Monday, July 7, 2025
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DRUMS OF SUMMER
Phantom Regiment, a world-class drum and bugle corps based in Rockford, Ill., practices last night at Shelbyville High School’s McKeand Stadium. The marching group, made up mostly of college-aged students, was en route to Sevierville, Tenn., for a show tonight. While charter bus drivers rested, the group practiced, with a full run-through at 8 p.m. Several locals and Shelbyville High School band members observed, including SHS Assistant Band Director Graham Montgomery, who himself was once part of the elite, audition-based group. BELOW: SHS students Megan Childres and Layne McMillen and 2025 graduate Lilly Conners wait for Phantom’s evening run-through. | photos by KRISTIAAN RAWLINGS
Shelby County History: Laird Brothers Were Veterans of Whistle and Striped Shirt
Editor’s Note: Among the files of the late David Craig, local historian, were a few typed articles by Jim McKinney, former staff member and later editor of The Shelbyville News. These articles were apparently sent to papers in the region for consideration, and were printed in publications from Chicago to Cincinnati and in between. This one was dated 1976.
by Jim McKinney
What makes three brothers—one a county auditor, another a bank vice president and the third an industrial design engineer—trot onto basketball courts with their striped shirts and whistles?
“It’s a dedication—a love for the game,” agree Bob, Bill and Dwain Laird, all veteran high school officials.
“I actually look forward to the start of the season and I’m just as anxious to see the tourney assignment sheet for officials now as I was when I started out,” said Bob, who has been officiating half of his 48 years.
Bob is vice president and loan officer for the State Bank of Waldron. Bill, 39, is the engineer and Dwain, 50, is in his second term as Shelby County Auditor.
All three have sons who played or who are playing high school basketball at either Waldron or Shelbyville.
Among them, the brothers figure they have officiated about 2,000 basketball games. All have worked numerous tourney games but Bob is the only one to call the state finals, in 1973.
Over the years, the brothers have worked many games and tourneys as teams and they’ve traveled around the entire state.
“We worked three games a night in the sectionals when we started out,” Bob recalled.
The two older brothers started in the 1940s and 1950s, when it wasn’t uncommon to work 30 games or more in a season. Not many officials call that many games now.
If there’s any secret to officiating, the three men agreed it has to be working without being influenced or bothered by crowds.
“You have to do it. The officials who don’t completely block out the crowd in their minds are the ones that have trouble,” Bill Laird said.
“In today’s new, better gymnasiums, officials have to accept the fact that there are always some people in the stands who can see the play better than the official. All the official can do is call it the way he sees it.
“The split-second experience and knowing how and where to position yourself is the key. A lot of officials do a lot of running, but when they do, they have their back to the play and can’t see what is happening.”
Sometimes crowds can get hostile. Bob and Dwain Laird said the closest they came to physical violence was at Gary in 1972 while they worked a Roosevelt–West game.
The small Gary auditorium was packed and it was a close game. With 17 seconds left, Roosevelt’s best player was floored on a flagrant foul. He came up swinging and a melee was quickly under way among the players.
“I looked up briefly and saw the crowd coming down out of the stands,” Dwain said.
“I don’t think they were mad at us, particularly as officials. It was just a potentially dangerous situation. We called the ball game at that point and let the police handle the situation. We managed to get off the floor all right, and the police did an excellent job of controlling the crowd.”
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NOTEBOOK:
The 14th annual Cancer Bash is set for Saturday, Sept. 27, at Suite 415 (formerly Occasions). The $25 tickets will go on sale July 18, at the Cancer Association office, 37 Public Square, Shelbyville.
HOOSIER NEWS: More townhomes will soon be coming to the Kennedy-King neighborhood just north of downtown Indianapolis, an area that has seen a rash of development in recent years. The site, a little more than an acre in size that will house 25 units, sits just north of 22nd Street on Carrollton Avenue in between single-family homes. Currently, it’s mainly weedy grass and a small building that developers say has been vacant for more than 25 years. Home prices will start at $375,000, with down payment assistance to help potential buyers. (IndyStar)
NATIONAL NEWS: Krispy Kreme is celebrating World Chocolate Day today by bringing back a rarely offered fan favorite, adding limited-edition Chocolate Glazed Doughnuts to the menu for one day only. The doughnut chain said the one-day special will be coated with Hershey's chocolate for the first time ever. (IndyStar)
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SHS Courier Archive Highlights
January 21, 1953, Part I
Geography class students visited the Nukraft Manufacturing Co. The class was divided into three groups as tours were conducted by Mr. Russell Gross, president; Mr. Donald Gordon, vice president; and Mr. Wayne Platt, manager. Students watched the assembly line production, from when the rug hair was weighed to when it emerged as a finished product.
