This is the 67th anniversary of Joe Lee Thompson starting for the University of Oklahoma basketball team.

He was the second African American to play at OU and was in school here when Purcell integrated athletics.

Fellow PHS graduate Buddy Hudson was the first African American to letter at OU, doing so in 1958.

With that in mind, Dragon Alumnus Dick Gray tipped The Register off with some interesting news about the fall of 1955.

At that time, Bruce Wellington James was the principal of Purcell Booker T. Washington Elementary School.

Athletics and students at Purcell High School integrated but Booker T. Elementary did not.

Legendary Dragons basketball coach Boney Matthews asked James to be an assistant to help him with the integration of the athletes.

In that capacity, James became Purcell High School’s first African American coach.

James proudly served his country in the Koran Conflict before playing professional basketball for the Court Jesters in Portland, OR.

James was a graduate of a college in Marshall, TX, graduating with a 4.0 GPA with a double major of math and science.

Hudson was a transfer from Oklahoma Baptist University and became the first African American to play for OU.

Thompson became the second African American to play in a season for the University of Oklahoma Sooners marking the 68th anniversary of that historic season.

OU’s coach at the time was  Doyle Parrack.

Purcell has won five state championships in basketball, the first coming in 1950.

That was followed by 1957, 1961, 1974 and 1994.