
I enjoyed putting together the recent newsletters regarding Jackson County Central/Jackson High School/college football and as mentioned before, have received nice feedback on those pieces. Thanks again for that.
Tyrone Wacker deserves much of the credit on those. His history of high school football for Jackson and JCC was an outstanding starting point.
I tried to fill in and add things and at least a couple of items slipped through the cracks.
Here’s a couple that I know about.
Paul Meium, apparently eager for a staff position as fact checker, passed along a name that was omitted from the three-generation list of Vacuras to play at JHS.
Guy Vacura was left off the list. He’s added below.
Guy was named to the all-Southwest Conference team in 1976
Here’s the updated list of Vacuras that played for the Bluejays.
Listed are name, position and years played for JHS:
Rudolph Vacura, guard-tackle, 1924-25
Harold Vacura, right tackle, 1927-28
Cyril Vacura, halfback, 1928-29
Gordon Vacura, left end, 1934-35
Walt Vacura, tackle, 1942-43
Godfrey Vacura, tackle, 1942-44
Ken Vacura, guard, 1949-51
Jim Vacura, halfback, 1953-55
Jerry Vacura, halfback, 1965-67
Rick Vacura, halfback, 1966-69
Guy Vacura, guard, 1975-76
The other name was sent in by reader Rick Hansen.
Rick added a name to the list of players from JHS in the late 1960s that played college football.
He added the name of 1969 Jackson grad Larry Armstong, who was an all-Southwest Conference quarterback in 1968.
Larry moved to Jackson from Truman as a junior with his parents, Lloyd and Gladys Armstrong, who were teachers.
He attended South Dakota State on a football scholarship and graduated with a baseball scholarship from Winona State in 1973.
After his graduation from college, he entered Air Officer Candidate School then entered Naval Flight Officer Training, was commissioned an Ensign in 1974 and was medically retired from the United States Navy in 1975.
Armstrong owned Hawarden Chiropractic in Hawarden, Iowa before opening Sioux Center Chiropractic Wellness Clinic. He later operated Orthomolecular Integrative Infusion Center.
What brought Larry to Hawarden to begin with after graduating from Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport was taking a position to work for Dr. Larry Dixon.
Larry Dixon is well known around the JCC community, especially with the wrestling program, having operated Chiropractic Associates, and later Dixon Family Chiropractic in Spirit Lake for many years.
Among the doctors on Larry Dixon’s staff are his son, Wade, and his wife Adelee (Gade) Dixon, who was recommended to Dixon Family Chiropractic while she was a student-athlete athlete at Heron Lake-Okabena-Lakefield.
Maybe that’s part of the reason I leave information out of newsletters occasionally is taking too many side streets along the way.
Anyway, if you have any questions or would like to see some topic explored, contact me at sportsdr44@hotmail.com.
I remember that 1969 Blue Jay/ Fairmont game and the Blue Jays final drive of the game where they should have won the game at the very end of the game. No time on the clock.