Weekly View » Howe High School

Howe Hornets Looking for a State Title

Steve Nicewanger — Thu, 05 Feb 2015 18:11:34 +0000

Looking at the beautiful trophy presented to the 2015 Indianapolis City Tourney Champions in the office of Howe Hornet’s head basketball head coach Mosi Barnes, it’s hard not to appreciate what Coach Barnes has done with this team in a very short period of time. Coach Barnes has always been a champion from his days as a high school basketball player as a point guard for Cardinal Ritter High School, where in 1996 he was Metro Player of the Year. He also played on Mack Gaddis’ AAU Championship team in 1994. He played for Gene Keady’s 1997-98 and 97-98 Purdue Boilermaker Squads. He transferred to play for Coach Milton Barnes and the Easter Michigan Eagles his final two years. Mr. Barnes played some pro ball in an International League in places such as London, Paris, Belgium, and Amsterdam. Going into coaching high school basketball, he started at Indianapolis Northwest High School where he was considered a rising star in the Indiana High School coaching ranks and was the Indianapolis High School Basketball Coach of the year at the end of the 2012-13 season. City budget cuts made him available to take on the coaching challenge at Howe High School starting in the 2013-14 season and his rapid progress in developing the Hornets into champions in just two years has been nothing short of phenomenal.
Coach Barnes insists that his players must be students first and athletes second. Everyone on the team is on the honor roll. In his six years of coaching, all of his students have graduated, and have gone on to college. Coach Barnes observes “there is a direct correlation between academic achievement and performance on the court.”
Like all winning coaches, Coach Barnes sees attention to detail as a key to success. Mastering the basics creates a foundation for a team to become winners. “Do the small things, the fundamentals like footwork and passing and you will succeed,” says Coach Barnes.
Coach Barnes’ mother was an Indianapolis Public School teacher for 43 years and it is her inspiration that has led the Coach in seeing himself as a teacher and motivator first and foremost. “I try to take my experience and share my vision” says the coach “and see it manifest in the team. In the end we have to want to win.”
After dropping their first two games of the season against Detroit Ford and Noblesville, the Hornets have come on to win fourteen straight as of this writing. Winning the first city championship for Howe since 1987 with a 75-72 victory over Scecina on January 26, the Hornets also won the McDonald’s Holiday Classic Tournament with a 62-43 victory over Vincennes Lincoln on December 29. With a group of outstanding young players led by senior shooting guard Harris Brown, whom Coach Brown calls the best player in the state, the team has championship chemistry and puts winning above individual glory. “To see them accomplish their goals is priceless,” the coach confesses.
Harris Brown, according to Coach Brown, is a definite candidate for the Mr. Basketball title in the All-Star Game this summer. The 5’-11” Brown is averaging 30.1 points per game and has hit 127 of 206 field goals attempted for a 62 percent shooting average. He has hit 34 of 43 free throw attempts for a 79 percent average. Coach Barnes says that he does not use the words genius or legend lightly, but he does use those words to describe Harris Brown’s shooting abilities. Add 63 rebounds and 68 assists to his stats and you see what kind of a great all around player Harris Brown is. Young Mr. Brown has made an oral commitment to attend Evansville University to play guard for the Aces men’s basketball team.

Photo by Paula Nicewanger/Weekly View
Head Coach Barnes with the McDonald’s Holiday Classic Tournament trophy on left and the City Championship trophy on the right.

Coach Barnes calls guard Brian Warren the best junior player in Indiana, and Brian appears ready to take on the leadership role in next year’s Hornet team. Brian Warren is second on the team in scoring, averaging 19.4 points a game. We will be hearing a lot more from Brian Warren. Coach Barnes takes a special interest in his players. He says that he picks up several of his players and takes them to school. He then drops them off at home at the end of the day. This is part of the family atmosphere Coach Barnes tries to create with his team. Coach Barnes is definitely a family man. He has a 16 year old son, a five year old daughter, and he and his wife welcomed a baby girl to the family five months ago.
With four games left on the schedule, the Hornets are getting ready to play in the sectionals in their quest to bring Howe a state 3A championship trophy. The Hornets are currently the twentieth ranked team in the state according to MAXPREPs national high school sports service. Don’t be surprised to see Howe rise in the rankings at the start of sectional play. In a very short time Coach Barnes has made his Howe Hornet team not just good but great! I think that there is another Indianapolis High School Basketball Coach of the Year in Mosi Barnes’ future. It just might be that Coach Barnes is ushering in a new golden age of basketball for the Hornets and all the Howe alumni and fans, and so the Weekly View salutes Coach Mosi Barnes, his staff, the Hornet basketball team, and all the Howe faculty and students.
snicewanger@yahoo.com

