BOONE GOLF - THERE'S BEEN NONE BETTER

     The unfortunate passing of Jim Curell the other day brought back a flood of memories for the old Kornerman.
     When Jimmy was 13 years old, I wanted him on my Babe Ruth baseball team. After all, he had great athletic genes obtained from his dad, Bill, a famed furniture salesman, baseball umpire and the captain of the 1946 Toreador football team.
     But wait a minute.........
     Young Jim had some heart issues and doctors eventually advised dad Bill and his mother, Marilee, that Jim should probably forget any athletic endeavors (basketball, baseball, football) that required lots of physical activity. He never took a grounder or a time at bat for my Ruth team.
     Instead, all he did was turn his lifetime attention to the great sport of golf and he did it with a flair., becoming a dominant player on the state circuit for quite a period of time. In 1979, he was selected the Iowa Amateur Player of the Year and in 2010, the Iowa Senior Player of the Year. But the rest of the story includes numerous other championships and high finishes in the Hawkeye State's most prestigious events, as well as a plethora of titles at smaller venues hither and yon.
     Jim was a quiet, dedicated family man who cherished his hard fought success but never broadcast it.
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     Alright, now I'm on a roll. Local golf is the subject and I'm going to regale you viewers with all kinds of statistics that should result in lots of high fives if you're a true Boonie. Like old Diz Dean used to say, "it ain't braggin' if you did it."
     Well, the town we love so much "did it" on the golf lynx for quite a period of time and the Kornerman doesn't mind, pridefully, spreading the word.
     Let's begin with high school success.
     In 1937, 1944 and 1945, Toreador teams were state runnerup. In 1946, the BHS unit of Dick "Moose" Anderson, Grant "Buzz" Meyer, Pat Healy and Bob Fisher tied Des Moines Roosevelt for a state championship.
     In 1970, it was Brad Post, Doug Miller, Jeff Rees and Jeff Saggau who captured the Toreadors second state championship.
     Individually, in 1936, Bill Hall tied for state runnerup honors and FIVE other Toreadors golfers earned medal honors at the state high school meet......Ed Updegraff in 1939, Charles Updegraff Jr. in 1941, Bill Modeland in 1944, "Moose" Anderson in 1940 and Brad Post in 1970.
     Boone High also boasted a runnerup finish in the State Coed event in 1973 when Becky Saggau and Gary Updegraff performed well.
     In 1948, Boone Junior College boasted a NATIONAL championship......beating schools from all over the country at an event in Kansas City. Team members were Bill Ferguson, Pat Healy, Don Maffett and "Moose" Anderson and Ferguson was the fourth best individual in the meet.
     Those were some impressive feats but that isn't the entire Boone golf story.
     Ed Updegraff, who became a urology doctor, is now 98 years old and still living in Arizona. He became the nation's top amateur player, number one, with great success in such events as the U.S. Amateur, British Amateur and even the famed Master's tournament. He was selected three times as a member of winning U.S. Walker Cup teams.
     Ed's brother, Dr. Charlie, was a member of a Big 10 championship team at the State University of Iowa and had a career, similar to Jim Curell's, with various championships in some of Iowa's top events.
     There were numerous other great local golfers and I'll surely miss the mention of some but Max Hall comes to mind. He rates right up there with Curell and the Updegraff's. Bob Fisher, Dick Schultz, Chuck Lovin, Tom Tays and even my old classmate, Perry Spies, were great competitors on the lynx.
     Doug Miller's "job" in retirement is traveling the country, playing golf courses and rating them for  Golf Digest magazine. Tom Tays has been a PGA pro instructor in California and Las Vegas, was the former Director of Instruction at Wakonda Club in Des Moines and is now the instructor at Otter Creek near Ankeny.
     Boone's great lady golfers can't be denied either. The first two that come to mind are Jane Johnstone Hanel and Maxine Erickson Redeker who dueled for local superiority year after year.
     Ann Clauson was a good one and in more recent years, Shelley Finnestad.
     The ladies, too, added to Boone's great golf legacy.
     The Kornerman has always been one to "grab ahold" and exploit anything positive that our community and its inhabitants produce.
     Certainly this golf success deserves such adulation. During a certain period of time, no Iowa city dominated local golf like our Boone Iowa did. One of many things that living here makes me swell with pride.
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     BOONE CONNECTED DEATHS: Rev. William Trembly, 89, Boone. Had a long ministerial career, most recently at Friendship Haven in Fort Dodge. Became a resident of the Eastern Star Home in 2012. Three daughters survive including Barbara Wishman of Boone. Two sisters, a brother and two sisters-in-law also survive.........Eric Miller, 27, Ainsworth, IA. Survivors include his grandparents, Paul and Patricia Miller of Boone.
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     Worldwide Korner headquarters are located at 928 South Jackson, Boone, Iowa 50036-4932. Phone number is 515-432-1530 (leave a message). To email your stories/memories/comments.....
kelleyskorner1@gmail.com.