The 1998 season was a historic one in more ways than one for the Salem Wildcats tennis team and Coach John Thomas.

Salem established a new school record for wins in a season with a record of 27-4. Two of those losses came to Olney, which had an undefeated regular season. One of those setbacks to Olney came at the North Egypt Conference Tournament where the Wildcats finished second. Alex Bryant won the NEC singles championship at the No. 5 position, while Bryant and Justin Henke won the NEC Doubles title at No. 2. Salem’s other defeats came at the hands of Teutopolis and Charleston. During its regular season run the Wildcats posted a perfect 3-0 record as it won the Carmi Quad Doubles Tournament. The Wildcats did not lose a game in three of their wins and lost just once in four of their victories.
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Mr. B.E. Gum was the Superintendent at Salem Community High School from 1937 until his retirement in 1967. The gymnasium bearing his name is a reminder of the commitment he had toward sports and is the reason he is being inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame.

Mr. Gum began his career in Keyesport and then in Odin. When the two and three year high schools became obsolete, Mr. Gum was hired in Salem in District #111. Mr. Gum saw an opportunity to form a new Community High School district and was instrumental, along with board President John L. Kagy, in forming Salem Community High School District #600. This new school included several surrounding towns in the tax rich properties of the oil and gas that encompassed 1/3 of Marion County.
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Kirby Phillips had already enjoyed coaching success with the Salem Wildcats football underclassmen when he became the head coach of the boys track program in 1985. Two year later Phillips added head coach of the Wildcats and Lady Wildcats cross country teams to his duties. When Phillips stepped away from those positions after the 2001-02 school year, he had taken each of those programs to heights not previously achieved.

While his first Salem boys track team in 1985 came up short at the North Egypt Conference Meet, his squads came back to win the title in each of the next 16 seasons. Phillips’ greatest success with the Wildcats track program came in 1999 when Salem grabbed a share of the Class AA Murphysboro Sectional championship. That remains as the program’s only sectional title. That 1999 team later finished fourth at the state meet. During Phillips’ track tenure Salem qualified more than 30 individuals and 15 relay teams for the Class AA state meet in a two-class system.
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A multi-sport athlete during his Salem Community High School days, 1977 graduate Joe Petrea saved his best for the baseball field.

Petrea participated in cross country, basketball and baseball during his time with the Wildcats and received the Salem team rebounding award for the 1976-77 season. It was Petrea’s abilities on the baseball field that landed him a spot at Kaskaskia College where he excelled for the Blue Devils from 1977-1979. Petrea, who handled first base duties, made an immediate impact at Kaskaskia College as during the 1977 fall season he hit .354 and was selected to the Southern Illinois Collegiate Conference Team.
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When Janet Holst-Behrens arrived in Salem in 1995, she also inherited a Lady Wildcat basketball program that had posted just one winning season in the previous 14 years. Twenty-one years later Holst-Behrens has built a model of consistent success and took the program to levels it had never reached before.

Prior to her stop at Salem, Holst had put together a highly successful stint at Newcomb, New Mexico where she compiled a 134-60 record during her eight seasons there, which included four straight 20 win seasons. It took a little while for Holst to rebuild the Salem program, as her first three teams combined for a 33-46 record. Starting in the 1998-99 season her teams had winning campaigns in 17 of the next 18 years, which included twelve 20 win seasons. Her teams won six conference championships, a run that began when it claimed the North Egypt Conference championship in 1999 when it compiled a perfect 14-0 record. That was the first conference title for the Lady Wildcats in 20 years. After Salem moved to the Apollo Conference for the 2003-2004 school year, her teams won the title in 2005, 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2012.
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While it was basketball that proved to be her ticket to college, it was also her excellence in volleyball that made Danette (Jones) Wolfe a multi-sport standout athlete at Salem Community High School.

A 2001 SCHS graduate, Wolfe had to wait two years for a talented senior class that won 63 games during that span to crack the Lady Wildcats lineup. Once she got her chance as a junior in the 1999 season, the middle hitter was named the North Egypt Conference Most Valuable Player Award. Besides her individual honor, Wolfe helped Salem compile a 25-7 record to along with an NEC and Class AA regional championship. Wolfe won another NEC MVP Award in volleyball during her senior season in 2000, as she helped the Lady Wildcats put together a 22-6 record and another NEC title.

Although Wolfe also had to wait until her junior season to crack the Salem starting lineup in basketball, she proved to be a valuable sixth man as a sophomore for the 1998-99 Lady Wildcats squad that went 28-3, won the NEC championship and advanced tot he Class AA Elite Eight. Jones averaged 8.2 points per game as a sophomore and earned NEC Honorable Mention status. Wolfe proved to be an early threat from long range, as her 38.5 percentage from three-point territory (25-65) ranked ninth best in school history at the time of her induction. She also qualified for state competition in the Country Financial Three-Point Shot competition.
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