Murray alumni to hold Hall of Fame induction

Submitted by the Murray County High School Alumni Association

Six individuals will be inducted into the Murray County High School Alumni Association Hall of Fame in a ceremony at the school on Sunday, Nov. 29, at 2 p.m. The honorees for 2009 are Lula Gladden, Jerry Barker, W.A. Crump, Frank Higdon, John Langford and George Ross.

A reception for the inductees will be held in the school cafeteria. All family, friends and alumni are invited. For more information contact Anne Brindle, president of the alumni association, at (706) 695-2597.

Gladden, known as “Miss Lula,” was born in 1876 and grew up at Gladden Springs. Her father, Capt. Berry Gladden, was in the Civil War. She was a founder of the local United Daughters of the Confederacy, helped start First Baptist Church and was most identified with education. She was one of the first women in Murray County to get a high school diploma, doing so at the Sumach Seminary, and earned a degree from Peabody College. She taught in Walker, Polk and Murray counties and wrote the words to the Murray County High School alma mater. Gladden Middle School was named in her memory in 1989.

Lawrence “Jerry” Barker graduated from Murray High in 1958 and is married to the former Lois Lucille Ledford, also of Chatsworth. Barker served 12 years in the U.S. Navy, operated a television and radio repair shop in Murray County, earned degrees from the University of Georgia and Georgia State, taught school in Douglasville, coached baseball and basketball, and then worked as an engineer in Iran, Thailand and Taiwan. He was in Iran when the Shah was deposed and Ayatollah Khomeini took power. He’s teaching school again and is also active in his church.

Crump’s high school career was interrupted by World War II. He joined the U.S. Army in 1944, and returned to officially “graduate” in 1947. In high school he was on the debate team and active in FFA where he also played in the string band. Crump then went to the University of Georgia where he earned a bachelor of science in education and then came back to Murray County to teach at the high school and served as principal at Spring Place Elementary before working at the Georgia Department of Education in the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation as counselor and administrator. He also worked as assistant commissioner of operations for the Georgia Department of Corrections and taught criminal justice courses at Georgia State University until his retirement in 1991.

A 1957 graduate of Murray High, Higdon grew up at Cisco and is still known as one of the best basketball players the school ever produced. He went on to play basketball at and graduate from Lincoln Memorial University with a degree in finance and accounting. After completing his military service in 1964, Higdon began a 33-year career with the Shell Oil Co. and rose through the ranks to become finance manager of commercial products. He is retired and lives in Rockport, Texas, where he continues to be active in sports. He returns to Murray County for several weeks each year to visit family and friends and enjoy the Cohutta Mountains where he hunted and fished as a child.

Langford is the son of Hall of Fame member Hazel Langford and the late Frank Langford of Chatsworth. As a student at MCHS, Langford excelled in many areas and was drum major for two years. An Eagle Scout, he served as counselor at Camp Sidney Dew and was the top male student in the class of 1972. Going on to UGA, he graduated from the School of Pharmacy in 1977 and returned to Chatsworth where he worked at Corner Drugs for three years, followed by a stint as chief pharmacist at Hamilton Medical Center. In 1983, he and his wife Rebecca Ryman of Dalton moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In Riyadh, Langford was pharmacy director at the King Fahad National Guard Hospital and was instrumental in the beginning of the Saudi International Trading Co., the largest pharmaceutical distribution company in the Middle East. He is now director of the sales and distribution department.

Ross graduated in 1954. The son of George and Charlie Ruth Bond Ross, he grew up at Center Valley United Methodist Church. Called into the ministry in 1963, he began pastoring while attending Clear Creek Bible College in Pineville, Ky., where he finished in 1967, and pastored at various churches for more than 30 years. He has held key positions in the Georgia Baptist Convention and the North Georgia Baptist Association. Since retirement, he has been busy in supply ministries and as a deacon at First Baptist in Chatsworth. He will be the first minister to be inducted into the MCHS Alumni Hall of Fame.