The wait is over. Oconee County has a Hall of Fame, honors decades of legends in 1st class

Oconee County High School finally has a Hall of Fame with help from fourth-year athletic director Curt Miller and co.

"I knew that this school had been here for many, many years and I just thought, why don't we have a hall of fame?" he said. "I thought it would be a good idea to get started. It obviously took me a while to get to know some folks around here, but once we kind of knew who would be good committee members, we just took off and ran with it."

In January, the OCHS HOF had its inaugural induction ceremony, welcoming seven inside its famed doors. Or in this instance, glass case. They were Hale Burnette, Adam Frazier, Geri Ann Glasco, Helen O'Kelley, Tony Taylor, Harold Townley and Jarryd Wallace.

For Frazier, arguably the school's all-time greatest baseball star, it was a nostalgic and honorable experience being back in the school's gymnasium for the first time in a decade or so.

"I was pretty humbled and taken aback by it, it wasn't really on my radar," Frazier said. "Decades of talent have come through there and, you know, it just feels like your hard work went to something special. And to be able to still be playing the game means a lot too. There's a lot of great athletes to come out of Oconee County over the years and to feel like the people of the county hold me in that regard is very humbling and it's an honor."

Like Frazier, Wallace attended the event and displayed his gratitude for being remembered.

"I mean, any time you get inducted into a Hall of Fame of sorts, it's an amazing feat and accomplishment, and to be able to be in the inaugural class is something really, really special," Wallace added. "Oconee has played a huge role in my athletic career and is a big place in my heart, so it's an honor to be stamped in the legacy of the county's athletics forever."

Miller said Burnette was the football coach and athletic director from 1977-92, around the same timeline that Townley was the mascot. You might recognize the last name Townley − Harold's son Tony co-founded the famous chicken chain Zaxby's.

O'Kelley was a basketball player in the 1950s, Miller said.

Glasco was a former NCAA two-way softball star who passed in a car wreck in 2019 at the age of 24. While a Warrior, she was the 2012 Gatorade National Player of the Year, and she spent her first two collegiate years at Georgia before leaving for Oregon in 2015-16.

Taylor was a three-sport athlete at Oconee County in the late 90s and a success story for UGA in the early 2000s. He was a freshman All-American and two-time First-team All-SEC in 2005 and 2006. He was on the 2007 Atlanta Falcons roster and the 2009 Seahawks practice squad before he went to the Canadian Football League and retired in 2012.

Wallace was a state champion cross country runner for Oconee County. In 2010 he had his right leg amputated from the knee down due to a condition called compartment syndrome. He won bronze at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games, and he has five gold and one bronze medal between IPC Athletics World Championships and Parapan American Games.

Frazier attended Oconee County from 2006-10. He most recently got picked up by the Royals as their second baseman and outfielder. He's had stints with the Pirates, Padres, Mariners and Orioles and played collegiately at Mississippi State, where he reached the College World Series championship.

The committee has 10 members including Miller; Oconee County principal Kevin Yancey; Oconee County communications director Steve Colquitt; Cindy Roach; Matt Stephens; Brian Eades; JR Whitfield; Mark Thomas; Kenji Dorsey and Tonya Day.

The process is pretty simple and fully invested in community engagement. Miller said they post a Google form on the school's athletic page − the one for the second class, which will be inducted in January 2025, is already open and has a set deadline of Oct. 1. It allows people in the Athens-area to submit names of former Oconee County students and legends. Miller said they do it this way, so they don't leave anyone out.

"We take as much information as we can," he said. "We ask for a lot of information around the nominees and then once we get as much as we can, then we meet and reach out to those nominees or maybe some other people that know the person who's been nominated and see if we're missing anything.

"We're very fortunate to have as much input as we've had to help us get this thing off the ground."

They'll induct the second class in 2025 to finish playing catch up, and then turn it to a bi-annual schedule after that, inducting another class in 2027, 2029 and so on.

"You need to always remember who came before you, who laid the foundation," Miller said. "I think that's extremely important, and to always just keep your community involved in not only your school, but the athletic department too. I was the son of a high school athletic director and boys basketball coach and every time I went to a gym with my dad, I would always look for things like that. I always thought it was interesting to read on who went to the schools, what records they held, all that.

"I think it's something our students can aspire to do or be. ... We're a special place and we're always going to have quality athletes and members that can go into the hall of fame. I just kind of hope that whatever committee is doing it 20 years from now, they're still just holding it to a high standard. It's something the community and the school can be proud of."

Sara Tidwell covers Athens-area high school sports and University of Georgia athletics for The Athens Banner-Herald. Contact her at stidwell@gannett.com and follow her @saramtidwell on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Oconee County High School creates Hall of Fame to honor past legends