Remembering the Cattlefeeders
Scrapbook collection highlights Everly girls' hoopsters
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NICK PEDLEY/SENTINEL-NEWS
Bev Rinehart shows off the Everly Heritage Museum's collection of news clippings featuring articles and photos of the Everly Cattlefeeders girls' basetball teams from the 1960s and 1970s.
The yellowed clippings in scrapbooks at the Everly Heritage Museum may be frail, but they carry the weight of a significant period in the town's history.
More than a dozen books filled with news clippings donated by former basketball players, their families and fans help tell the story of the community's stellar girls' basketball teams in the 1960s and 1970s. Museum volunteer Bev Rinehart spent more than a month this summer cataloguing the articles into an Excel spreadsheet to better organize the Cattlefeeders' story, which is rich with thrilling victories and heartbreaking defeats.
Rinehart, who herself played basketball for the Cattlefeeders, found it easy to get lost in the pages while logging each submission.
"It was really fun seeing the evolutions of teams – who was the top scorer this year and who was the top scorer that year," she said. "I was really interested in looking at the rivalries with nearby towns like Hartley and Royal."
The Cattlefeeders made 10 trips to the state tournament between 1961 and 1972, winning it all in 1966. The girls received rabid support from Everly fans in those years, which cemented their legacy in future generations.
"There was nothing like it," Rinehart recalled. "I love the history of the teams and seeing how the community supported them throughout the years. It was fantastic."
NICK PEDLEY/SENTINEL-NEWS
Museum volunteer Bev Rinehart looks through one of the scrapbooks, which were donated by former EHS players, their families and fans.
The scrapbooks feature news clippings from local papers like the Everly News, Hartley Sentinel and Spencer Daily Reporter. Since the Cattlefeeders made so many trips to the state tournament, other collections feature articles from statewide publications like the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Des Moines Register, Nevada Journal, Sioux City Journal and Waterloo Courier.
The scrapbook collection includes submissions from each of the seasons the Cattlefeeders made it to state. They didn't advance in 1969 and 1970, and no scrapbooks or articles have been donated or loaned to the museum from those two years.
People can come peruse the scrapbooks if they wish. The collection is part of the museum's larger Cattlefeeder exhibit, which features trophies, memorabilia and other tidbits from Everly High School lore.
Rinehart believed the articles help transport guests back to the days of Cattlefeeder-mania.
"Nothing compares to reading about those memorable seasons and games," she said.
