#TBT: Searching for The Hinker Bell
September 28, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Menominee will host Escanaba on Friday in the 121st meeting between two of the Upper Peninsula’s largest high schools and proudest football programs – but with the trophy celebrating the game still missing after it first disappeared more than half a century ago.
The two teams from 1948-1962 played for the The Hinker Bell, a locomotive bell that hasn’t been seen since 1963.
A decade ago, Escanaba Daily Press sports editor (and now Second Half correspondent) Denny Grall wrote about a newfound search for The Hinker Bell. But the mystery continues, and Grall’s story below tells of many of the twists and turns that to that point that had come in trying to locate it.
ESCANABA — Another search is underway to find the Hinker Bell.
The former locomotive bell went to the winner of the Escanaba-Menominee football game for about 15 years but has been missing for more than 40 years. It came from a locomotive owned by the Bay de Noquet Company and used on the LS&I Railroad that operated in Delta and Menominee counties.
The locomotive was built in 1906 by Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia and the bell was believed to have been cast in the railroad foundry, according to a 1953 newspaper clipping.
In 1948, one of the locomotive owners presented the bell to his friend, John Hinker of Menominee, an ardent sports fan who donated materials for the press box at Menominee’s Walton Blesch Field.
Hinker gave the bell to then Menominee coach Mickey McCormick and indicated proper use for the bell would be as an award for the gridiron rivalry.
Now Hinker’s great great nephew is trying to find the bell, which has not been seen since Escanaba’s current high school opened in 1963.
Tim Waters of Land O’ Lakes, Wis., who has launched the search, became interested by researching his family tree. “It is a big trophy (between 80 and 150 pounds by various estimates) and it is odd that it is missing,” Waters said in a recent telephone chat.
“One theory is that it is in somebody’s hunting camp or a home and they are using it as their own trophy,” said Waters.
“We have a pretty good investigation going on and all help is appreciated. If somebody does have it, we’re not looking to prosecute them. We’re just looking to get the darn thing back. Nobody will be in trouble.”
Waters refuted the old idea the bell was melted down. He has contacted numerous bell collectors, and they said a junk yard would have known it was worth a lot more than melted metal.
“The bell was not destroyed. We’ve come to that conclusion,” he said. “It was not put in a scrap yard.”
Waters contacted Coplan Iron and Metal of Escanaba and learned that bells were not melted or crushed and said the firm never accepted a bell with engravings matching the Hinker Bell.
Waters learned those businesses would sell them for the weight value to people who wanted them for yard ornaments/dinner bells, or to collectors.
“It is a treasure and it needs to be found,” said Waters.
Waters said the last known photo of the bell was with then EHS football coach Al Sigman and Esky players John Fisher and Phil Davidson in 1960. Escanaba beat Menominee from 1959-63 but could not find the bell in 1964 when the Maroons won. No one he has talked to remembers seeing the bell present at the first three games during the tenure of coach Jerry Cvengros.
The current Escanaba High School opened in 1963 and Bay de Noc Community College then occupied the old facility, which has since been demolished.
“Records indicate there was no report (of a missing bell) filed by Escanaba school district to the police department,” Waters said.
“The Hinker Bell is part of U.P. Michigan’s history, as is football and the railroads,” Waters said. “The people of Escanaba and Menominee deserve to have this trophy returned to their high schools.”
Waters, who has never seen an Escanaba or Menominee football game but is planning to rectify that omission this season, is hoping students at the two schools will join in the treasure hunt and talk about it with their parents and grandparents.
He has already contacted EHS athletic director Rob Ryan, who plans to thoroughly search the school basement.
He would like to find a photo of the bell to help collectors in their search. “Each bell was for a special locomotive,” said Waters.
“If they have a good picture we can pass it around and say we are looking for this bell. If they can pinpoint what this bell was on, they can help get the word out.”
He has also extended the search to the website at upfootball.com, which has generated interest but no bell. “If the bell is in the area still today, I don’t think it will take long to surface,” he said.
“If we don’t find this bell, we are going to try to make up a replacement as close as possible if the two schools are interested in that,” he said.
Waters is hoping that real estate agents, postal workers, delivery personnel, construction workers, etc., may have seen the bell during their travels and can help retrieve it.
Wingfield's Fame as Gamebreaker Grows after Record-Setting Junior Season
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
August 30, 2023
Mekhi Wingfield’s journey to becoming one of the most dynamic football players in all of 8-player football in Michigan began in Detroit and is continuing today at Jackson County’s Concord High School.
Wingfield moved to the Concord area when he was in the sixth grade. He was still two years away from playing football for the first time. Basketball was his thing. And meeting people.
