Texas school district names new campus for Baylor WWII hero
A random bit of trivia for you: Baylor is believed to be the only university in the U.S. to have two former student-athletes receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military honor for bravery. Both Jack Lummus and John “Killer” Kane earned the award for their service in World War II.
The pair were brought to mind when I read last week that Ennis Independent School District (about 75 miles north of Waco) is naming its newest junior high Jack Lummus Intermediate School, in honor of the former Baylor three-sport standout. After graduating from Baylor, Lummus went on to play one year of pro football for the New York Giants before joining the Marines. He lost his life while leading a charge during the Battle of Iwo Jima and was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.
Kane, too, has had a school named in his honor. In 1998, the B-52 combat crew training school at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana was renamed for the long-time pilot. Kane played football and basketball at Baylor and was a survivor of the bus-train accident that took the lives of the students who would come to be known as the Immortal 10. In 1943, he led a famous bombing raid on Hitler’s oil-refining complex in Ploesti, Romania. Kane died in 1996 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Lummus, Kane and former Air Force Chief of Chaplains Robert Taylor are honored on campus in Baylor’s Ring of Honor, located on Founders Mall near Pat Neff Hall.
Sic ’em, brave Baylor Bears!