City of Wynne needs a resurrection

“Aaaat center, standing at six feet from Wynnnnnne, Arkansas! Number 52! Princellaaaaa Smith!”

I can still hear Chris Babb at Ouachita Baptist University calling my name in the starting lineup for the Lady Tiger basketball team in Arkadelphia. I was ready to compete, but sometimes I inwardly chuckled. I was not six feel tall. I was 5’11,” but height looks so much taller on a girl, and 6’0” definitely sounded better.

A year prior, I wasn’t good enough to play college basketball, barely getting playing time in high school. But my father trained me in the humble concrete gym at E.U. DeShay Park in Wynne, and when I returned for my senior year, I became an All-State, AllStar, highly recruited athlete.

The Wynne Yellowjackets became known as the “Beast from East,” home of the multi-time state football champs; and an incubator for many future college athletes. More importantly, the E.U. DeShay building was the only place where kids from the most impoverished ward in Wynne could play and enjoy recreation.

When a tornado wreaked havoc in Wynne on March 31, 2023, the devastation it caused rendered our little town unrecognizable. We had never experienced anything like it. It was always “the other towns” and never “us.” I no longer live in Wynne, but my parents, several relatives, and loved ones do. When I return home for visits, it’s like my car can drive itself to my dad’s church, my parents’ home, local stores, and that little humble concrete gym at the E.U. DeShay Park where my dad trained me and where he has operated a non-profit neighborhood youth program for nearly 30 years and counting called Boys 2 Men/Girls 2 Women.

Before I could drive back home, people texted me photos and video of the crumbled E.U. DeShay building, and in the rubble were photos of kids playing ball, athletes lifting weights, and newspaper clippings of former Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller surrounded by my Boys 2 Men/Girls 2 Women kids on his “Win visits Wynne” trip, his first ever to that little town.

Gone was the plaque honoring Mr. DeShay. It had apparently been hurled away by the storm. Shortly before Mr. DeShay died, my dad, who is a minister, had prayed for him in his home just feet away from that gym. Little did either of them know that about 15 years later, Dad would be a new iteration of E.U. DeShay for Wynne.

I can’t imagine the level of emotional heaviness that Dad must have been feeling when he couldn’t find that plaque in what was left of that building, and I can’t imagine how low his heart sank when the current mayor of Wynne told him in a room full of community leaders that she had no plans to rebuild the E.U. DeShay building in the Ward 4 park.

Who was E.U. DeShay, and why is his legacy so significant?

The fastest way to destroy a small town is to ignore, deprive, or abandon its children. If your school is weak, your small town is weak. If you lack in parks and recreational activities, you lack in vitality. The parents will leave, your population will decrease, and so will financial resources and revenue. Businesses will dry up. Neighborhoods become small deserts, and there is no life. It eventually dies.

E.U. DeShay, a World War I veteran who at age 50 registered for the World War II draft, revitalized Wynne during a time when the town was still segregated by race. He was a principal at Childress High School where the Black students attended, and he also filled in the gaps wherever he was needed. While Mr. DeShay could be found in his office or leading meetings of school officials, he could also be spotted refereeing the school’s basketball games. He absolutely loved kids, and no segregation or lack of financial resources would stop him from providing them with the best and most loving environment possible.

Like my own dad, Mr. DeShay used sports as a teaching tool for local kids. This was significant since most Black children at the time and in present day did not have pools, centers, and other means of recreation which are vital in child development and keep them out of trouble and mischief.

Alvin Futrell, 76, was the first Black basketball player to graduate from Wynne Public Schools. In 2017 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, and is the 2017 recipient of the Willie Tate Meritorious Humanitarian Award. Prior to Wynne’s school integration, Futrell’s principal was E.U. DeShay.

“Mr. DeShay introduced tennis to the Black community,” Futrell said. “He put a tennis net on grass and lined it with white lime to create lines on the grass. He taught us some techniques, and it was open for the school and the entire community. I had never really thought about tennis until then. He exposed me to things that I was not privy to.”

This is the type of pride E.U. DeShay instilled in people who were constantly fed messages that they were “less than.” He didn’t complain. He didn’t display a spirit of heaviness. He had a joyous positive spirit like a happy warrior. Instead, he just countered the message of inferiority with a message of worthiness, and sports was his tool.

“He cut through our family’s backyard on the way to work at the school. I remember hearing him singing and he walked tall,” Futrell said. He was deeply disappointed upon hearing that Wynne’s mayor does not want to rebuild the E.U. DeShay Building at the park.

“He used basketball to keep the kids off the street. It was a connecting rod between him and the kids. The creation of the DeShay building gave the kids something to do and took some pressure off the school and the churches to find recreation for the kids. The park gave us a central location where we could do those things. He was key in that sentiment, and that’s why they named the gym building after him. I know there is a push to erase the Black culture, but I didn’t think a mayor would ever be bold enough to do this in Wynne.”

Futrell is right. I never thought I would see the day when a mayor of Wynne had to be convinced to put children first, because we have always just taken it for granted that the spirit of the city understood this.

On Resurrection Sunday, as Wynne still struggles to regain life one year following that tornado, I recall a number of news quotes from residents: “The tornado didn’t discriminate its damage on white or Black people. It hit everybody. We all came together to help each other, find loved ones, dig through rubble, and pick up the pieces.”

That is true, but as we do with most tragedies in America, we sober up for a few weeks, then we go right back into our respective corners of division. Nowhere is this more present in Arkansas’ Delta region than in Wynne disaster recovery. The storm didn’t discriminate, but the recovery process has, and the ghost of E.U. DeShay looms large over the “City With A Smile” as it has been wiped off of so many of the residents’ faces.