{"id":147,"date":"2019-06-08T19:55:56","date_gmt":"2019-06-08T19:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dcshof.morethanconquers.com\/?page_id=147"},"modified":"2023-11-24T20:28:11","modified_gmt":"2023-11-25T02:28:11","slug":"class-of-2008","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dcshof.morethanconquers.com\/classes\/class-of-2008\/","title":{"rendered":"Class of 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dcshof.morethanconquers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/joe-baxter-brown-web.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/p>\n<h2>Joe Baxter Brown<\/h2>\n<p><p>Fort Payne High School<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p><p>Born March 8, 1928\u00a0 \u2014 During high school, 1942 &#8211; 1946 he wrote sport stories and ball game reports. He continued writing sport stories until age 40. He operated the public address system at DeKalb County High School, and Fort Payne High School from 1950 until 1968, except for two years in the U. S. Army during the Korean War.\u00a0 He broadcast several of the high school games over the radio. He has contributed to the history of sports by writing sports history for Landmarks of DeKalb County publications<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dcshof.morethanconquers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/joe-griggs-web-196x300.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/p>\n<h2>Joe Griggs<\/h2>\n<p><p>Fort Payne High School<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p><p>Born January 9, 1947 \u2014\u00a0 He graduated from Fort Payne High School in 1965.\u00a0 During his senior year his team won the state championship in football. He played offensive tight end and linebacker.\u00a0 He was named captain of the team and named to the all-area team. Joe signed a football scholarship with the University of Chattanooga where he lettered in both football and baseball.\u00a0 He started for three years on the football team. Joe coached football and baseball at Valley Head and Ider.\u00a0 He left to start the Fort Payne Recreation Center. He started the Dekalb County Umpires Association and was a baseball and football official for several years.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dcshof.morethanconquers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/thomas-groat-web.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/p>\n<h2>Thomas Groat<\/h2>\n<p><p>Fort Payne High School<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p><p>Born September 30, 1946 in Fort Payne \u2014 He attended Fort Payne High School where he played football, basketball, baseball and was on The track team. In his senior year he received Honorable Mention All State Football, MVPin the Northeast Alabama Football Conference, won the Long Jump at NEAC track meet, and finished 5th in the long jump at the state track meet. Thomas attended Auburn University in 1964 -1967 where he lettered two years in football, graduating in 1967 with a BA.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dcshof.morethanconquers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/mikelocklear-web.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/p>\n<h2>Mike Locklear<\/h2>\n<p><p>Fort Payne High School<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p><p>Born May 7, 1958 \u2014 He played football, basketball and ran track for Fort Payne High School.\u00a0 He made second team all-state his junior year. In his senior year Mike suffered a hip separation that limited his season. Mike was recruited by every SEC school. He signed a scholarship with Auburn in 1976. As a freshman and sophomore, he played fullback, linebacker, and defensive end. In his junior and senior year, he played tight end. At tight end he blocked for runners such as William Andrews, Joe Cribbs, and James Brooks. During his junior season, Mike had the longest pass reception from scrimmage against Kansas State. He also caught the winning TD pass against Florida his senior year. As a senior he served as team captain. He graded 90% or better in each game his senior year. Mike signed with Houston and played with them through the 1982 season before leaving pro football.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joe Baxter Brown Fort Payne High School Born March 8, 1928\u00a0 \u2014 During high school, 1942 &#8211; 1946 he wrote sport stories and ball game reports. He continued writing sport stories until age 40. He operated the public address system at DeKalb County High School, and Fort Payne High School from 1950 until 1968, except [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":26,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-147","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dcshof.morethanconquers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/147"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dcshof.morethanconquers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dcshof.morethanconquers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dcshof.morethanconquers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dcshof.morethanconquers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dcshof.morethanconquers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/147\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dcshof.morethanconquers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/26"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dcshof.morethanconquers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}