Next Friday (October 14) at Fulton High School’s home football game, they’ll remember the Golden Bears. Rule High School alumni are invited to attend.
This thoughtful tribute was designed by Fulton Athletics Director Jody Wright in recognition of the many Rule High students who were sent to Fulton (as well as Central and West high schools) after the county shut Rule down in 1991. Wright has done this before, but the event will be even more meaningful this year because of the recent news that the old building will be demolished after years of neglect and disuse. Exclusive KnoxTNToday story here.
Billy Stokes
Billy Stokes (RHS 1970) will haul in some faded signage salvaged from the athletic fields. He’d also like to pry the RULE HIGH SCHOOL lettering off the side of the stadium before it all comes down, but hasn’t been able to get permission to remove it – for safety reasons, or some such. He’s very sad and not a little angry at what has happened to his old school, which he attended for grades 6-12.
“It was not a good decision to close it and dump all those kids into other schools,” he said, explaining that things were pretty egalitarian at Rule, because most everybody was in the same economic/financial boat – blue collar and striving, some still mired in poverty. He doesn’t think that Rule students were always welcomed at their new schools. And he knows that the community suffered after the school closed down.
“Keith’s Restaurant didn’t last long after Rule closed, and neither did a lot of businesses. A high school just generates a lot of commerce,” Stokes said. “I was hoping that Knox County (which took over the city schools after the city of Knoxville went out of the education business in 1987) would at least save the auditorium and the gym as a community center… But they didn’t. So sad to see it just sit there and rot.”
William Rule
The old school, which opened in 1927, has a long and proud heritage. It was named for newspaper man William R. Rule, a former newspaper man/mayor who was the founder of the Knoxville Journal. When Rule was young, he went to work for fiery publisher Parson Brownlow at the Knoxville Whig. He was 23 in 1862 when he joined scores of other Knoxville men and boys who were sneaking out of the rebel-occupied city and walking north to Kentucky to join the Union Army. He served in the Sixth Tennessee Infantry for the duration of the war and worked his way up to a captain’s rank before it was over. Then he came home and went back to newspapering. He founded the Knoxville Journal and stayed on as editor while serving two stints as mayor. Rule was a bold and progressive leader who dragged the city toward the 20th Century. He was also an active member of the Republican Party and served as a member of the Republican National Committee for a while (this would become something of a tradition among Journal editors – years later, Guy L. Smith would do the same).
Stokes remembers the portrait of the old man that hung on the wall in the front hallway at Rule High, but never knew much about him – and wonders where it is now. What he does know is that he was proud of his school, which served the hard-working, blue-collar residents of the Lonsdale/Beaumont/Westview area and built a proud tradition. The late D.M. Miller was a longtime principal, and the faculty was close-knit and loyal.
“High school was just a magical time for me,” Stokes said. “I had great coaches and teammates. I played football for coach Moose Barbish, then Charlie Lowery for a year before Bob Polston got there (after I left). Polston was at A-E for 2 years, then came to Rule and was one of the best high school coaches who ever lived. He had winners wherever he went. I was thrilled years later when he called me by name once at Bill Meyer Stadium. He knew who I was. Sid Hatfield, a legendary baseball and basketball coach was there, too.”
Among Stokes’ classmates were the Helton brothers – Ronnie and Jerry (father of baseball great Todd Helton). Their older brother Joel would have a long career coaching football at Central where he benefited from an influx of former Golden Bears when Rule was closed.
“Ronnie and I were the same age. Jerry was the best athlete I’ve ever been a teammate of,” Stokes said.
He also remembers a time when the city police and fire departments were chocked full of former Golden Bears.
“A whole bunch of Rule guys got on with the fire and police departments,” he said. “Tom Hammer was the assistant police chief. Howard Shoffner was the fire chief. Homer Potter and Bill Potter at the fire department. Dog Kennedy and Bryant Jarnigan were well-known officers at KPD. The typical route for RHS grads was to go to the military, then come back home and get a job with the fire or police department.”
32 years of government neglect
Stokes, now a well-known attorney who served as employment commissioner and special assistant to Gov. Don Sundquist, took a slightly different route. He got through undergraduate school, and then got a grant to be a juvenile “counselor” with the police department: “KPD gave us guns and badges, but no real training,” he said. He kept trying for a more secure position but was repeatedly passed over for better jobs by candidates favored by a guy named Richard Bean, who ran the juvenile detention center (and still does). So, Stokes made friends with Bean and worked his way through law school at the detention center. After law school, he served in the Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps from 1979-82.
Old school sign saved by Billy Stokes
And through it all, he has stayed in touch with his Rule High School classmates. They meet for breakfast at Shoney’s on Broadway once a month, and these days they attend lots of funerals together. Next week, before the Friday night game, Stokes and Roger Byrd will take the salvaged signs over to Fulton so they can be displayed at the ballgame. He’s hoping to see a lot of familiar faces in the stands Friday night. Rule folks stick together.
Betty Bean writes a Thursday opinion column for KnoxTNToday.com.