For decades now, a long list of former and present Meade County football players have defended a field at the bottom of Death Valley behind the Meade County High School on Friday evenings every fall. Countless numbers of cheerleaders, band members, and fans have filed in the stadium to cheer the GreenWaves on to victory and many a radio broadcast has opened with the famous statement, “We now switch to our Meade County GreenWave football broadcast live from Hamilton Field.” But who is this Hamilton that our community’s beloved field is named after?
The first ever MCHS home football game was played against Henry County on September 9, 1966. The coach was Wilson Sears, who in an interview the week before the game, encouraged the community to come out and support the team along with the band, which would play and march in formation at halftime.
After two years without a name, the field would be given one in 1968. It would be a name that would endure to this very day.
An article in 1968 read as follows, “The Meade County High School football field will be dedicated and named on Friday night, October 18, 1968, at 7:45 p.m. prior to Meade County playing Fort Knox. The field will be officially named “Hamilton Field” in honor of the late Mr. Robert Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton served on the Meade County Board of Education for several years and made many worthwhile contributions to the Meade County School System and its youth.”
Robert F. Hamilton, Sn. worked a boat out of Kosmosdale on the Ohio River. According to his grandson, Jeff Hamilton, Robert went missing for over two weeks during the 1937 flood, leaving his wife and friends to fear he had drowned.
“When he did reappear, it was to tie-off the Cormorant (his boat) to a stately oak tree that stood atop the hill in downtown Brandenburg in front of the old Meade County Courthouse. He hitched a ride as far as Ekron, walked overland to his house about three miles north of Big Spring, arrived home in the dead of night, and collapsed on the couch. He slept for two days,” Jeff says. “When he regained his strength, Robert explained to his wife, Elizabeth, that while gone those two weeks, he had been back and forth throughout Southern Indiana, rescuing people from their rooftops and such, as the 1937 flood put so many people in such dire peril, he just had to stay out there and try to help all he could.”
In 1946, J.A. Bickett resigned from the Meade County School Board, and Hamilton was appointed to fill the remainder of Bickett’s term. He would go on to serve the school board until 1966. During those twenty years on the school board, he served as Chairman of the Board from 1953 to 1966.
During his 1958 re-election campaign, he stated, “I feel that my years of experience will help me to better serve these communities. I believe that “Experience is the Best Teacher.” Furthermore, I will be able to devote the amount of time necessary to perform this important task. I pledge to you that I will always do my duty as I see necessary for the betterment of our school system and the children of Meade County.”
Unfortunately, Hamilton would lose his battle with cancer and passed away in 1968. What those “many worthwhile contributions to the Meade County School System and its youth” manifested as have been buried in the sands of time. One thing that is certain, though, is that the Meade County GreenWave football program was born under his time serving as Chairman of the school board. Another thing that is certain is that the powers that be within the school system rushed to dedicate and name a three-year-old football field after Robert Hamilton, immediately after he passed from this world. It seems more than a coincidence that his name would be painted in larger letters than any other man’s name has ever been on a Meade County School District building. That is how much he meant to this county 56 years ago.
It’s not surprising, however, when you add to his heroics from the flood and his time on the school board, he was also the Farm Bureau President and chairman of the Meade County Poultry Committee. Another whole page could be written about his advancements of agriculture in this county and working with the county agent to bring modern practices and soil conservation to Meade County farms.
It’s also not surprising that his son, Robert F. “Bobby” Hamilton, Jr., would go on to serve on the school board, as well, for fourteen years and as Chairman, himself, for twelve of those years. It would be during his tenure that ground was broke for the vocational school. This would be the first time that MCHS students would no longer have to bus to Elizabethtown for vocational classes.
This is how Meade County’s football field got its name back in 1968. And now you know the rest of the story.
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