VON RAY HARRIS DIES

LINCOLNTON — Long time football coach and athletic director Von Ray Harris died on Sunday at the age of 86.

       Harris was the highly successful head football coach at Lincolnton High School for many years, where he coached starting in 1959 and then retired in ’87. Prior to that, he had coached at Old Town in Winston-Salem and at Morganton High School, with his tenure in Morganton from 1955 through ’58.

       He was born in 1924 in McDowell County. Harris was an outstanding football player at Western Carolina, and he had been inducted into the Lincoln County Hall of Fame and the Western Carolina University Hall of Fame.

Harris was a Armed Forces veteran, serving as a tail gunner in World War II.

       The football field at Lincolnton had been named in his honor some years ago.