Annabelle Barnes, a class of 1934 graduate who had taken Miss Ashby’s shorthand class, had entered the field as a profession. She there met and married Charles Zoubeck, one of the authors of the Gregg Shorthand Manual Simplified manual used by SHS students.
“Were you at the SHS-Anderson ball game? If you were, were you proud of the way the spectators acted? A great many people were not. If you think it is all right for the spectators to boo and yell at the referees, players and yell leaders, then you have a right to be proud, because that game was a fine example of poor spectator-sportsmanship.” The Courier continued, “Probably as some of you read this, you are thinking, ‘Who cares?’, but later you will care. You will find out that a good reputation, whether it’s that of a person, a school, or a business, means the difference between success and failure.”
The following alumni had become nurses: Betty Sue Klare, Maxine Davise, Wanda Creek, Helen Weakley, Rosemary Lynch and Janet Lux. Those in nursing school were Joan Ricke, Monna Thomas, Rea Jean Dow, Sue Ann Green, Barbara Lawrence, Betty Brown, Pat Yoder and Phylis Wiley.
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This Day in Shelby County History
News around Shelbyville and the surrounding area as reported on or about this date in history. Selections are curated by The Addison Times from Shelby County Public Library Genealogy Department materials.
2005: A memorial service was held in Georgia for former Shelbyville resident Sgt. 1st Class Marcus Muralles. Muralles had died in June in Afghanistan when his Chinook helicopter was shot down by enemy fire in combat operations. He was 33.
1995: Three Shelbyville grocery stores included bank branches and one even housed a business that sold car phones. Mickey’s had been among the first grocery stores in the state to lease space to a bank branch 20 years prior. Marsh was host to Century Car Phones.
1985: Land was cleared on East State Road 44 for a new shopping center, which would include Walmart.
1975: The 45th annual Sugar Creek Township Fair was held in Boggstown on the Presbyterian church grounds.
1965: The Indiana Appellate Court sustained a decision granting $30,000 for personal injuries suffered by Gary Paul Morton, who was 11 in 1959 when he stepped into a deep hole on E. Hendricks St. near his trailer court home. The City noted that their liability insurance maxed out at $10,000.
1955: Real estate sales were on pace to break the local record, set in 1952. There had been $3 million in sales in the first half of 1955, compared to $4.8 million in sales in 1952. Helping the 1955 total were the $100,000 sale of the Chambers Corp. building and a $46,500 purchase of airport land for a new neighborhood.
1945: A petition was filed to change the alley running along the north side of the lateral railway from Elm to Miller Streets to a street. Since the alley was the southern-most entrance to the city and extensively used, favorable action was anticipated, The Republican reported. (This would become Evans Street.)
1935: Five people had been injured by fireworks over the holiday, hospital officials said. Merritt Phillips, east of Bengal, had sustained a serious eye injury.
1925: Wes Ivie, a local painter engaged in painting the Kennedy Car Liner & Bag Company building in Greensburg, had been held up by two armed men near the St. Omer bridge. The men ordered him out of his car, and when Ivie refused, one of them threw a rock through his windshield. The men searched Ivie and the car, but found nothing of value and let him go.
1915: Many saloons, including those in Shelbyville, had long offered a free lunch to those who bought at least one five-cent beer. The state legislature, however, had recently passed a law stating that the free lunch must also fall under the same sanitary standards as paid lunches. That effectively shut them down. The Republican, which called the legislation “a knockout blow on the saloon jitney handout,” said local saloon owners were happy with the law; the free lunch expectation had been “a big expense.”
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OBITUARIES
None today.
I worked several games with the Lairds, especially Bob and Dwain. Wonderful men and really fine officials. They were respected by coaches, players, and fans around the state. Shelby County produced many fine officials and many of them were reasons that I became one. John Thomas, Nate Kaufmann, Roger McGriff, Steve Cherry, Chuck Thompson, the Lairds, Alton Atkins, Jerry Larrison, Jerry Petro, Butch Gorrell, etc. Several of them were honored to work the State Finals especially when there was only one class. Don Thompson