The Carl and Marjorie Hinesley Family Memorial Athletic Endowment has been established through the Franklin County Community Foundation to provide ancillary support to the women’s athletic programs and the men’s baseball program at Franklin County High School. The interest generated by this endowment fund will benefit student athletes by providing participants in these sports programs additional activities or equipment not normally covered by the school’s annual Athletic Department budget.
Carl and Marjorie were ardent supporters of high school athletics, and both taught and coached for many years at Brookville High School (now Franklin County High School). They met as students at Ball State Teachers College (now Ball State University) while they were both in the process of adding teaching certificates to their physical education/health majors. Carl had been an outstanding high school athlete in baseball and basketball and continued playing at Ball State. He was a member of the basketball team and was an outstanding left-handed baseball pitcher. Marjorie was also active in sports in high school and at Ball State University, earning the highest award available for women athletes in intramural sports. (Intercollegiate sports for women were not available at that time.)
After their college years, Carl and Marjorie were married in London, Kentucky, on July 6, 1938. They eloped and were married outside of the state of Indiana to keep their marriage a secret, since married women were not allowed to teach at that time. Marjorie had started her teaching career in 1936 at Kokomo Public Schools, and she continued to teach another year before announcing her marriage. She then took a break from teaching until 1951 when she began teaching physical education and health at Brookville High School. Carl had been teaching at BHS since 1942.
At BHS, Carl coached baseball for seven years, basketball for four years, and served as athletic director from 1948-1957. His 27 years of coaching and teaching physical education, biology, health and social studies at Brookville were interrupted by deployment to the U.S. Army for two years. When he returned from the war, he returned to BHS. The B-High Spirit printed in March 29, 1946, “ . . . all of the kids cheered when they knew he was coming back to teach.” Mr. Hinesley was well known for his many army, hunting, and baseball stories, as well as for his coaching ability and friendly demeanor. Mr. Hinesley retired from teaching in 1971.
While at Brookville High School, Mrs. Hinesley made it her mission to offer the girls the interscholastic opportunities for sports competition that had never been available to her. She started the varsity sports program for girls and was Brookville’s first girls’ coach in four sports–basketball, volleyball, track, and tennis. While she had been head of the very popular intramural program for girls, G.A.A, for many years, she firmly believed that girls should have all the opportunities available to them that were available for the boys’ varsity teams. Upon retirement from BHS, Marjorie stated , “I take great satisfaction in having helped the girls (I coached) to embark upon their quest for athletic recognition. Our girls can compete with the best of them, and their records in their first years speak for themselves. They have won several awards including two sectional titles. The years will bring them many more rewards for their endeavors, and I am proud that I was a part of their beginning.” (The Brooklet, 1978) Mrs. Hinesley taught girls’ physical education (and occasionally English and health classes) for 17 years at BHS, from 1951 until her retirement in 1978. “Mrs. Hinesley was a great teacher. She challenged her students and her family with high expectations and unconditional love,” said Margaret Linnegar Hinesley, former student and daughter-in-law. Her family agrees that she was a “woman ahead of her time in many ways,” and the couple’s seven granddaughters all say, “She was a hip grandma!”
The Hinesleys were married for 65 years. They had three children, all graduates of Brookville High School: Karen, a university professor at IPFW in Fort Wayne, Indiana (now retired); Carl Phillip, a metallurgical engineer in Pinehurst, North Carolina; and Rex, a lawyer for the county of San Bernardino, California. This memorial endowment fund has been established by the Hinesley children as a tribute to their parents and as a means of assisting future athletic teams at FCHS.