Hines family donates memorabilia from local legend to Hall of Fame
The Union County Sports Hall of Fame recently got a donation from the family of one its most hallowed members.
Glen Ray Hines, an El Dorado football legend who was an AllAmerican at Arkansas before enjoying a distinguished career in the pros, was inducted into the Union County Sports Hall of
Fame in 2012.
His family donated two varsity jackets and some photos of Hines, but how everything came together was several months in the making.
After his death in February of 2019, Hines' family began the process of going through all of the memorabilia attained during his career.
“My mom and dad moved a lot over the years, and it wasn't until several months after he had passed away that my mom was really able to bring herself to start going through a lot of his stuff in their house to find out what was in there and to inventory it,” said Glen Ray Hines Jr.
“It turned out to be a lot more stuff than we thought, and he had not really said or told anybody what we he wanted to do with his
any of his stuff. We never really made a decision. No one sat down and said, ‘OK, I'm going to get this or my brother is going to take that or my sister is going to take that.' There were a few things like that, but not a lot.”
As time marched on, a decision needed to be made.
“It got to the point to where my mom was holding on to this stuff and I don't think she wanted to hold on to all of it for obvious reasons,” Hines said. “She's had trouble like any spouse would after losing her spouse, so finally, my sister and I just kind of did one of these, ‘Hey, you need to make a decision with what you want to do with his stuff.'”
It was then that family thought of donating some of Hines' mementos to the Union County Sports Hall of Fame.
“There wasn't a lot of stuff that we held on to individually, but we had a lot of stuff left over, so then the discussion became, and it was my mom's idea, ‘Why don't we try to find out if the Union County Sports Hall of Fame would like any of this stuff,'” Hines said. “Part of that was because he was one of the second group of athletes inducted back in 2012.
“He wasn't able to make it down there, but I went down there with my wife and accepted the honor on his behalf. I was blown away by the love that still existed down there for my dad all those years later. He and my mom hadn't been back there in many years.
“That was the first place we thought about. He's a member of some other things in Texas, the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame, but we figured Union County was probably the best place to offer some of his memorabilia to. That's really in a nutshell what the reason was.”
Randy Ross, the researcher and historian for the Union County Sports Hall of Fame, was thrilled with the news.
“The late Glen Ray Hines was one of the best known athletes to come from not only Union County, but the entire state of Arkansas,” he said. “We are grateful to his wife Jody, and children Glen, Wes and Shelia for thinking of our organization by contributing some of Glen Ray's sports memorabilia to our Union County Sports Hall of Fame Museum. With this donation of items visitors can enjoy, along with our other displays, the rich sports history of Union County Arkansas.”
The younger Hines said the photos of his father that were donated were ones he hadn't seen before.
“There were several pictures I brought down that I had never seen before of my dad in college and pro football that my mom thought they might like to have,” Hines said. “That was the main thing was who was going to take care of it and who it would be valuable to. One of the things that I told Randy was that I'm a student. He wasn't the only great athlete to come out of that area.
“There was that cluster of athletes that came of out of there all within a few years. Jim Mooty, Wayne Harris, my dad, the Burnett brothers, and lots of others that I know I'm leaving out. It's always been fascinating to me that so many good athletes came out of the same area all close around the same time.
“It was never really like that again. That was probably the biggest cluster of great athletes who went on to play for the Razorbacks. My family knows that they are all loved and remembered. That was part of it too.
“He was very happy to be made part of that back in 2012, and we were very honored as a family and humbled by it. They were the first ones that frankly came to our mind, and when they said, ‘Sure, we'll be happy to have some of his stuff,' we were happy to provide it.”
Hines said it was possible that more of his father's collection could be donated in the future.
“There could be more, and Randy was careful to say, ‘Lets call it a loan,'” Hines said. “I guess I hadn't thought about that, and he said, ‘Well, people loan us stuff all the time.' The idea being that I guess they can come and ask for it back. I don't see us ever doing that, but I guess that's their policy down there.
“There are a few other things that we've kept and I don't know that my two boys are going to want this stuff or not. It's the same thing with my sister and my brother. We've got some jerseys and things like that from his college and professional career, as well as the two helmets he wore in his career.
“My brother has got one of them and my sister has the other one. It's kind of funny. He wore one, I think for eight years, and one for maybe the last two years of his career. I think the New Orleans Saints helmet and white Houston Oilers helmet.
“It's stuff like that that we've decided to hold on to for a little while longer. Who knows if that will be forever or not. I guess it depends on what our children want, and they all loved their granddaddy, so it will be up to them.”