Sports Broadcaster Vern Hawkins

   One of my earliest memories is listening to the Southwest Missouri State Bears basketball games on Springfield's KWTO-AM radio station. The voice of the Bears back then, in the early 1950s, was Vern Hawkins, and he continued calling the Bears games for another thirty years or so after that.
   A native of Dallas County, Missouri, Hawkins attended Buffalo High School, where he was a star basketball player during the late 1930s and early 1940s. He played one season of basketball for Missouri Valley College in Marshall before he was called into military service during World War II.
   After the war, he transferred to SMS, where he lettered for two years under legendary coach Andy McDonald (after whom McDonald Arena was named). Hawkins started his broadcasting career while still in college, calling Bears games on KGBX radio during the 1949-1950 season, McDonald's final season as head coach. In 1951, Hawkins moved to KWTO, becoming news and sports director.
   One of the highlights of Hawkins's career was broadcasting Bears games during the team's back-to-back NAIA championship years of 1951-52 and 1952-53. In addition to announcing Bears basketball games, he also broadcast Drury College basketball games for several years, and later he added SMS football games to his schedule. Hawkins retired from broadcasting in 1985, having announced approximately 900 Bears basketball games.
   While he was still broadcasting, Hawkins also went into partnership with Bill Virdon (former Major League Baseball player) and Beryl Swan in a sporting goods store in Springfield. He also became a stockbroker and investment advisor.
   Hawkins died in 1993, and he was posthumously inducted into the Springfield-Area Sports Hall of Fame two years later.

   To be sure, there have been several other long-time play-by-play sports announcers in Springfield over the years. These include Bill Maynard and Dick Bradley, both contemporaries of Hawkins. Another name that comes to mind is Ned Reynolds, whose career giving sports news and announcing sporting events for KY-3 TV in Springfield spanned almost fifty years from about 1967 to 2014.
   But I always associate Vern Hawkins, first and foremost, with Springfield sportscasters, because he was the one I listened to as a little kid and he was still going strong long after I grew to adulthood.