FAYETTEVILLE — Three of the four new inductees to the Fayetteville Sports Club Hall of Fame have great high school backgrounds.
The induction class has been announced by the Fayetteville Observer, and it includes Earl Vaughan Jr., of the newspaper, former South View High School softball coach Eddie Dees and former Fayetteville High School star Howard Cheshire. Methodist University men’s golf coach Steve Conley is the other inductee.
This group will be honored with formal induction during ceremonies scheduled for February 13 at the Crown Coliseum. The hall, which was established in 2003, will grow to 47 members with the new inductees.. The event will begin with a social at 6:30 p.m., followed by dinner and the induction ceremonies.
Vaughan joined the staff of The Fayetteville Observer in a part-time role in the summer of 1972 and has been one of the state’s leading authorities on high school athletics since. He was the first recipient of the NCHSAA’s Media Representative of the year, an award to the media for contributions to high school athletics, and in 1995 received the NCHSAA Distinguished Service Award. In 2008, he was the winner of the Dick Knox Distinguished Service Award presented by the NCHSAA and the Southern Football Officials Association. Vaughan has been honored with numerous awards for his stories on high school sports, most recently in 2010 when he received a first-place award from the N.C. Press Association for Sports News Reporting.
Cheshire played quarterback and running back on Fayetteville High football squads that claimed back-to-back state championships in 1947 and 1948. Over a four-year varsity career, his teams produced a 35-6-4 overall record. Cheshire scored two touchdowns as Fayetteville beat Charlotte, 39-0, for the 1947 state title. He was an All-East selection as a junior in ’47 and All-East, All-State and All-Southern as as senior in ’48 when Fayetteville defeated Burlington, 14-13, for its second straight crown. Cheshire scored 16 of his 24 career touchdowns as a senior. He played collegiately at Wake Forest and later served as head of the Fayetteville Parks and Recreation Department.
Dees spent 25 years as softball coach at South View, retiring in 2007 as North Carolina’s winningest active coach. He compiled a career record of 538-144 with the Tigers and took his teams to the state playoffs 23 times in 25 seasons. The 1993 South View team captured the state 4-A slow-pitch softball crown, defeating Hickory two games to one in the championship series. Dees directed South View’s transition from slow pitch to fast pitch in the mid-1990s while continuing the school’s success. His teams won 18 conference titles, four 4-A East Regional titles and more than 35 of his former players went on to play college softball. Dees recently got back in the coaching game, taking over the new program at Freedom Christian Academy.
