Get your ballots ready; Hall of Fame coming to Lowndes County

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Jerry Rice, Clarence Weatherspoon, Henry Armstrong, Red Barber. All of these men have 2 things in common: they made a national impact in their various sports, and they all once called Lowndes County home.

Lowndes County has a sports legacy as rich as the Prairie soil.

Now, a group of county leaders and county residents is coming together to formally recognize those contributions.

This afternoon, organizers formally announced the creation of the Lowndes County Sports Hall of Fame.

The Hall is the brainchild of Henry Matuszak, longtime Sports Editor of the Commercial Dispatch, who began compiling biographies of sports luminaries from the area, and wondered why there wasn’t such an institution.

There’s definitely no shortage of potential candidates.

Lowndes County District 2 Supervisor and Hall of Fame committee member, Trip Hairston says the hardest part may be selecting the inaugural class.

“It’s one of those things when we talked to different people about it and mentioned that we’re looking at doing a Lowndes County Sports Hall of Fame, everybody I know of says ‘Well, Yeah!’, because they can all of a sudden rattle off 10-12 names, and they wonder, you know, well, these have to be in the inaugural class.”

The Hall of Fame plans to name that inaugural class in Spring 2025; meanwhile, they are taking nominations.

You can find nomination forms and criteria at the group’s website lowndescountysportshalloffame.com