Bio

Although it has been nearly 55 years since Allen Chaplin starred as a tennis and basketball player at Arkansas City Junior College, his accomplishments have not been forgotten. On Feb. 11, Chaplin will be inducted into the college’s Tiger Athletic Hall of Fame.

“I was a little surprised because it has been a good couple of years since I went to school there, and I didn’t know if people would still remember me,” Chaplin said. “It is a nice honor.”

Prior to coming to ACJC, Chaplin starred at Arkansas City High School. He advanced to the state finals in tennis, and was an Honorable Mention all-Ark Valley League performer in basketball.

He came to ACJC in the fall of 1949 to play tennis and basketball for the Tigers. He teamed with Al McKeever to win a state doubles title in tennis his freshman year, and then teamed with Jim Thomas to win another state doubles title as a sophomore.

In basketball, Chaplin was named All-Western Division second-team as a freshman, and All-Western Division first-team as a sophomore.

“I really enjoyed the school, and being able to play both basketball and tennis,” Chaplin said. “The school was small enough that you knew everybody. It was just a really fun place to go to school.”

He went on to play tennis at Kansas State University and finished second in the Big Seven (now Big 12) tennis tournament in singles, and played on the Wildcats’ No. 1 doubles team with Ark City native Don Upson.

Between his junior and senior year at Kansas State, Chaplin started a four-year stint in the Air Force, where he excelled in basketball, tennis and softball. After basic training he attended traffic control school, tower operator school, and ground control approach school. He spent most of his time in the Air Force working as a ground control operator and was stationed at Forbes Air Force base in Topeka.

He returned to KSU in 1957 and earned a mechanical engineering degree from the school in 1958. He went on to obtain a masters degree in business administration from the Citadel in 1976.

Chaplin credits Cowley with helping prepare him for earning his degrees.

“They had really good math instructors,” Chaplin said. “Faye Wallack was one of my instructors, and she was excellent. I felt my two years at the school helped me quite a bit toward obtaining my engineering degree.”

Chaplin considers Hoyt Piper, Amos Curry, Ray Judd, and W.G. “Bunt” Speer to have been important figures during his time at the school. Judd, the Tiger tennis coach from 1950-56, coached Chaplin in tennis since he was in the fifth grade.

Speer, who coached basketball at Cowley from 1946-1952, also served as Chaplin’s eighth grade basketball coach.

After graduating from KSU, Chaplin went to work as a design engineer for Cessna in Wichita. He left Cessna after two and a half years, and went to work as a design engineer at Lockheed in Marietta, Ga. in 1962. He later transferred to another Lockheed facility in Charleston, S.C. in 1968, and continued working there until his retirement in 1995.

He has made it back for several class reunions through the years, and is looking forward to making it back for the Hall of Fame ceremonies.

Chaplin does not play as much tennis as he used to as he has traded the tennis racquet for a golf club. Chaplin and a group of friends, called the “Golden Boys”, play golf three times a week.

Chaplin and his wife, Bettye, reside in Greenville, South Carolina, and will have been married 42 years on Feb. 28. They have one daughter, Jennifer McKay, who is an occupational therapist in Greenville.