DAILY NEWS JOURNAL, GREG TUCKER, 6/22/2014
The big raffle in 1946 was a crowd-pleaser and a financial success. An even bigger raffle in 1950 left many wondering.
This 1946 Ford sedan was awarded to Brents Pearson, winner of the first Lions Club raffle. Now fully restored, it is owned by Joe Pearson, son of the raffle winner.
The first Lions Club in Rutherford County was established in 1933 and met in the new James K. Polk Hotel. Committed to community service and led by R. A. Nausley, a local dentist, the club raised funds and supported the McFadden School lunch program for undernourished students. During the Depression years, the club also sponsored Scout programs and paid for lights for the State Teachers College (now MTSU) football field.
The club purchased and sold war bonds during the war years, provided glasses to needy children, assembled and shipped “care packages” to overseas troops, supported soldier recreation programs, organized athletic leagues, sponsored the courthouse concession stand for employment of the blind and promoted farm projects.
When the county fair was revived in1946 by the new Rutherford County Agricultural & Industrial Fair Corporation, the Lions sponsored a “Miss Rutherford County” competition and raffle. The “popularity contest” winner would be the young lady who sold the most raffle tickets. Billy Pearson remembers: “My father bought a $1 ticket, I think from Nell Lowe, one of the contestants, about 10 minutes before the drawing.”
The raffle prize was a 1946 Ford sedan. Postwar production of consumer vehicles had resumed in 1946 after a three-year hiatus, and new cars were still very rare. Although every local dealer had a new-car waiting list, the Lions had succeeded in getting a new Ford through Brockman Sanders Auto. Interest in the raffle ran high. H. C. Wilson, fairgrounds owner and prosperous truck line operator, was rumored to have bought 1,500 raffle tickets.
Tennessee Gov. Jim Nance McCord, Lions Club President Albert Parsley and Carl Hickerson were on stage for the closing night crowning of “Miss Rutherford County” and the raffle drawing. A former carnival operator, Hickerson organized the popularity contest and raffle. Sue McKnight from Kittrell was crowned by the governor. Shirley Anne Carter, Gloria Gattis, Doris Johnston and Judy Moore were her “maids of honor.”
John Rucker helped Parsley and Hickerson warm up the crowd by rolling a barrel of raffle tickets back and forth across the grandstand stage while a 5-year-old child was recruited from the audience to draw the winning ticket. The winner was Brents Pearson, a Plainview community farmer and carpenter.
“There could not have been a more popular and deserving winner,” remembers E. C. Tolbert. “Pearson was known as a hard-working, honest farmer who well deserved a lucky break. I recall seeing him come to town on Saturdays before the raffle in his1928 Chevrolet. When he was identified as the new car winner, there was warm applause.”
“When Dad walked on stage, Hickerson whispered to him to give some money to the little girl who drew his winning ticket,” notes son Billy. “Dad gave her a $5 bill and got another round of cheers and applause.”
Neighbor James H. Earp was recruited to drive the car home for the Pearsons. “Dad had never driven a standard columnshift,” remembers Billy. Over the next few days Pearson received purchase offers as high as $2,000, but declined to sell. He eventually put over 200,000 miles on the Ford. The car is now owned by son Joe Pearson and has been fully restored.
The contest and raffle netted $9,000 for the Lions. Over the next two years, the club purchased an oxygen tent for the local hospital, bought high school band instruments, sponsored local athletics, contributed to the 4-H swimming pool fund, financed summer camps for local children, and put up Murfreesboro street signs.
With Hickerson serving as club president in 1948, the Lions sponsored the “Industrial, Automobile, Fashion and Amateur Show” apart from and in competition with the financially-strapped county fair. This effort realized $5,500 for the club, much of which paid for a nursery refrigerator and suction pump for the hospital. The club also purchased purebred pigs for the high school Agriculture Training Class, donated to the VFW memorial monument fund, and purchased a lifesaving medal for Mike Lorance.
The 1948 county fair was the last such event, and the Lions Exhibition in 1949 sought to fill the void. “Put a circus, a carnival and vaudeville act together with flower, fashion and auto shows… and the most complete and representative industrial and commercial exhibits… and you still would not have all the attractions that will be offered at the Lions Club Exposition,” boasted the Rutherford Courier, owned and edited by Minor Bragg, a Murfreesboro Lions Club member.
The1949 Exposition site was the northwest corner of the “Central Park tract,” at the intersection of University and Lytle streets in Murfreesboro. All under canvas, the combined tentage, according to Exposition General Chairman Carl Hickerson, was more than that of the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Professional entertainment free to the fairgoers included the Duke of Paducah and Snooky Lansom. The 1949 Exposition netted $3,000 for the Lions. The hospital’s pediatric ward received $1,000. The balance was spent on construction of the Lions’ next raffle prize– the “Dream House.”
In1950 the third annual Lions Club Exposition, again chaired by Hickerson, moved to the old county fairgrounds (made available “free of charge” by owner H. Wilson). This third exposition featured the “Dream House” drawing.
According to news reports, the $18,000 raffle prize was a new brick, three-bedroom house with a built-in garage, completely furnished including a pantry full of groceries. On a lot near the new Stones River Country Club, it was constructed “through the donations of service, cash and materials of many area businesses and individuals.”
Mary Barrett won the ticket-selling “popularity contest.” Her prize was a new Dodge automobile. The winning ticket for the “Dream House” was #32442. Since the winning ticket holder was not present at the time of the drawing, an alternate ticket was drawn and held in case the winning ticketholder did not claim his prize.
“A short time later,” according to the Rutherford Courier (8/15/50), “Jesse E. (‘Little Tooter’) Travis arrived with the winning ticket stub.” It seemed even more curious to some that the alternate ticketholder was T. R. Rowlette. Travis was a prominent local bootlegger and gambler; Rowlette had been involved in local gambling for several decades and was then operating the Torch Club, a busy tavern on the Shelbyville Pike.
A club history by Billy Pearson recounts that “the most famous bootlegger in Murfreesboro won the Dream House, and there was much club discussion as to whether to award him the house.” Travis was eventually given title to the house and property. The “Dream House” became the Travis home and place of business.
Several days after the close of the Exposition, Chairman Hickerson announced that the event proceeds, $20,000, would be donated to the Rutherford Hospital. A final, more modest, Lions Club Exposition was held in 1951 with a new chairman and no “Dream House.”
Rutherford county Historian Greg Tucker can be reached at [email protected].