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Eugene “Pappy” Thompson

Eugene “Pappy” Thompson, attended Virginia High School in Bristol, VA and started at Emory & Henry College in 1925 but left in 1928 to accept a job as a general reporter with the Bristol Herald Courier. He spent 50 years with the Bristol Herald Courier as a police and court reporter, sportswriter, sports editor and retired in 1979 as Executive Sports Editor. During his career, Thompson originated the “Football Edition” in Southwest Virginia and East Tennessee, a section that is now the annual fall feature of the Bristol newspapers. He wrote the SEC and Southern Independents preview for the “Football Roundup” for over 15 years and won several State awards for feature stories and sportswriting. He was also the Chairman of the Committee that brought Little League Baseball to Bristol and was twice awarded with the Boys Club Man and Boy Awards. Thompson was a member of the American Football Writers, the National Association of Basketball Writers, the National Association of Baseball Writers, The National Football Foundation and the Society for Research of American Baseball. Thompson is a charter member of the Emory & Henry Sports Hall of Fame, inductee in to the University of Tennessee Press Box Hall of Fame, 1982 Inductee into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame. Eugene Thompson passed away on April 27, 1988.

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