by Pat McCool
Recently, John Spencer Wolfe from PCHS signed with NC State to run track. I would like to talk to you about two twin brothers from Mill Springs High School that ran track at NC State in the 1950s: Furman and Herman Walker. The story is not that they ran track, but how they got into NC State. I interviewed Herman Walker for this story.
Now in earlier years of their childhood, they had worked on the farm and didnt have anytime to play sports; but in their junior year, their dad said as long as you beat Tryon, and gets your chores done then you can play basketball for the high school team. There dad was a carpenter and worked in Tryon with all the Tryon dads.
Herman and Furman were tall and played under the goal and got the rebounds. This area was called Walker Territory. They didnt score many points, but they didnt need to because of the scoring of Julian “Cutter” Thompson, Bobby Gene McCarter, Russell Pack and Robert Bowyer. There senior year, they beat Tryon very badly in the county tourney. Because of this win they played in the state tournament.
The day of the state playoff game they had a big steak dinner just before the game, and played in front of a large audience at Enka High School against Rosman. They lost the game.
While this was going on during their senior year around Christmas, they were in the woods with their dad when their dad asked them a question about what they were going to do after high school.
They didnt have an answer, but this got them thinking about their plans after high school. Herman thought about this and decided that what ever he did he would have to work at least 40 hours per week. So, if you are going to work 40 hours a week you need to make as much money as you can. Now the only jobs around here were working in a cotton mill, saw mill or on a farm.
Herman wanted to make more money than these jobs and not work as hard, so he went to the library at school and asked the librarian for a book that had jobs and their starting salaries. When they looked in the book, the list went Doctors, Lawyers and Electrical Engineers. Herman thought to himself that doctors and lawyers take more than four years of college; Therefore, Im going to be an electrical engineer. Furman was with Herman at the time and decided that he would be one too.
Now they didnt know what they did, but they did know that they made lots of money. Then they decided to talked to the principal Stanley Walkowicz about places to go to become an Electrical Engineer, he said that theyre two schools that you could get a degree in that field around here: Clemson which is out of state and very expensive and NC State which is five hours away.
But you boys need to go to trade school. They were not A students, but Bs and Cs.
So they sent their application to NC State anyway, and received a letter stating that there application had been received. Not accepted just received.
Well, summer was over and it came about time for school to start at NC State and they still hadnt received an accepted letter, but Bobby Jean McCarter had received a scholarship to NC State and he was leaving at 3 am the next morning. So they decided with their dad that they would follow them down to NC State because they didnt know how to get there.
Now when they arrived at NC State, the twins saw that there were two very long lines, and asked a student in one of the two very long lines, “what is this line” and a student responded with “This line is to get your dormitory room.” Well, the boys thought yes we will need a place to stay in the dorms so they got into that line.
After they waited in line for two hours they finally got to the front of the line. The lady said you are twins; hey look everybody talking to her colleagues, these boys are identical twins. After starring them down and everything getting back to normal, they finally asked for their names. They look on their 3 X 5 cards, remember this is 1950s. No computers. They couldnt find their names, so then they look at the ones that were processed just recently and couldnt find them either.
So the lady at the desk said that you are in the wrong line and need to go to the other line. They were about to leave when Herman said can we just pay now. If we go in that line for 2 hours, then come back to this line for another two hours, then the day will be gone, just let us pay and if they dont let us into school you know that we will come back to get our money back. The lady asked her boss if that would be OK and he said alright, let them pay and give them a key to their room.
Now, that they had their room key, it was time to get into college. So they got into the other line and waited another two more hours and again got to the front of the line. And it was like dega vu. Hey, Hey look at these two boys their identical twins.
After all the people came by and looked at the twin boys, the question came up again what are your names, and again there is no 3 X 5 card with their names on it. So then they look at the recent stack of people accepted and again no card. Then they look at all of the cards and they found the card and it said that the application is still being process.
Now they had a problem, do you let them in or do you send them home. They were about to send them home when one of the twins said we have our room key, they gave us a room key in the other line. This seems to have changed everything. The lady at the desk asked the older gentleman behind her, can we let them into school? The older gentleman with a disgusted look on his face said Alright let them into school. So they paid there money and now were students at NC State.
During there orientation the track coach got up and talked about track. So they joined the track team. They ran track all 4 years and both became electrical engineers.