[Vision2020] Fifty Years Ago Today (March 28, 1959)

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of the Spokesman Review.

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1959 Kellogg basketball champs reunite
Teammates recently gathered for ‘Legends of the Game’ honor

Ed Hiemstra didn’t want his team to get rusty.

Hiemstra’s 1959 Kellogg High boys basketball team had just finished the 
regular season with an 18-1 record. But the Wildcats wouldn’t begin 
postseason play for two weeks.

So Hiemstra called the Idaho High School Activities Association to ask if 
his team could play a scrimmage game. The IHSAA approved the game as long 
as the gym was closed to the public.

The opponent? The Washington State University freshman team, which went 13-
2 that year and won the Pacific Coast Conference Northern Division 
freshman championship.

All the Wildcats knew about the scrimmage is they needed to be at the gym 
at the appointed time. Imagine the players’ faces when they saw a team 
take the court that featured a starting lineup of 6-foot-8, 6-7, 6-6, 6-4 
and 6-3 players.

It took the Cougar freshmen some time to take the much shorter Wildcats 
seriously, but they soon discovered a worthy opponent. The teams agreed to 
play four 10-minute quarters. The game ended in an 88-88 tie. They played 
a 10-minute overtime, and Kellogg, led by the 48 points of 6-3 guard Rich 
Porter, prevailed 112-108.

It was Kellogg’s best game of the season, but nobody other than the 
players and coaches got to see it. Most of WSU’s freshmen would start the 
next three years and two of the frosh, Charlie Sells and Terry Ball, would 
make names for themselves at WSU.

Porter, who went on to have a distinguished career at the University of 
Idaho, became good friends with Sells and Ball while going to school in 
Moscow.

“Charlie Sells told me that we were the best high school team he had ever 
seen,” Porter said.

It was the postseason tune-up Kellogg needed.

Fifty years ago this week, Kellogg captured the AAA state championship, 
the third in a five-year period.

The players and the coaches from the 1959 team (22-1) were honored by the 
IHSAA with the “Legends of the Game” Award during halftime of the 5A state 
championship game at the Idaho Center in Nampa earlier this month. The 
IHSAA established the award in 2001 to help preserve the heritage of boys 
basketball and to showcase great teams of the past.

Thirteen of the 15 team members along with Hiemstra, faculty 
representative and scorekeeper Ray Faraca and team manager, Sam Cummings, 
were able to attend the ceremony. The players who attended were (including 
where they live today): Porter (Fair Oaks, Calif.), Jeff Wombolt (Post 
Falls), Chris Milionis (Spokane Valley), Louie Jennings (Kellogg), Gary 
James (Pinehurst), Dennis Seagraves (Kingston), Ron Jarvey (Spokane), 
Rodney Kamppi (Salem, Ore.), Ron Shreve (Albany, Ore.), Frank Winiarski 
(Reno, Nev.), Keith Kilimann (Kirkland, Wash.), Bernard Blondeau (Post 
Falls) and Don Zimmerman (Seattle). Hiemstra lives in Manhattan, Mont., 
which is 18 miles northwest of Bozeman, Faraca lives in Kellogg and 
Cummings in St. Maries.

One of the players, Bill Rember, died in a plane crash in Alaska in the 
early 1970s, and Eddie Exum, who lives in Denver, couldn’t attend because 
he was caring for an ill sister. The other team manager, Rich Margarson, 
who lives in Kellogg, also couldn’t attend.

Porter, Wombolt, James, Jennings and Milionis, the lone junior, were 
starters. Kamppi, who started the year before, was generally the first 
reserve off the bench. Playing time was limited after those six.

Wombolt, the second-leading scorer behind Porter, was overwhelmed by what 
the IHSAA did to make it a special weekend. A dinner was held for the 
team, motel rooms were provided and seven minutes of the 10-minute 
intermission were dedicated to honoring them. The players were paraded 
around the Idaho Center court. A gold medallion was placed around the neck 
of each team member. A banner commemorating the state title was given to 
the team to be displayed in the school’s gym. Each player also was given a 
plaque.

The two-page centerfold of the state program was dedicated to the 
Wildcats. The special section included three team photos and seven small 
action photos.

“I told my wife that most of the people who were there to watch the 
championship game would probably go to the bathroom during the ceremony,” 
Wombolt said. “I couldn’t believe it. They all stayed around and watched. 
They gave us a standing ovation. It was a packed crowd, probably about 
8,000.”

That would have been about 5,000 more people than was estimated to have 
crammed into the gym at North Idaho College when Kellogg handled Pocatello 
61-46 in the state final on March 28, 1959.

“We showed up at the gym about two hours before the game and they were 
already turning people away,” Milionis said.

