Aulbie Demain (Dee) Huggins, Jr., Brother of Coty Huggins Tootle

January 25, 2013

Aulbie Demain Huggins Jr.

The Meridian Star
MERIDIAN — Services for Aulbie Demain (Dee) Huggins Jr. will be held Saturday, at 11 a.m., at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church with Revs. Brian Pounder, M. L. Agnew Jr., and Charles Floyd Jr. officiating. Burial will be in the Mississippi Veterans Memorial Cemetery, Newton, with James F. Webb Funeral Home in charge of arrangements.

Mr. Huggins, 82, was born Sept. 7, 1930 in Knoxville, Tenn., to the late A. D. Huggins Sr. and the late Coty Floyd Huggins Underwood. He was a member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church where he served as an acolyte in his youth. He graduated from Meridian High School in 1947 and soon joined the U.S. Navy where he attained the rank of Senior Chief Petty Officer. His service of 20 years in Aviation Training link took him to stations at Moffet Field, Calif., Memphis, Tenn., Corpus Christi, Texas, Port Washington, N.Y., Jacksonville, Fla., and Hawaii. After his retirement from the Navy in 1967, he worked 20 years with the U.S. Post Office as an electronic technician. During his retirement years, he enjoyed many hours of friendship with members of the Fleet Reserve Association in Meridian and he commuted from his home in Meridian to the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Gulfport.

Survivors include his daughter, Stephanie Huggins Shipp (Robert) of Chichester, England; sons: Louis Huggins and John Huggins, both of Charlotte, N.C.; four grandchildren; one great-grandchild; sisters: Norma Huggins Veach (Dr. Al) of Meridian, and Coty Huggins Tootle (Theo) of Jasper, Ga.; one sister-in-law, Hannelore Huggins; and, many nephews and nieces.

He was preceded in death by his son, Demain O’Neal Huggins; brother, Samuel O’Neal Huggins Sr.; infant brother, Kamper Floyd Huggins; his father and mother; and the mother of his children, Margaret Colonna Huggins.

Pallbearers will be members of the Fleet Reserve Association.

Honorary pallbearer is Dewain Walker.

Friends and family may sign the online guest book at jamesfwebb.com.

Visitation will be one hour prior to services at the church.
_________________________ 

O God our Father, Creator of all the living,
we entrust to Your gentle care
all those we love who have gone before us;
and have gone to their rest in the hope of rising again. . . .

Eternal rest, grant unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May the souls of the faithful departed
through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.

Alabama Football Trivia

On the eve of the Alabama-Notre Dame national championship game, I thought a little Alabama football trivia might be timely and possibly of interest to some football aficionados.  Here it is.

Alabama has won the national football title several times over the decades, but they went for the first time ever as a Southern team to the Rose Bowl in 1926.  They were not only the first Southern team to go to the Rose Bowl, but they won!  Among other plays, the quarterback for Alabama, Allison Thomas (Pooley) Hubert, was able to complete a pass to half-back Johnny Mac Brown for a touchdown and victory in final moments of the game to defeat University of Washington, 20 to 19.  The fans were stunned. It was a tremendous showing for a southern team and the specifics of the game are legend in the annals of Alabama football.

Southern teams may no longer compete in the Rose Bowl, but they can still win and even dominate in national championships as the BCS Bowl has trumped the Rose Bowl.  After that win Pooley Hubert went on to play professional football only briefly, then coached from 1931 to 1936, at Mississippi Southern, then at Virginia Military Academy.  In 1964, Pooley Hubert, Meridian hometown boy and All American, was inducted into the national College Football Hall of Fame. For his part, Johnny Mac Brown went on to star in cowboy movies in Hollywood. Yep, that was him.

Communication in 1926, was not remotely what it is today.  That football game could not be viewed on television, big screen or no.  It could not even be heard on radio.  Radio reception for the game was possible in Jackson at the time, but not in Meridian where Pooley's family lived. His family went to a Cotton Compress Warehouse in Meridian where a telegraph ticker tape somewhat like a 2012 crawler on the screen could be viewed. It was exciting nevertheless, both at the time and at each telling and retelling of the story.

For more information, if interested, go to Wikipedia.com and search for Allison Hubert or Pooley Hubert. He was my father's older brother. 

 

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