Still fit for the honor of top local athlete

The year was 1943. Franklin D. Roosevelt was president. Jazz great Duke Ellington played Carnegie Hall for the first time.

And a small North Carolina high school awarded student Jack Sprinkle a merit medal for being the best all-around athlete.

With World War II raging, it was an important distinction; Sprinkle was then asked to teach calisthenics to other students.

“During the war, they wanted you to keep everybody healthy,” he said.

But he didn’t receive the award until Thursday in Davie -- 63 years later.

“This is great,” Sprinkle, now 81, said, beaming, as the staff of a Herff Jones student service center threw him a small party with a cake and balloons.

Back in 1943, the principal of King High School, north of Winston-Salem, had intended to give Sprinkle a medal ordered from Herff Jones, the company known for producing high school rings.

But because metal was sorely needed for military demands, the company could offer Sprinkle only a certificate. In small print, it said if he presented it at a Herff Jones outlet after the war, he could redeem his medal.

But Sprinkle, then 18, enlisted in the Army Air Forces and quickly forgot about the award.

He spent three years in the military, working stateside in aircraft operations offices. After he was discharged in 1946, he spent 35 years working in the operations departments of National and Pan Am airlines in Miami. Along the way, he married, had three children and a grandchild, and retired.

About six months ago, he and his wife, Eileen, were searching for his discharge papers to receive a discount on prescription drugs from the Veterans Administration. They found the papers in a drawer of their Davie home, as well as the old certificate neatly placed in an envelope, albeit a bit faded.

“I said, ‘Hey, look at this,’ ” recalled Sprinkle, in a disarming North Carolina drawl.

He knew there was a Herff Jones service center nearby. For fun, he decided to show the certificate to the staff, not expecting to actually receive a medal.

But when office manager Karen Alfson and owner Chuck Puleri saw it, they were amazed that such an old certificate even existed. Puleri immediately called Herff Jones headquarters in Indianapolis and requested that a medal be custom made.

“This was a labor of love for us,” Puleri said.

On Thursday, Sprinkle was all smiles when he was given the quarter-sized medal made of 10-karat gold and silver -- far more lavish than the high school medals of the 1940s, which were typically made of nickel, zinc or copper alloys. He thanked the entire staff.

“I never thought this would ever happen,” he said.