Howe Celebrates 75th Anniversary: The History of Howe H.S., Part 1

Mary Beth Kuhns — Thu, 05 Sep 2013 05:11:46 +0000

September 6 marks the 75th anniversary of the opening of Thomas Carr Howe High School, now Thomas Carr Howe Community High School. To celebrate, the Howe Alumni Association will be hosting a birthday party on the Howe campus, 4900 Julian Ave., on Saturday, September 14 from 2- 5 p.m. Attendees will be able to tour the recently refurbished building and enjoy cake and punch.
The birthday event is open to the entire community, but is particularly focused on Howe alumni. The event planners want to “have alumni come home and see the way the school is today,” said Dan Kaga, Howe Alumni President.
TC Howe was built from 1937-38 on “Violet Hill” with an initial construction cost of $480,000 for the first phase. It was the long-awaited high school for the Irvington community. Irvington was founded in 1870 and annexed as part of Indianapolis in 1901, and had lobbied for a high school for many years.
The ground breaking ceremony for Howe was on May 28, 1937; present at the ceremony was the school superintendent, Paul Stetson, who died 3 days later and was not able to see the school completed. The cornerstone for Howe was laid on November 10 of that same year. Under the cornerstone was placed a Bible, the U.S. flag, a copy of the Indianapolis Times, Star and the News, the Public School News, minutes of the school board, the history the Irvington Union of Club’s efforts to obtain the school for the community, the biographies of Thomas Carr Howe and William Fortsyth (well-known Irvington artist) and a list of the names of the freshman class planning to begin at Howe the following year.
Howe opened its door on September 6, 1938 with an enrollment of 435 students. By the following year the enrollment had almost doubled and by 1940 the student population was over 1,000. Current enrollment this semester at Howe is over 700 students, but growing.
Howe was named after Dr. Thomas Carr Howe, a beloved professor and former president of Butler University (which was located in Irvington until 1928). He taught German and Latin and was president of Butler in 1908. He was a member of the Indiana House of Representatives and a candidate for mayor in 1928. He lived in Irvington for many years, and his most famous home is now the front-most part of the Irvington United Methodist Church on the north circle on Audubon Road. Howe was killed in May of 1934 when he was hit by a vehicle on north Meridian Street, near the current location of Butler University. He had been a beloved member of the Irvington community and his untimely death spurred his many fans to encourage the high school to be named after him.
Howe has seen many students over the years, many of whom still live in Irvington. One of the most famous graduates, at least locally, was Howard Caldwell, retired news anchor for WRTV-6. Caldwell began at Howe in the fall of 1940 and wrote for the Howe Tower (which was the school paper, named after the prominent architectural feature on the front of the school building) and was on the speech team. He was a graduate of the class of 1944, but he was drafted to the U.S. Navy in February 1944, so his parents picked up his diploma. (Luckily he already had enough credits to graduate. This was not an unusual occurrence during WWII.)
In a video done by Howe students and faculty in 1995, Caldwell fondly remembered his time at Howe and credited his newspaper advisor and speech team coach with encouraging his interest in television journalism. He also fondly remembered basketball games at Howe, noting that their first basketball game was his freshman year and they beat Broad Ripple High School 25-17. He said they had a winning season every year he was there, and in 1943/44 won sections.
Howe has a long history of wins in sports, including basketball, football, baseball, and track. Attempting to list any more of their wins here will inevitably only leave out a year near and dear to a reader’s heart. Suffice to say Howe has had many strong sports teams. And Howe continues to offer sports and participates in tournaments in Marion County. They beat Washington in their first football game this year, 40-6.
In 1963 the Howe stadium was finally built. Prior to that, any night home game had to be played at Arsenal Technical High School. The cost of the stadium was $90,000: $50,000 came from the school board, but the remaining money was paid by the community. The Men’s 400 Club raised funds by selling each seat for $30 each. They raised $35,000 that way. The remainder came from outside contributions. IPL was kind enough to donate the lights. The stadium was named after Howe’s first football coach, Sam Kelly.
Tune in next week for part 2 of The History of Thomas Carr Howe High School for Howe’s more recent history and more information on the 75th birthday party on September 14.

Howe Alumni Association Honors Six Grads

Weekly View — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 05:10:13 +0000

INDIANAPOLIS — At Scholarship Night, Thursday, June 13, Thomas Carr Howe Alumni Association announced six winners in the association’s 16th annual scholarship competition.
Two senior winners from Thomas Carr Howe Community High School and four graduating seniors from other Marion County high schools — students with Howe ties (parents or grandparents who are graduates of Howe) — were awarded $1,000 scholarships.
The Association Scholarship Committee, Shannon (Comstock) Durham,’88 and Errol Spears, ‘60; Tomm Staley, ‘55–announced the winners and presented the $1,000 awards to the following 2013 graduates:
• Sarah Rose Hood, Franklin Central High School, granddaughter of Eleanor (VanDyke) Hood, ‘52
• Cassi Hunter, Thomas Carr Howe Community High School, daughter of Theresa Hunter and Sheldon Hunter
• Morgan Kimmel, Cathedral High School, daughter of Jason Kimmel, ‘86; and granddaughter of Nancy (Cox) Kimmel, ‘58
• Lucy Knorr, Arsenal Technical High School, daughter of Kent Knorr, ‘85; granddaughter of Sue (Turner) Knorr, ‘59
• Dayvon Ordean, Thomas Carr Howe Community High School, son of Patricia Ordean Lamb and William Lamb
• Raymond Riley, Scecina Memorial High School, grandson of Barbara (Gallagher) Riley, ‘53
The first awards in1997 were $500 and, with the continued support of Howe graduates, friends of Howe, and the Tom Russell Charitable Foundation, have been increased to the present level of $1,000.
With this year’s awards the Alumni Association has made grants totaling $118,000 to 168 students. The number and the amount of the awards are determined each year by the funds available. The scholarship program relies on the support of alumni members and friends of Howe. The Board of Directors determines eligibility requirements for applicants and publishes scholarship information in February’s Howe Now which is the Alumni newsletter.