Remembering Wayne Seymour
Life is so interesting. It seems everywhere I go I run into people that I have not seen in years or actually never knew, and after visiting with them find there is a definite connection with mutual friends or working places. On Tuesday night we were at the 53rd annual Tonganoxie Invitational basketball tournament, and the man in front of me was very friendly and we had quite a conversation about basketball in general. I asked him if he knew Wayne Seymour who had coached basketball in Tonganoxie for a number of years. He did know Wayne and was surprised to hear that I had coached him when he was in the eighth grade.
I contacted Wayne last week via e-mail. I asked him if he had started this tournament and he told me Mr. Beatty had started it the year before he got there in 1959. Originally it was a four team tournament. They increased it the next year to a six team tournament. This lasted three years, then went to an eight team tournament. Wayne now lives in Springfield, Mo., and still keeps track of all the local basketball games on the internet. Wayne graduated from Lansing High School in 1949 and was on the LHS 1949 team that played in the state tournament. That year they won twenty-five games and lost one and that one was in the state tournament. That season they scored 1,810 points to their opponents 778.
Wayne not only excelled in basketball, he was an outstanding LHS softball pitcher. He pitched five shutout games and one two run game and only allowed eighteen hits for the whole season. Only one team in the whole league scored against him. The Lansing team scored ninety runs to their opponents two.
Wayne also was a good actor. He played Father Dineen in “The Hills of Erie.” Frank Graham’s one act plays were famous and that play won first division at the state festival.
Wayne is one of the people in my life that I am happy to know.