Ed Cifers was born on July 18, 1916 and grew up in Kingsport. He began his athletic career at Dobyns-Bennett High School where he was a four sport letterman and made All-State in football.

When he graduated in 1934 he moved to Knoxville, Tennessee and played for University of Tennessee Vols. At UT he was a standout end and on three of Coach Robert Neyland’s SEC Championship teams. He lettered in 1938, 1939 and 1940. Ed played in the 1939 Orange Bowl, 1940 Rose Bowl and 1941 Sugar Bowl.

Upon graduation from UT, Ed played for the Washington Redskins, which won an NFL Championship in 1941. He finished his All-Pro career with the Chicago Bearsin 1948. In 1942 he entered the U.S. Navy where he was a Lieutenant. In the Navy he played on the Del-Monte Pre-Flight football team. He served the duration of World War II at the Norfolk Naval Base.

Ed married Catherine Daugherty and they returned to Knoxville to raise their family. He worked for Daugherty & Waters Construction Company until 1961. He joined the Hosiery Mill of Charles H. Bacon Company in Lenoir City, Tennessee and served as president until retiring in 1990.

After retirement he served on the corporate boards of Hamilton Bank and Lenoir City National Bank. Ed took particular pleasure in his membership in the Optimist Club and his service as a high school football referee. In addition, he served as president of the Quarterback Club.

Ed had three brothers, Bill, Bobby Cifers (who was 2010 DBHS Hall of Hall Inductee), George and three sisters.

He was inducted into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame in 1986. He became a member of Sports Illustrated Silver Anniversary American Team in 1965.

Throughout Ed’s business and retirement years, he took great pleasure maintaining his Kingsport connections.

Ed Cifers passed away on July 19, 2005.

Elizabeth "Lib” Dudney was born in Kingsport and graduated from Dobyns-Bennett High School in 1945. After graduated she attended Southwestern at Memphis (now, Rhodes College) in 1949, where (among other honors) she was named the Outstanding Senior Woman Athlete.

She returned to Kingsport to teach science at John Sevier Junior High School. In 1967 Lib was named the Outstanding Science Teacher of the Southern Appalachian Science Association.

In 1972 she moved to the high school level at Dobyns-Bennett to become the coach of the only girl’s football team. Lib and other coaches had to drive the girls to the games. She coached the girl’s basketball team until 1973. She not only had to drive the girls to the games, she had to buy the regulation basketballs to replace the “balloons” the girls used in gym class. All sports sanctioned by the TSSA were in the school by 1974.

In 1985 Lib was elected to the Board of Education, serving as president from 1991-1993. During her tenure the Board started the construction of the new Washington Elementary School and renovations of three elementary school.

Lib began serving on the Dobyns-Bennett Alumni Board in 1993 and served as president 1994-1996. While on the board the Alumni Foundation was formed for the purpose of raising funds to build the Dobyns-Bennett Foundation Field House and raised $2.8 million toward the cost.

She has served as president of the Senior Citizens Advisory Committee, the organizer of Friends of the Kingsport Senior Center and as a cook for Meals-on-Wheels for 24 years.

Lib co-edited with George Peters, Sr., another inductee, the papers of LeRoy Sprankle into the book “My Boys”.

William Reed “Doe” Hood is a native of Kingsport. In 1945 Doe served as center on the Dobyns-Bennett High School championship football team. He is remembered by his teammates as a spirit lifter and not afraid to “mix it up”. According to the 1946 Maroon and Gray Year Book he was a great dancer and “jitterbug” was his specialty. He was given the honor of being named the most popular male.

While still at D-B he began work with a Kingsport architectural firm. When he retired he was a licensed contractor in Florida and one of only three registered architects in the state to achieve this status without benefit of a college education.

He was a pioneer in the application of computer aided design (CAD) to architecture and construction, owned his own firms and designed and/or built houses, apartments, condominiums, commercial/public buildings and shopping centers. Just prior to retirement he coordinated the efforts of his and five other architectural firms in designing the Orange County Florida Convention Center. Doe used his flair for mathematics to gain entry into and to propel him to the top of his profession.

George Belk Peters, Sr. was born in Morristown, Tennessee and moved to Kingsport with his family and twin brother, Thomas Landon Peters in 1924 at the age of two. He was a lifelong resident of Kingsport. George graduated from Dobyns-Bennett High School in 1941.

After graduation he enrolled in Davidson College along with his brohter. In 1943 they both enlisted in the Army where Geoorge served in the 69th Infantry Division as Lieutenant and met the Russians at the Elbe River.

After World War II he returned to Davidson where he served as president of the ‘D’ Club, his senior class and Omicron Delta Kappa. He was an outstanding athlete in both high school and college lettering in football, basketball and track. George was inducted into the Davidson Athletics Hall of Fame in 1994.

Davidson’s Treasurer, F. L. Jackson, said these words about George B. Peters, Jr. as the first recipient of Davidson’s ‘Tommy Peters Award’ - Davidson's highest athletic honor - named after his brother. “Whether on the football field, on the basketball court, on the track around campus and in the classroom, George demonstrated the qualities of conduct and leadership’. George was captain of both the basketball and track teams and President of his senior class at Davidson."

George was the owner of the Peters Oil Company and later worked in the printing and binding business for Kingsport Press and Southeastern Color Graphics.

