time and effort [Benton and Bryant] students put into preparing for this game,” Pickering said. “They are in 100-degree heat every day. There’s pride in hoisting the trophy.”
Although the Hornets defeated the Panthers 42-7 in 1999, Bryant’s 44-17 win in the inaugural game of the Salt Bowl changed the face of the rivalry in favor of the Hornets.
The Panthers, not used to being on the losing side of the battle, tied the 2003 game at 34, and in 2005, Benton would have fans holding their breath.
Tracy Keene, assistant to Benton AD Randy McFarlin, remembers the 2005 season fondly. Her son was a junior on the Panther football team when Benton won 14-7, but it wasn’t just a Salt Bowl win that put a smile on her face.
One month later, Benton would advance to the second round of the playoffs with a 35-28 win over the Hornets at C.W. Lewis Field, the last game the two schools have played on Benton turf.
The Heatherlys
While it’s easy for many in the communities to know which side they are rooting for every year, there is one couple with a Salt Bowl experience different than most.
Karen and Will Heatherly met in 1979 in the seventh grade, but they wouldn’t have their first “real” date until their senior prom at McClellan High School in Little Rock. From that moment on, it was Karen and Will figuring out life together.
In 1989, 10 years after their middle-school meeting, they tied the knot. In January 1991, the couple welcomed their first child, Veronica, and had their son, Trey, four years later.
Karen, now a sixth- through 12th-grade math specialist for the Benton School District, hadn’t always pursued a career in teaching.
For the next 10 to 15 years of their lives together, she was a district manager for one company, while Will was a store manager for another. Their jobs took them from Little Rock to Fayetteville to Tyler, Texas, to Monroe, Louisiana, before they moved to Bryant in 1998.
“I always went to Veronica and Trey’s elementary schools. I volunteered some and went to conferences and stuff,” Karen said. “I liked going to school growing up, I liked the atmosphere, and I always liked going to their schools. I felt like that was where I wanted to be, and when Veronica was in the fourth grade, I decided to go back to school and get my degree in teaching.”
During her last year of college, Karen interned at Benton Middle School, where she met then principal Sue Shults, but Karen’s first two years of teaching were spent in the Little Rock School District. During those two years, she stayed in contact with Shults, and when the opportunity arose, Karen took a job at Benton Middle School to teach math.
“At that time, Veronica was in ninth grade, and Trey was going into sixth grade [at Bryant], since we lived in the Bryant School District, but when you work for another district, you have the opportunity to bring your kids with you,” Karen said.
However, Karen said she knew her children weren’t getting a bad education at Bryant, so the decision to change schools was left to them.
“[Going to Benton] was always on the table, but we just didn’t talk about it. I loved my school,” said Veronica, a 2009 Bryant graduate and a graduate student at Arkansas State University. “I was really involved in newspaper and yearbook at Bryant, and we all knew it was one of the best in Arkansas, as well as the country. They knew I loved journalism at Bryant and always encouraged me to pursue it. Thankfully, my parents never wanted to pull me away from that.”
Trey, a 2013 Bryant graduate, was too young to give the situation much thought.
“I was 11 and just happy she got the job she had been wanting,” he said. “I was in band and on the Quiz Bowl team at Bryant, so I never considered transferring.”
A couple years after Karen went back to school, Will decided he would go back to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and finish a degree in engineering. One day, he came home with information on mechanical engineering and engineering technology, but the words of his wife sparked a fire that continues to burn.
“She looked at me and said, ‘That’s fine if that’s what you want to do, but if you wanted to be an engineer, don’t you think you would have finished the program the other three times you started it?’” he said. “She asked, ‘What do you want to do?’ and I replied, ‘I like history and political science.’”
To his surprise, Karen told Will to get a degree in what he likes and let everything take care of itself.
“I did, and it was the best decision I ever made,” Will said.
Like his wife suggested, Will graduated from UALR with a degree in history and a minor in political science, and during one summer, he decided to get a master’s degree in education.
While pursuing his master’s, Will began teaching in the Little Rock School District. In 2008, he applied for a job at Bethel Middle School after Anthony Rushing, a history teacher, was deployed. After Christmas break, Will was the new eighth-grade history teacher at Bethel, where he taught his son, Trey.
The following year, Will took a job at Bryant Middle School before becoming a teacher at Bryant High School, where for the past three years, he has taught AP world history, world history, AP European history and AP government.
Although their children were active members of the Bryant student body, Karen and Will had separate affiliations the day the two communities filled up War Memorial Stadium, and the couple stick to their tradition today.
It is not uncommon to look into the home crowd and see a field of maroon or royal blue on game day with a spot of the visiting side’s color. That’s where you find the Heatherlys.
“Teachers do ask me why I’m sitting in the Benton crowd, and for the Bryant student body, beating Benton is everything,” Will said, “but we’ve been together longer, and we just want to sit together.”
For these crosstown teachers,
Panther Pride and Hornet Pride go deeper than the athletics. They say it’s a community and district pride, wanting to be the best and provide the best environment for everyone.
“But you do have to make an appearance on your own side,” Karen said, laughing.
Every year, the Heatherlys sit on the home side — Karen in her Benton maroon and Will in his Bryant blue. This year, Karen gets to be the maroon speck in a swarm of Hornets.
“I couldn’t imagine them trying to sit on opposite sides,” Veronica said. “My parents are gross because of how much they love being around each other. They are best friends, and everyone can tell.”