David Goode tenth person to be named George F. Hixson Fellow in New Albany Kiwanis Club’s 93 years

David Goode has become only the tenth person in the 93-year history of the New Albany Kiwanis Club to earn the George F. Hixson Fellowship Award.

Goode is Director of the New Albany Campus of Northeast Mississippi Community College (NEMCC). He received the Hixson Award at the 30^th Annual Kiwanis Hotbed Classic basketball tournament, Saturday, January 22, at New Albany Memorial Gym.

Kiwanis International established the George F. Hixson Fellowship in 1983 to honor its first President, and is the highest honor a local Kiwanis Club can give to one of its members. The Hixson Fellowship recognizes outstanding contributions to the Kiwanis Children’s Fund.

Prior winners of the Hixson Award from the New Albany Kiwanis club were John Ray Cobb, Joe Cook, Warren Cooper, Bobby Gault, Mike Nobles, Bill Parks, Britt Smith, Wayne Smith and Bob Spencer.

This is an image of the George F. Hixson Fellowship medallion. Last Saturday David Goode became only the tenth member in the 93 years history of the New Albany Kiwanis Club to earn the award.

David Goode joined the New Albany Kiwanis Club in February 2007. He served as club president in 2016. He has been chairman of the Kiwanis Hotbed Classic since 2015.

Good graduated from New Albany High School in 1982. He attended NEMCC where he played football, basketball, and baseball. He graduated from the University of Mississippi.

He joined NEMCC in 2009 as a case worker for the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. (WIOA) and continues to serve as WIOA Team Leader. He was named director of the New Albany NEMCC Campus in 2017.

“It is a great honor,” said Goode of receiving the Hixson Fellowship. He said the Hotbed Classic is an invitational tournament that draws high school teams from elsewhere in Mississippi and from schools up to three or four hours away in Alabama, Arkansas, and Tennessee. It is a major fund raising event for the New Albany Kiwanis Club. Games in the event, held the fourth Saturday of each January at Memorial Gym, start at 8:30 a.m. with the last game at 9:30 p.m.

The Hotbed Classic was the first of its kind in Mississippi. The one-day tournament is regularly attended by college and professional basketball coaches and scouts. Many players who have played in the Hotbed Classic over the last three decades have gone on to successful careers on major university basketball teams, as high school and college coaches and as players in the NBA.

For those who may like to know more about the Hotbed Classic, the following is excerpted from information on a website of the New Albany Kiwanis Club. It may not have been updated recently, but readers may nevertheless find it interesting:

In August of 1990, the New Albany Kiwanis Club held one of its regular weekly civic meetings…the guest speaker…was Gerald Snider…a graduate of the New Albany School System…

His comments of wanting to put New Albany on the map as a “big-time sports town” spurred thoughts that day.

Following that meeting, Bill Parks, a club member, talked to Gerald and fellow club members Adam Martin and Ken Kinney about starting an invitational high school basketball tournament.  Plans were made to begin a series of meetings to decide when to play a “Blue Chip” type tournament…

Club support for this new venture was outstanding…

The inaugural year saw Lawrence County participate and win in the finals over New Albany.  Lawrence County that year, 1991, had senior guard and Mississippi State signee, Vandale Thomas and junior post man Erick Dampier, who would play again in 1992.  Dampier went on to play at MS State as well, and as a junior at MSU, lead his team to the NCAA Final Four in New York’s Madison Square Garden.  Dampier has had a stellar career in the NBA, playing even today for the Dallas Mavericks.

1992 saw not only the return of Dampier and the Lawrence County squad, but also the area fans got to see Brian Williams play for the first time. Williams was a starting guard for Montgomery’s Jeff Davis High School…he showed signs of brilliance and after graduating, signed to play at the University of Alabama.  Williams’ Jeff Davis squad beat New Albany by 3 that year to take the Hotbed Championship Crown.  Memphis University School of Memphis, TN. was a competitor that year and their squad included Ole Miss Signee John Cantrell…

Hotbed 1994 was the last year of the two-day tourney structure…Hotbed 1996 saw one day play begin as the tournament became a classic invitational event and that year Alcorn Central’s Nick Coln participated. Coln is himself now a high school coach, having played at both Northeast and the University of Louisiana at Monroe…

Maybe the first huge upset in the Hotbed was in the 1999.  A sellout crowd for that year’s classic was on hand to see the number one team in the state of Mississippi, Provine, face the number two team, Tupelo. Provine’s “Posse” as they were known, had Ole Miss Signees Justin Reed and Aaron Harper, as well as, David Sanders, go down in defeat to Tupelo, 73-68.  Dennis Buse, point guard for Tupelo, had a career game, shooting his team to victory from the free throw stripe, where he was 17 of 18 on charity shots.  He scored 32 total points for the contest and later played at both Sam Houston State and Mississippi State.  This was the largest crowd to attend any Hotbed up until that point.

Recent years have seen standout coaches and squads make their way to New Albany.  Jarvis Varnado of Mississippi State played with Haywood High School of Brownsville, TN.   Drafted in the 2nd round by the Miami Heat of the 2010 NBA draft, Jarvis was named SEC Defender of the Year twice, as well as, National Defender of the Year as a senior and is the NCAA all-time shot block career leader.

Ravern Johnson and Romero Osby of MS State have both played in the Classic, along with GA Tech team member Mo Miller and North Carolina Tarheel Leslie McDonald.  Yellowjackets’ coach, Paul Hewitt, visited at the Hotbed to watch his signee Miller play in 2007.  Also on that Memphis Raleigh Egypt squad was Junior big man Arnett Moultrie, who played in both the 2007 and 2008 Hotbeds.  Moultrie signed with UTEP out of high school and played there for 2 years before transferring to Mississippi State.   Coach Roy Williams attended in 2009 to watch McDonald and his Memphis Briarcrest squad play to victory.

The largest one game crowd ever to see a Hotbed was in 2003 when, NBA draftees directly out of high school, Travis Outlaw of Starkville and Jackie Butler of McComb played their only head-to-head match-up of their pre-pro careers.  It was a special event, and it had some magical moments.

Other players of note coming to play in the Hotbed include Lamar Sanders, Derrick Bails, Cedric Lipsey, and Trent Adair.  Many players of the past have now coached teams in the event.

Many outstanding “teams,” not with necessarily big name recruits, have played in the event and multiple state champions have competed in the New Albany annual affair.

Certainly, the initial goal and dream of putting New Albany, Mississippi on the national sports map have been largely achieved.  The Hotbed Classic, still alive and going strong after 20 years…The Hotbed, often imitated, never duplicated.

 Follow this link for the full history on the New Albany Kiwanis Club website.