Another Heavener star

Reading Colin’s blog the other day about a guy who played basketball in a couple of all-star games brought back memories of watching a Heavener girl back in my sports writing days. It was in the national juco tournament at Tyler Junior College , better known as TJC. I was covering it probably because Kilgore JC was playing in it, or because it was in Tyler , not far from Longview , and we had a tendency to cover everything as long as it was close by. Besides, TJC had a good hospitality room!

Mercy, I gave away one of my trade secrets.

One of the girls teams playing was Westark and as I was scanning the rosters, I noticed a girl from Heavener was on the Westark team (it’s called University of Arkansas - Forth Smith these days). That intrigued me a little. Her name was Jessica Rowland. Westark finally reached the finals. I was there as a member of the working media, so I could partake in my trade secret …

No, I was legit, covering the game for a reason. I did look in the stands to see if there was anyone from Heavener I would recognize. Bingo, there was Lester Rowland. I remembered Lester from my school days, especially since David Rowland was a classmate, so I approached Lester to re-introduce myself, since it had been almost 40 years or so since I had last seen him. Jessica, indeed, played well and Westark won the national championship that night. That gave me a chance to talk to her. She was very talkative, especially when she discovered I was from Heavener. So much so, that I was able to get enough comments that I not only wrote a story for the Longview paper, but I also did one for the Heavener Ledger.

I usually send one to Roy Faulkenberry, the editor, with a headline suggestion. I suggested Jessica Rowland: it has a nice ring to it, or something like that, since she would win a ring signifying the national championship she and the Lady Lions had won. I don’t remember any of what she did, stats-wise, but Roy ran the story, with the headline idea. Ever time I see Lester now, he brings up the story I did on Jessica. Lester works at the Runestone up on Poteau Mountain as one of the park rangers.