Ilion High School - Class of 1925

Herkimer Evening Telegram - August 5, 1950

Ilion High School Football Squad of 1925 to Observe Twenty-fifth Anniversary During Coming Grid Season

Article 3

Photo caption - Football Squad of 1925 - Back row, left to right: Coach Bemis, Charles Smith, Mgr.; Casler Snell, Thomas Maury, John Watson, Edward Reddick.
Second row: Clark Bergin, John Hannahs, Earl Capes, Harry Wilkins, Harold Walrath, Ronald Angell.
Third row: Robert Farnum, Gordon Wainman, Owen Farrelly, Ralph Strong, Ceylon Cole, Wood Harrison, Rodney Burghoff.
Fourth row: Ransom Slocum, Captain; Frank Connors, William Armstrong, Herbert Donovan, Borden Seibert, Richard Best, William Murphy.
Front Row: Joe Bowers, John Spicer, Robert Duke, Reginald Gaskill.

Ilion High School Football Squad of 1925 to Observe Twenty-fifth Anniversary During Coming Grid Season

Ilion - The 1925 Ilion High School football team was not a famous team; it didn’t beat Herkimer, the ultimate criterion for all Ilion teams called "good," but it was the first team coached by Ralph "Joe" Bemis, who later produced several championship teams.

The squad celebrates its 25th (silver) anniversary with this year's football season. Many of the boys pictured here, now have hair tinged with the silver appropriate to the occasion. One of the group is a grandfather, and several have boys in high school trying to win their letters just as their fathers were doing when this picture was taken.

The picture is produced now, to stay in harmony with the present "Fall" weather and as a reminder that footballs will soon be thudding all over the valley towns with schools opening just four weeks away.

Front row, left to right: Joe Bowers, ex-president of the Board of Education, now living in Kentucky; John Spicer, an executive with the Hearst newspapers in New York City; Robert Luke, Ilion optometrist and former member of the Board of Education; Reginald Gaskill, believed to be in Dayton, Ohio.

Second row: Ransom Slocum, captain of the team, now in Rand Plant 2; Frank Connors, who later became captain of the '26 team and an all Central New York tackle, now a local insurance salesman; William Armstrong, owner of a farm near Fort Plain; Herbert Donovan, time study in a Rome manufacturing company; Borden Seibert, local funeral director; Richard Best, an executive of a vending machine company, Schenectady; William Murphy, "Mine Host" at Packies.

Third row: Robert Farnam, with a paper making company in Oswego; Gordon Wainman, an engineer at Remington Arms; Owen Farrelly, now a student in Syracuse University; Ralph Strong, with the Philadelphia Fidelity Trust Co., Philadelphia, Pa.; Ceylon Cole, proprietor of an appliance business in Mass.; Wood Harrison, son of Ilion's first coach at the turn of the century, employed locally by Walker's; Rodney Burghoff, Bristol, Conn.

Fourth row: Clark Bergin, later an all Central New York end and a team mate of Eddie Sawyer, Phillies manager, while both were in Ithaca College; John Hannahs, Ilion Boy Scout leader; Frank "Bud" Capes, local mailman and exchairman of the Ilion Recreation Commission; Harry Wilkins, Mohawk; Harold Walrath, present village trustee, Street Commissioner; Ronald Angell, ex-president of the Ilion Varsity Club.

Back row: Coach Bemis, now a salesman in the Rome-Sherrill-Oneida district: Charles Smith, team manager, ex-president of the Ilion Varsity Club; Casler Snell, Ilion, employed with Rem. Arms; Thomas Maury, Herkimer, employed with Martin Automatic of Mohawk: John Watson, Ilion, employed in a Utica office; Edward Reddick, a Utica policeman.