Hall of Fame
Ron Hodges was a three-sport letterman competing in football, basketball and track while attending Northwestern.
Memories that stick out to Hodges include breaking the Oklahoma Collegiate Conference record in shot put in 1959, and the team winning the conference meet in 1958 by a half point to beat Oklahoma Baptist University, who had dominated the conference for many years. Hodges also was all-conference in football.
Hodges went on to graduate from Northwestern in 1960 and took his first teaching and coaching job in Carmen.
After a three-year stint in Carmen, he became the principal and coach at Fowler, Kan., for three years, principal and superintendent at Arnett for nine years, and then spent 24 years as the superintendent at Tonkawa, retiring in 1999.
During those public school years, he served on the State Textbook Committee for five years and was president of the Northwest District Oklahoma Education Association.
While in Tonkawa he also served the community as president of the Tonkawa Chamber of Commerce, and in 1985, he was named as Tonkawa’s Citizen of the Year.
Hodges is humbled at being inducted into the Hall of Fame.
“It’s a great honor to be in the Northwestern Sports Hall of Fame because there have been so many fine athletes to come out of this institution,” Hodges said. “I am deeply moved to be among such a prestigious group of athletes.”
Hodges’ wife Jobyn is a 1959 Northwestern graduate, and their children followed in their
footsteps by attending Northwestern. Children Dirk (1987), Van (1989) and Julee Meliza (1992) are all graduates of Northwestern.
