Whether it be for his cries of “Touchdown Wildcats!” or “Bottom of the Net!”, Billy Hawley is simply known as the Voice of the Salem Wildcats.

Hawley’s broadcasts on WJBD Radio have been a part of listeners lives for more than a quarter of a century.

Hawley, a graduate of Odin High School, made his debut over the airwaves in 1971 when he covered the Wildcats basketball team at the Centralia Holiday Tournament.

By the fall of 1972 Hawley had added football broadcasts to his resume.

He has been doing both sports on a regular basis ever since.

Hawley has had the pleasure of broadcasting four Salem football teams that have won North Egypt Conference champions (1985, 1991, 1992 and 1997) and 13 teams that have qualified for the state playoffs.
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Many of the faces which were responsible for Salem’s only unbeaten football team in 1943 were back for another great year in 1944.

Second-year coach Kenny Farrar guided the 1944 Wildcats to an 8-1 record and the North Egypt Conference championship with a perfect 6-0 record. The eight wins Salem posted that year tied the 1941 team for most school wins in a season. Only the 1985 and 1991 teams have surpassed that win total for a season. Both of those clubs won nine.
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Through the first 71 years of Salem Wildcats football, only one team has the distinction of going through the season undefeated. At the time of their induction into the Salem High School Sports Hall of Fame that one team is the 1943 squad.

The Wildcats of that season went through the campaign with a 6-0-1 mark. That lone blemish came in a 7-7 tie with Benton.

Under first-year coach Kenny Farrar, the Wildcats won the North Egypt Conference championship that season with a 5-0 mark. A key conference game against Olney was not played that season because of a polio outbreak at that school. Olney was also undefeated at the time.
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Defense was the trademark of the 1939 Salem Wildcats football team.

Out of the nine games Salem played that season, the defense posted shutouts in seven of them.

Salem blanked Pinckneyville in the season opener 42-0. The Wildcats followed with shutout victories against Albion 12-0, Fairfield 13-0, Mt. Carmel 13-0, Centralia 16-0, and Bridgeport 34-0.

The Wildcats also shut out Flora that season, but the game ended in a 0-0 tie.
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Only two Salem High School boys have ever placed in the Illinois state track meet and both occurred under the old one-class system.

The first came when Ross Smith placed second in the hammer throw in 1905.

The other was Louis Middleton, who placed in the state meet on two occasions.
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C. “King” Boring made his biggest impact on the sports world after he graduated from Salem High School in 1922.

After graduating from Northwestern University with a degree in business and accounting, Boring nearly hit big as an owner of a professional basketball team.

Boring, who was nicknamed King because he took on and beat the school bully growing up, purchased the Detroit Gems in an era when pro basketball did not have the appeal that it does today. The Gems were a barnstorming team that played in cities across the country.
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