Rod Wells, a three-sport star at Salem Community High School, rushed for 1119 yards in two years with the varsity Wildcats, averaged nearly 11 points per game his senior year in basketball, and was outstanding in the low hurdles in track.

A 1960 graduate of SCHS, he received an appointment to the United States Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs and was sixth in his graduating class in 1964. While at the Air Force Academy, he played freshman football and ended his football activity in his sophomore year after a broken collar bone and two separated shoulders.

In football his senior year in high school, he carried the ball 121 times for 742 yards, having exceptional games against Flora with 113 yards in a 40-12 victory, against Olney with 179 yards in a 25-19 win; and against Bridgeport with 92 yards in a 39-13 victory.
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A stalwart in the line of the Salem Wildcats North Egypt Conference football champion team of 1947 and the near-miss team of 1946, Bill Chance lettered in football, basketball and track at Salem Community High School.

He was a starting guard on the 1946 team that compiled an 8-1 record and on the 1947 championship team that went through the league schedule 6-0. He was an all-conference selection that year.

Chance was a member of the 1947-48 SCHS basketball team that compiled a 27-3 record and won the NEC championship with an 11-1 record.
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A team that generated high hopes for its followers and confirmed some of those hopes with a 23-5 record and a forth Egypt Conference Championship.

Although they opened and closed with losses, Coach Walt Kirk, Jr. , led his Wildcats, the “Knights of Marion County”, to 23 victories in the intervening 26 games while winning the NEC title with an 11-1 mark.

After the opening loss, Salem started a string of victories with an 81-66 win over Effingham with four players scoring in double figures led by Ed Perry’s 28 points, and following with a 52-51 win over Mt. Vernon as Jack Moore led with 16 points.
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Dr. Edward E. Perry, a four sports star in high school, whose basketball career started as a sixth grader with the junior varsity in junior high school and culminated as a three-time letter winner with the University of Illinois Fighting Illini.

Perry, who participated in basketball, baseball, football and track in high school, set records his senior year in high school in football and basketball. While basketball and football were his strongest sports in high school, he also lettered in baseball and track and was a member of the championship 880-yard relay team both his junior and senior years.
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A former three-sports star at Salem Community High School, whose athletic career has wound from high school and college, and has culminated with 30 years in the teaching and coaching field, Phillip “Butch” Newport was inducted into the Salem High School Sports Hall of Fame in 1992.

Newport, a 1953 SCHS graduate, is a teacher and coach at Hollis Grade School at Bartonville. In 1989 his team placed fourth in the state in the Class A Division and he was named Division 4 Coach of the year.
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A forerunner of the now essential “big man” in basketball, Dean White, was a key member of the 1943 Salem Community High School basketball team that won third place in the state tournament.

White participated in football, basketball and track three years at SCHS. He was a member of the North Egypt Conference football championship teams of 1940 and 1941. Salem was second to Flora in 1942 as the 13-0 Flora victory was Salem’s only conference loss that season. In White’s three years of football, Salem had a 16-1-1 conference record, with only one touchdown scored against them in NEC play in 1941.
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