The oil industry brought Salem some fine athletes and one of the finest was a hard running fullback that earned the nickname, “The Bull Moose.” Don Wile, who graduated from Salem Community High School in 1944 and participated in football, basketball and track, was an inductee of 1986 into the Salem High School Sports Hall of Fame.

Wile was the scoring leader on the outstanding 1943 team that had only a 7-7 tie with Benton to otherwise mar a perfect season. That 1943 team gained world-wide attention with the 188-0 win over Fairfield in which Wile scored 88 points. Football was Wile’s strongest sport, lettering four years.

After graduation from high school, he attended Evansville College for one year, lettering in football as a halfback. He transferred to Tulsa University where he lettered his sophomore and junior years. He devoted his senior year to studies only.

Wile participated on three North Egypt Conference Champion Salem teams in 1940, 1941 and 1943. In 1942, with a 5-1 NEC record, Salem finished second to Flora.

Salem teams, during his four years, had a 26-6-2 record and were 22-2 in conference play. He was a teammate with previously inducted Bob Scoles on the team that had an 8-1 record in 1941, winning the Conference Championship, 6-0, and contributed to the 13-12 win over Centralia.

Wile was selected to the Champaign News-Gazette All-State team his senior year in high school and was named captain of the All-State team. Co-incidentally, he has a younger brother, Dan, who also was a star full-back for the Wildcats, particularly on the outstanding team of 1953, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1995.

Wile retired after 31 years with Dow Chemical. He married the former Ann Lyons and they have two sons, Don and John, and a daughter, Cathy.