By ROBBY HOWARD
and GREG KEIM
,
GOSHEN — For Ron
Hoke, April 11, 1965,
seemed like a normal Sun-
day, except it was unusually
hot and humid for an April
day. Perhaps a little more
windy, too.
So the then-Goshen High
School junior decided to go
golfing. He went to South
Shore with his friend Tom
L. Stump. They played all
18 holes. Well, Hoke jokes
now he only attended 18
holes, Stump played 18.
Hoke remembers seeing
several other people out
golfing, too. It was a nice
day for it.
Shortly after the two
made it back home, torna-
does swept across the area,
leveling entire neighbor-
hoods, forever changing
the landscape of Elkhart
County and everyone
around them.
But just two days later,
Hoke was back at school.
That Tuesday night, he
competed in a track meet
against South Bend Saint
Joe at Foreman Field. He
won the broad jump with a
leap of 19 feet, 10 inches,
according to the April 14,
1965 Goshen News.
Elkhart County had suf-
fered massive devastation.
But it didn’t mean an end
for sports.
“I think sports is kind of
the pulse of the country,”
he said. “It keeps going.”
Despite the president
visiting the area, despite
70 lives being lost, despite
debris being flung all the
way to Michigan, there
were still sporting events
for most local teams less
than a week after the chaos.
Concord High School
was supposed to be at Gos-
hen’s track meet that Tues-
day, but school wasn’t back
in session yet as the Dunlap
area was ravaged the most
by the twisters. Reports say
Concord missed the entire
week of school after the
tornadoes.
A story in Thursday,
April 15, 1965 Goshen
News encouraged Con-
cord students to finish the
school year, if they were
able.
“Realizing there will be
many problems for consid-
eration, such as transporta-
tion, lunches, books, etc.
parents and students of
high school age are asked
to call Jay Holaway, guid-
ance director,” the story
said.
It’s unclear when Con-
cord athletic teams played
next following the tor-
nado. The Minutemen did,
however, part ways with
their basketball coach and
also the man who coached
baseball, track and cross
country during that week
after the tornadoes as part
of an “almost complete
overhaul of the athletic
coaching system.”
“The Concord superin-
tendent explained that the
changes are being brought
in a renovation of the
Concord coaching system,”
a story in The News during
that week said.
It’s also unclear how
many days schools such
as Jefferson Township and
Middlebury missed, or how
it impacted their athletics.
That same Tuesday
as Goshen’s track loss
to South Bend Saint Joe,
The Goshen News also
had a report of a track
meet between Jimtown,
Wakarusa and New Paris,
which was won by Jimtown.
Wednesday, Wakarusa
beat Bethany Christian in a
track meet.
The Goshen baseball
team lost a 2-0 game at
Michigan City just two days
after the catastrophe, too.
Goshen only missed school
the Monday after the Sun-
day tornadoes, and went
back Tuesday.
Hoke doesn’t remember
anything special being
done at the track meet. He
doesn’t remember it feeling
any different. It was just a
way of getting back into the
routine.
“It’s a sense of normal-
ity,” said Dale Garber, who
volunteers alongside Hoke
at the Goshen Historical
Society.
Other than making note
of Concord not making it to
the track meet, there were
no special mentions of the
tornadoes on the sports
pages of The News during
the entire next week, ex-
cept for a special fundraiser
at the New Paris Speedway.
Baseball dominated the
headlines. Life in the sports
world appeared mostly
normal.
That Thursday’s paper
announced that the New
Paris Speedway would have
a special event in which all
of the proceeds would go to
the tornado relief fund. The
story estimated it could be
the largest single-organiza-
tion donation to the fund.
The special races took
place that Easter Sunday.
The Monday, April 19,
1965, edition of The News
reported $1,354.50 was
raised, with hundreds of
people showing up, and 65
drivers participating in 10
events.
Hoke said he didn’t
expect returning to sports
took people’s minds off of
what had happened, espe-
cially since it came during
spring sports season. He
said people only really
talked about basketball and
football, and that the torna-
does that ripped through
would dominate conversa-
tion for at least the next
month, regardless of who
you talked to.
But at least it was some-
thing else to do. Life went
on.
“It’s really hard to stop
sports,” he said with a
smile.
Educator, coach killed
Harold Gingerich was
a senior at Topeka High
School when the Palm
Sunday Tornadoes hit and
he has fond memories of a
man who was killed on that
dreadful day.
Leroy Yoder was the prin-
cipal at Honeyville Elemen-
tary School in Topeka.
“He was an amazing
man,” Gingerich said. “He
did a lot of coaching in the
area. His death left a huge
vacancy in the community.
He was known as a man of
integrity.”
Yoder was so well
thought of in the commu-
nity that he is still honored
every year at Westview
High School.
“The National Honor So-
ciety at Westview is named
in honor of him,” Gingerich
added.
Gingerich played basket-
ball and baseball at Topeka.
According to him, Topeka
played baseball in the fall
so he was not involved in
any spring sport when the
tornadoes occurred.
He does, however, have
vivid memories of the day.
“I took my girlfriend to
see the movie ‘The Longest
Day,’” he said. “I had to get
home early so my parents
could have the car to go
visit my aunt and uncle in
Dunlap. They never made
it and had to drive at right
angles to avoid the storms
and get home. There was
a time when I had no idea
where they were.
“I heard the windows in
the house rattle and later
saw the devastation in the
Shipshewana area.”
Gingerich is the found-
ing pastor of the New Eden
Worship Center in Topeka,
which is in the old Hon-
eyville School.
“We bought the building
a few years ago,” he said.
Gingerich knows others
who were killed that day,
including a woman who
was in a singing trio that
was rehearsing at Shore
Mennonite Church for a
program that night at Forks
Mennonite Church.
Follow Robby Howard on
Twitter @rhoward_TGN,
follow Greg Keim on Twitter
@gkeim_TGN
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unday
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| 50
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| Saturday, April 11, 2015 The Goshen News
School sports at GHS not impacted by tornadoes
From the archives
goshen news file photo
Bill Jessup
, one of many volunteers who helped tornado victims over the week-
end used his “Big Cat” to push over the remains of a tornado-wrecked house.