The reunion was special for many reasons. For Wombolt and Milionis, it was 
the first time they had seen three of the team members since they 
graduated.

Kamppi and Shreve hadn’t seen each other for 30 years – only to find out 
they had lived within 10 miles of each other the whole time.

Wombolt can’t get too many words out of his mouth about the special season 
or his friends without choking up.

“I get emotional talking about the reunion (at Nampa),” Wombolt said. “We 
never got that sort of attention (in 1959).”

Hiemstra also coached Kellogg to back-to-back state titles in 1954-’55 and 
1955-’56. He says the ’59 team was without question the best of the era.

“The first (state title) team was awesome, but the ’59 team was the best I 
coached,” said Hiemstra, who turned 89 the day after the Legends’ reunion.

Wombolt believes the 1953-’54 team, the first to earn a trophy at state 
(third), got things rolling for the school.

“I always tell people, that was the stimulus for everything that happened. 
Their legacy is what stimulated the next few years,” said Wombolt, whose 
older brothers, Jerry and Jack, played on those early teams.

The town YMCA also deserves some credit, too, Wombolt said.

“Every kid that I knew in Kellogg lived in that gym,” Wombolt said. “It 
eventually closed down, but the building is still there. It’s next to the 
Elks (building). It was built by Bunker Hill in 1910.”

Wombolt came across the radio broadcast of the ’59 state title game. So he 
burned copies of the broadcast on CDs and gave them to his teammates at 
the reunion.

Kellogg’s one loss was 64-59 to Silver Valley rival Wallace. The Wildcats 
redeemed themselves in the return game when they handled Wallace 74-49.

Among the Wildcats’ victories were four wins over Coeur d’Alene, a win 
over Jud Heathcote-coached West Valley, a victory over eventual Montana 
state champ Missoula and two wins over Rogers of Spokane, which would take 
fourth at state.

The movie Hoosiers reminds Wombolt of the ’59 team. In fact, Gene Hackman, 
the actor who played coach Norman Dale, reminds Wombolt of Hiemstra. If a 
movie were made of the Wildcats’ season, Hackman would be the perfect 
choice to play Hiemstra, Wombolt said.

Hiemstra, who spent the final 19 years of his teaching career in Heppner, 
Ore., left Kellogg after the 1963 season. His assistant that year, Don 
Haynes, replaced him and coached the Wildcats to a state title the 
following season.

Hiemstra remains in good health these days.

He has stayed in touched with most of his former players over the years, 
and was overjoyed to be reunited with them earlier this month.

“It was fantastic. There was nothing better,” Hiemstra said. “We were 
walking off the court (at the Idaho Center) and Louie (Jennings) sort of 
summed it up best when he said he didn’t want to leave the floor.”

It was the first gathering of the team in 50 years. Wombolt is helping 
coordinate a class reunion that will take place Sept. 11 through 13 in 
Kellogg.

Hiemstra didn’t substitute much in ’59. Case in point was the state title 
game when four of the five starters played the entire game. Kamppi was the 
lone substitute and he played the final 1:21 after Milionis fouled out.

The coach ran intense practices to make sure his players were in the best 
condition possible.

“We practiced game conditions every night for 90 minutes,” Hiemstra said.

Porter will always cherish the Legends’ reunion.

“That was a touching ceremony – as touching as I’ve ever been involved 
in,” said Porter, 67, who continued to play basketball until he turned 
60. “As a rule, not many of the guys played in the games, but the guys we 
had on the bench were very good. It wasn’t like they couldn’t play. It was 
just Ed’s philosophy.”

To Porter, the reunion was a back-to-the-future experience.

“It was like we had never left,” Porter said. “It was like we were still 
there, 50 years ago. Everybody noticed it. We had such a great camaraderie 
back then. It was a special feeling for everybody. It was just like we 
picked up where we had left off. That season, you only experience a few 
things like that in your life. It’s an experience to relish for all time.”

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The 1959 Kellogg state AAA basketball champs are, front row, from left: 
Don Zimmerman, Chris Milionis, Louie Jennings, coach Ed Hiemstra, faculty 
representative and team scorekeeper Ray Faraca, Bernard Blondeau, Keith 
Kilimann, Frank Winiarski; back row: manager Sam Cummings, Ron Shreve, Ron 
Jarvey, Rodney Kamppi, Gary James, Rich Porter, Jeff Wombolt, Dennis 
Seagraves.

http://tinyurl.com/1959KelloggTeam2009

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As they were then . . .

The 1959 State AAA championship Kellogg basketball team
 
http://tinyurl.com/KelloggBasketball1959

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
Join us at The First Annual Intolerista Wingding, April 17th, featuring 
Roy Zimmerman and Jeanne McHale.  For details go to . . .

http://www.MoscowCares.com/Wingding

Seeya
there.

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