Somehow it’s hard to believe the Cullman County Sports Hall of Fame is only six years old.

The induction of members to the hall is now an event many people look forward to each spring, with the banquet held at the Cullman Civic Center.

A variety of people have been inducted into the hall since it began, in part, as a tribute to the late Bill Shelton, the long time sports editor of The Cullman Times.

Former NFL football players Wayne Trimble and Les Kelley are in the hall. So is a former head basketball coach of the Auburn Tigers, Bill Lynn. You’ve got former high school players in the hall who once scored 50 points in a basketball game long before the 3-point shot made its debut in the NBA and eventually made its way down to the high school ranks.

I thought of the first days of the formation of the hall of fame when hall of fame executive committee chairman Felton Easterwood dropped by tickets to this year’s ceremony which took place last night.

Shelton and I used to talk about the need for such a hall when I went to pick up his column each week at the Cullman Health Care Facility, where he spent his last years.

Morgan County and Lawrence County had their own halls for years. It was actually the actions of the Lawrence County Hall of Fame’s committee that actually got the ball rolling here.

They inducted Cullman County’s own Joe Shults for his contribution in establishing a state basketball power at Hatton during his few short years there during the early 1950’s.

“It really shamed us that we didn’t have one,” one of the founding members of the Cullman County Sports Hall of Fame executive committee told me about the induction of a coach into another county’s hall of fame who spent the bulk of his coaching career (at Fairview) in his home county.

I remember one of the planning meetings held at the Cullman County Board of Education office where members went over by-laws of other counties which had halls of fame.

Two legendary coaches, Addison’s A.G. Hicks and Allen Stephenson, were at the meeting to share how Winston County inducted its members. It’s a model the executive committee followed when coming up with its own plan, which includes the induction of members from each community with a high school in addition to at large members.

I also remembered another meeting at Shoney’s where the plans for the initial banquet were discussed.

The formation of the hall took on a new meaning when Shelton passed away in January 2000. He and Shults were the inspiration for the halls. Shelton, a member of the Alabama Sports Writers Hall of Fame and the Alabama High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame, was listed as its first member.

I wish Bill had lived to see the induction of the class that included himself as a member. I enjoyed reading the bios of that class as my assistant, Johnathan Bentley, and I wrote stories on their induction. I learned a lot about the history of Cullman County athletics while working on that project.

Bill would have appreciated the manner of which people were inducted. There were professional athletes and major college athletes who were inducted. Highly successful coaches were included in the class. So were the pioneers of women’s athletics and the behind-the-scenes people who contributed not only to high school and college athletics, but also to the youth and adult parks and recreation programs.

Those were the types of people Shelton championed during his many of years of service to The Times.

On Bill’s behalf, I would like to congratulate the members of this year’s class who have contributed many years to improving the quality of life in this community.

I’ve had the chance to work with some of them during my tenure as sports editor such as Good Hope coach Rosemary Brown, who has established the Raider volleyball program as an annual visitor to the AHSAA’s Elite Eight in Pelham, and Norman Adams, who reached the highest level of minor league baseball before returning home to help lay the foundation for two state championship softball teams at Cullman High School.

‰ Scott Turner is the managing editor of The Cullman Times. Publisher Ed Darling is on vacation this week. His column will return next Sunday.