“The first day of school I made friends,” Wingfield said. “I’m one of those guys who like to talk. I’ll go up to anybody and try and talk to them. I like to hear different perspectives in life.”
Wingfield doesn’t need any introduction in 8-player football. Last season, the 6-foot-3 receiver had a record-setting season for the Yellow Jackets, making a name for himself across the state.
In nine games, he had 76 catches for 1,035 yards and 16 touchdowns. He set an 8-player record with 17 receptions in a game and moved to the top or close to the top of the charts in numerous other categories, including career touchdowns (26) and career receptions (139).
Britton Deerfield head coach Erik Johnson saw firsthand what Wingfield can do on the football field.
“He is a very talented football player,” said Johnson, who competes against Concord in the Tri-River 8 Conference. “Last year he almost singlehandedly beat us with big play after big play.
“They run a lot of jet sweep action with him where they toss it to him … but he has the size, speed, and athletic ability to hurt your defense with the short passing game and then just running right by you for the deep ball.”
Johnson has watched Wingfield for a couple of seasons now. This year, BD plays Concord twice.
“In the 8-player game, it is really tough to dedicate two defensive players to one offensive player, but Mekhi's ability almost makes you have to that,” he said.
Wingfield says his best game came against BD.
“There is a small little rivalry with them,” he said. “When they came to our place last year, I had like three touchdowns on them. That was so fun. Best game of my high school career.”
Wingfield’s family moved to south central Michigan to help care for his grandmother, who lived in Albion, when he was about 10. His older siblings went to Marshall, but he enrolled at Concord.
He and his twin sister are the youngest of seven in the family.
He was introduced to football in the eighth grade and played some that season, but not the full year. By his freshman year, his athletic ability blossomed.
“When I got to the ninth grade is when I got into Coach (Max) Clark’s program, and I started being dedicated to football and sports,” Wingfield said. “I got in the weight room and just became a field rat.”
Clark has had an impact on his life, Wingfield noted: “Football with Coach Clark – I can’t say it was always easy, but he’s helped me and guided me and took me under his wing. I had to work for my spot. I was the underdog coming in. I didn’t have football under my belt. I had to learn. I sat back and learned until it was my time to shine.”
Wingfield, who runs the 40-yard dash in 4.45 seconds, picked up football rather quickly.
“I used to watch it on TV, but I never played it,” he said. “When I got onto the field, it was like second nature. My coach loved me, so he got me the ball so much. It was just a lot of fun to me.”
Wingfield’s athletic ability is why he touches the ball so much.
“I like to classify myself as a route runner,” he said. “I can run routes, I can get open, I can create space and catch those 50-50 balls. I’m hoping the defensive backs have a long night when they face me.”
Clark said Wingfield was a great athlete even as a freshman.
“He’s a relentless worker,” Clark said. “You can tell he wants to be good. We took him to Albion, and he was learning some track technique, long jump. Even on his warm-up laps, he had to be first.”
Last season’s surge in receptions, yards, and touchdowns surprised Wingfield.
“It was a lot of fun,” he said. “We had a new quarterback. We had played basketball together, but I didn’t even know he could sling it like that. We just went out and had fun. My goal was to have a better year than my sophomore year. I didn’t know I was going to go quote-unquote ‘crazy’ like that.”
While Wingfield said basketball is still his favorite sport, football is gaining ground. He spent much of this past summer at football camps, fine-tuning his game. He received an offer to play football at Grand Valley State University.
He’s also an outstanding track athlete. Last season he helped Concord’s 400 relay win a Lower Peninsula Division 4 Finals title. The relay units he was on also finished second in the 800 and 1,600, and he was second in the long jump.
Concord opened the season last week with a loss to Bridgman. Wingfield said the team has already moved on from that defeat and is geared up for a chance to make the playoffs. Concord wasn’t eligible last season due to its enrollment but is under the threshold this season and could qualify.
“We’re just moving forward week by week,” he said. “I think that helped us to see a good team early. We know how to handle getting punched in the mouth. That is a good team we played. We’ve got to just keep on going. This is like the first year that we could get to go to the playoffs. I’m very excited about that.”
Clark is a social studies teacher at Concord and has Wingfield in one of his classes.
“This week we were doing an activity where we asked the students if they would rather live in a city or the country,” Clark said. “Mekhi said country. I was surprised, knowing he grew up in a big city. He just said, ‘I’d rather live in the country, because that’s where Concord is.’”
“It was huge difference coming here,” Wingfield noted. “Culture shock, you might say. I went to Concord and have loved it ever since. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Concord’s Mekhi Wingfield breaks away from a Britton Deerfield defender during last season’s matchup. (Middle) Wingfield is a senior this fall. (Action photo by Madisyn Barrett/Concord Chronicle. Posed photo courtesy of the Concord athletic department.)