Kenan Memorial Auditorium

News this week in the Duplin Times that the Kenan family would no longer be paying for the upkeep of Kenan Memorial Auditorium hit us rather hard.   You see Kenan Auditorium is like Hinkle Fieldhouse to us and we expect some other people of our basketball playing era, that being the late 1960's and early 1970's.   To those of you not familiar with Hinkle Fieldhouse, that is the gym where the "games" were filmed for the movie Hoosiers.   Some years ago when driving through Kenansville NC we took our wife by Kenan Auditorium and walked around the outside of the building and looked in the windows. The memories flowed as we told her about nights being part of our high school basketball team playing in the now old gym.  

Kenan Memorial Auditorium was a gift from the Kenan Family to their namesake home place Kenansville and Eastern North Carolina to have a large venue for events and sports.  Built in 1950 at the time it was the largest place from Raleigh to the coast.  There is a stage, a basketball floor, and what seemed like seats and more seats for basketball game viewing.  It had a second level for basketball seating which allowed for large numbers of spectators.   The second level for us always made the place larger than life.  For a young high school basketball team member playing in Kenan Auditorium was likely done during a conference tournament or a state level playoff where the gym was needed to accommodate larger number of people. 

Back in the 1960's and into the 1970's our league the East Central Conference consisting of our high school Richlands, some high schools in Lenior County, and some more in Duplin County where Kenan is located made the place a good central point for playing big games.  So on conference tourney nights our bus would leave our high school for the thirty minute ride to Kenansville to play our game.  Getting off the bus and entering Kenan from the back and finding our seats was sorta like the Hickory High squad entering Hinkle Fieldhouse as it seemed like we had arrived at the BIG HOUSE gym to play our game. Right before our game we would go into the locker room and suit up and prepare for the game.  Our coach at the time Jack Byrd would go over any strategy we had practiced and we would leave the locker room and head to the floor for our seats beside the actual game floor.  What a thrill and what a moment for those of us participating.  What we did not know at the time was that we were making memories for the future. 

For some half century the old auditorium hosted basketball games, events, and local festivities.  From what we understand the last few years the newer Duplin Events Center has taken much of the activity away from the now older and less well equipped Kenan Auditorium.  We also expect the cost of upkeep now over $1 million dollars a year that the Kenan Family has been paying for all these many years has reached the point they no longer want to pay the tab.  The Kenan family offered to pay for tearing down the old auditorium which means to us that the place might be truly nearing it's last days. To those of us who had many shared experiences in Kenan it could indeed be the end of an era.  If so I hope Duplin County opens up the place and has a goodbye event so those of us who loved the old gym can say goodbye in a proper way.