George had a love of family, friends, sports and music. He had a gift for poetry and song and he demonstrated this by serving his community singing and performing with ‘The Has Beens’ and the Kiwanis Kapers. George, “Lib” Dudney and Martha Eagan worked together to compile and complete a book, “My Boys” about sports in the early days of Kingsport during the life and times of the legendary LeRoy Sprankle. This work must have spurred George to write a book “An American Family” about his life in Kingsport from 1922 to 1947.

George B. Peters, Sr. died November 4, 2008.

Thomas Landon Peters and his twin brother to George Belk Peters, Sr., were born in Morristown, Tennessee and moved to Kingsport in 1924 at the age of two. While at Dobyns-Bennett High School he played football, basketball, track and baseball. He graduated from Dobyns-Bennett in 1941.

After high school he and his brother, George went to Davidson College. During the 1942-1943 seasons, at the age of twenty, he won four sports letters (football, basketball, track and baseball). He was the first and possibly the only one to accomplish such a feat at Davidson.

College officials at Davidson had these words to say about him: “Every now and then there comes to college, campus men who by their skill of body and mind, their training and their indomitable will to win, earn for themselves the enduring title of ‘great athletes’ – Tommy Peters was one of these. He had the endowment of heart and mind that gave him unmistakable leadership.” His experience at Dobyns-Bennett High School under many great coaches and mentors helped shape his skill and attitude.

Tommy and George enlisted in the Army  in 1943. Tommy was a First Lieutenant in the Sixty Third Infantry Division of the Seventh Army and was considered a war hero. He led a rifle company across Southern France and into Germany during the Battle of the Bulge. He was awarded two Purple Hearts and two Silver Stars. He died in combat in April 1945, just before the end of the War.

At Davidson College, the Peters Family established the Annual Tommy Peters Award to recognize the outstanding male athlete. It is presented to athletes who possess the attributes which had defined Tommy’s greatness and embodied the spirit and the tradition of Davidson. He was the first inductee in the Davidson Athletic Hall of Fame in 1989.

Dr. John Shelton Reed was born in Clintwood, Virginia in 1915. In 1918 he moved with his parent, Elizabeth and Dr. William Reed, to Kingsport as they recognized the potential of this new city.

As a student a Dobyns-Bennett, Shelton was an enthusiastic debater as well as an athlete. He loved his football, basketball and golf days at D-B. He continued to play in college. In addition he was a great music lover. In high school he was the Tennessee Sate Champion piccolo player, playing in the band under Fess Witt. Later in life, he served as a director of the Kingsport Symphony Orchestra board.

Dr. Reed's love of sports was long lived as he continued to enjoy gold and tennis throughout life. He and his wife, Alice, skied until age 80. Dr. Reed was an honorary member of the Beech Mountain Ski Patrol.

Growing up in a house on Watauga Street, he became acquainted with George Eastman who was visiting a neighbor. Eastman was so impressed with Shelton's outstanding high school performance and secured a scholarship for him at the University of Rochester. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Psi Upsilon fraternities, graduating cum laude with a BA. He then graduated in 1940 with honors from Harvard University with a medical degree and as a member of Nu Sigma Nu fraternity.

He practiced in Kingsport for nearly 40 years as a general surgeon. During his residence in Kingsport, his accomplishments are too numerous to innumerate and founded the Surgical Associates of Kingsport. He was appointed as clinical professor of surgery at the James H. Quillen College of Medicine. Upon his retirement at age 70 he became interested in working more with the ETSU Quillen College of Medicine.

His greatest display of affection for the Quillen College of Medicine came with the creation of the Reed Chair of Surgery. The endowed chair was established by Dr. Reed and the Quillen College of Medicine, Department of Surgery.

In 1999 Dr. Reed was the receipient of the George L. Carter Award.

Dr. Reed passed away at the age of 95 on May 2, 2010.

Robert "Bobby" L. Perers, Jr. was born in Ebenezer, Tenn. in 1919 and graduated from Dobyns-Bennett in 1938 as the school's first All-Southern football player. He won the Bordon Award in 1937.

After high school he attended Princeton University serving as captain of the football team (1941) in and received All-American Honors. He also lettered in basketball (1939-1940), baseball (1942) and track. His class is the only class in Princeton's history to never lost to Yale in football.

Having served as Cadet Colonel of Princeton's ROTC unit, Bobby served with Patton's Third Army in Europe as a captain. He was awarded the Bronze Star for bravery.

While in the Army, he was asked to try out for the Army All-Star football team that played against five professional teams to raise money for war bonds. As the only Ivy Leaguer asked to try out, Bobby was ultimately made a captain of the team which posted a three to two record against the pros. He was subsequently offered professional contracts with the New York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles.

Bobby returned to Kingsport after the war and started a building supply company - Citizens Supply and his wife, Jackie had a design shop in the store. He also served three terms in the Tennessee Legislature. In 1967 he moved to New York City becoming one of the first practitioners in the executive search business with Paul Stafford Associates and as president of Devin, Baldwin and Peters, Inc.

Bobby was named to the All-Century Princeton University Team and was selected for the Sports Illustrated All-American Silver Anniversary Team.

Robert L. Peters, Jr. passed away on October 30, 2001.

The Robert L. Peters, Jr. '42 Award is presented annually to an alumnus who has made significant contributions to the game of baseball at any level following his graduation or, having played baseball at Princeton, has distinguished himself after graduation in his chosen field of endeavor. Established by the Friends of Princeton Baseball in 1984 in honor of Bob Peters, who has provided inspiration to generations of Princeton student-athletes through his example as a gentleman, leader, patriot and competitor.