Next Friday will be the 52nd anniversary of my sports writing career.

It started on May 29, 1957, the morning after I received my B.A. degree from Northwestern State College. My father, who was a Shreveport letter carrier for 36 years, dropped me off at the Shreveport Journal newsroom at 6 a.m. on his way to work. I was in the dark, literally and figuratively. That afternoon, I bought a used 1955 Chevy for $1,500. I learned to drive on my way home, and I've been driving myself to work ever since then.

I thought I would be making $50 a week, which would be a cut in pay from my college days, when I was a correspondent for newspapers all over the state. But somebody didn't get the message, because my starting salary was $45 a week. I've been trying to catch up ever since.

Most of those 52 years were spent at the Journal, which folded -- along with many other afternoon newspapers in this area -- in 1991. Since then, I have "worked" (and I use that term loosely) at the Minden Press-Herald and the Bossier Press-Tribune. Since the Press-Tribune went from twice a week to five days a week last August, driving to work hasn't been a problem because I do nearly all of my work at home.

When I was in high school, I attended all three public high schools in Shreveport-Bossier City at that time. I went to Byrd High as a freshman, Bossier High as a sophomore, and for the first six weeks of my junior year, and Fair Park for the rest. Each year, the school I was attending reached the state finals in football (No, I had nothing to do with it.) Byrd won its last state championship when I was a freshman in 1949. Bossier High reached the finals a year later, losing to Baker 7-6. Fair Park reached the finals the last two years, losing to Istrouma in 1951 and winning its only state championship in 1952.

I tried to play football at Byrd and Bossier, participating in spring practice in 1950 at Byrd and playing on the "B" team (junior varsity) while I was at Bossier High. By the time I got to Fair Park, I gave up on my dream of dressing out for a game played under Friday night lights -- a decision I regretted for many years, because I could've been a member of a team that won the state championship. But I began my sports writing career as a senior at Fair Park, serving as sports editor of the school newspaper, The Pow Wow.

My involvement in athletics at Northwestern started when I went to the gym to watch the basketball team practice every night for several weeks. By that time, I was already sports editor of The Current Sauce, the school paper. Coach Charles "Red" Thomas finally sent a manager up to ask me if I would be interested in being a student manager, since I was going to be there every night anyway. Later, the same thing happened with Coach Walter Ledet and the track team, except that my only managerial duties with track was sending in stories on the meets to newspapers.

My last effort to participate in varsity athletics was an attempt to run the distance events for Northwestern. I thought anybody could run the mile or two-mile, but I quickly learned that wasn't the case. So the highlight of my college career (other than getting my first kiss on a bench behind Caldwell Hall) was winning the intramural cross country run as a senior.

At the Journal, my primary job was covering high school sports. One of the coaches I met in my first year was Neville's Bill Ruple. Another was Glenn Gossett of the Homer "Iron Men." I saw Homer beat Ruston High in a playoff game when Don Shows was playing tailback in Hoss Garrett's Notre Dame Box formation at Ruston. But I also covered a couple of LSU games in the 1958 national championship season, and covered the Tigers' game with Baylor at Shreveport the following year.

In 1960, a new school (Woodlawn) opened, with Lee Hedges moving from Byrd to Woodlawn as its first football coach. Within 10 years, several other new schools opened in Shreveport and Bossier City. The same thing was happening all over the state.

In 1970, I became the Journal sports editor at about the same time high schools were being integrated. By that time, I was covering the Cowboys and Saints, too, and started a streak of writing columns in every edition (six days a week) for eight years, a total of 2,131 consecutive columns (one more than Lou Gehrig's streak of playing in 2,130 consecutive games, which was later broken by Cal Ripken, Jr.)

More than 350 of my columns are under "top columns" on jerrybyrd.com, my website. Some are about famous people, such as John Wayne, when he came to Shreveport to receive the Spirit of Independence award at the Independence Bowl, but the last one I added (the only one I've added in 2009 so far) is more important than any of the others. Check it out if you don't read any of the others.

In the final week of the Journal, a former Journal reporter who had moved to the Times called me for comments on the demise of the newspaper and asked how I thought I would be remembered. I told him that I didn't think any reporters would be remembered very long, but if they did their jobs right some of their stories might be remembered. I don't consider covering people like Terry Bradshaw, Joe Ferguson, Robert Parish, Joe Delaney and Hal Sutton during their high school careers to be the highlight of my writing career. Columns about Dennis Wayne Brobst and Stephen Teagle meant more to me. Check them out on the website and you'll see what I mean. As far as I know, I'm the only one who told their stories.

Maxie Lambright used to say the most important game on his schedule was the next one. I feel the same way about my columns. The most important one I will ever write is the next one. I hope I have an opportunity to write a few more for the Bossier Press-Tribune and for kenramsey.com

.... kenramsey.com is very grateful to receive permission to share this high school sports article with everyone in our state. Are there any more writers out there who would like to share their stories with us? please contact kenramsey today!