Jack Fulmer of Heber Springs was inducted into the Arkansas Officials Association Hall of Fame on July 10 at Horner Hall in the Hot Springs Convention Center.
Jack Fulmer joined James Magie of Perryville (basketball), Danny Black of Little Rock (basketball), Bob Dunham of Bartlett, Tennessee (basketball), Danny Sheets of Mount Ida (basketball) and Shirl Williams of Marshall (basketball) in the latest AOA class.
Fulmer, a Conway High School graduate, closed his high school playing career with an appearance in the 1962 Arkansas High School Coaches Association All-Star basketball game. He played baseball at what is now the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, making the all-Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference team three years, and the NAIA regional team in 1966. He is the only UCA player to hit for the cycle in a game, having done so in 1965.
He was drafted and signed by the San Francisco Giants in 1967 and played professionally until 1970, then coached baseball at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (1974-85) and UCA (1985-95) and was an assistant women’s basketball coach at UCA in 1986-87. He served as assistant intramural director at UCA from 1996-2004.
Fulmer’s officiating career started in 1963 and still continues.
He has officiated basketball (high school, AIC, NAIA playoffs);
football (1971-2014, high school, AIC, NAIA playoffs); and baseball (high school, beginning in ’71, college in ’97). In college baseball, he has worked five South Central Regional Tournaments and five Division I conferences.
Also during the evening, the Arkansas High School Coaches Association and Arkansas High School Athletic Administrators Association inducted their 2015 hall of fame classes.
The AHSCA class included Tommy Reed of Greenbrier (basketball), Lanny Dauksch of West Memphis (football), Willie Parker of Dermott (basketball), Jim Pennington of Emerson (basketball), Linda Thomas of Eudora (basketball) and the late Dave Williams of Pocahontas (football).
Williams, who spent most of his career at Pocahontas and died last year, earned his master’s degree at Harding University in 1973 and served as defensive coordinator at Searcy High School from 1971-78. He also coached track; his ’73 and ’75 teams won district championships. From Van Buren, he went on to play at the University of Arkansas at Monticello and had other coaching stops at Blytheville and Carlisle in Arkansas and at Charleston, South Carolina. His Pocahontas teams won nine conference titles and reached the playoffs 17 times.
Williams’ son Jeff represented his late father, who also received the AHSCA’s Curt King Award.
The AHSAAA inducted Jim Dickerson of Russellville, Ronnie Carter of Hot Springs and Harvey Smith of Hope.
Lou Wood of Mountain Home, master of ceremonies for the event, summed up the evening that brought a near-capacity 1,000 people to Horner Hall: “I’m not calling anybody old, but these 15 inductees represent almost 700 total years of working with high schools in the state of Arkansas,” Wood said. “That is a great accomplishment and deserves a round of applause.”
The crowd responded enthusiastically.
Dee Doyle of Russellville shared the News Media Award with his son, Mickey Doyle of Rogers. The father-son duo have a combined 85 years of media-related services. Dee Doyle has nearly 50 years of service working in radio in Missouri and Arkansas. He has served as play-by-play announcer for Arkansas radio stations in Conway, Hope, Russellville and Searcy. He is a former public-address announcer for football and basketball games at Russellville High School and Arkansas Tech University in Russellville.
Mickey Doyle, who has worked for several years for the Northwest Arkansas edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, started his newspaper career in 1980 while he was still in high school. Since graduating from Arkansas Tech, he has been a sportswriter for the Springdale Morning News, The Sentinel-Record in Hot Springs and the Northwest Arkansas Times in Fayetteville.
Other awards presented during the evening were the Joe Reese Award to Grafton Moore of West Memphis and the Jerry Hall Award to Billy Joe Hulse of White Hall.