BURNETTSVILLE — When you’re in Burnettsville, you’re in Bee country.
The welcoming sign posted on U.S. 24 encourages visitors to “Bee Safe. Bee Happy.” The town’s annual 5k fundraiser is called the Bee Bumble, in which a local runner is selected to don a handmade yellowjacket costume. How did the enclave of just under 400 residents located between Logansport and Monticello become synonymous with the stinging honey maker?
It all dates back to the Beehive, the first basketball gym added onto Burnettsville High School in 1937 as the home of the Bees.
Today, the gym is owned by the town and used by youth leagues to practice basketball, baseball, soccer and volleyball. It’s also rented out for private events and hosts special community activities like roller skating or dance parties for special-needs residents.
But the gym remains largely unchanged from when it opened nearly 90 years ago as the first regulation-size basketball court in White County.
The domed, hardwood ceiling and a section of bleachers from that time remain, along with the large stage on the west side of the court. The floor in the foyer is still emblazoned with “Bee Hive” in red paint.
No one remembers how the gym received its name, but the school and the town embraced the moniker.
Larry McLeland, who played guard on the team from 1952 to 1956, remembers a homemade beehive was brought out before every game during warmups and placed in the center of the court, which was also painted with the gym’s name.
The only inconsistency was the team colors. Rather than yellow and black, the uniforms were red and white.
Before the gym, players competed on an outdoor court by the school. Included among them was McLeland’s dad, who played in the 1930s. The new addition marked a major upgrade as the finest facility out of all nine county schools and remained that way for years, McLeland noted.
But the first teams that played in the gym struggled to live up to the local prestige. The Bees lost nearly every game for the first four years and didn’t land a winning record until 1943, after which they experienced two more abysmal seasons.
Bragging rights finally came in 1946, when players claimed their first championship in the annual four-team tourney that included the Idaville Green Streaks, their archrivals, along with the Buffalo Bisons and Reynolds Rangers.
Bleachers were split into four sections and fans from each school packed inside for what was the most exciting day of basketball in Burnettsville.
The Bees came close to winning several sectional tournaments over the years, but could never clinch a victory. For players like McLeland, though, the real crown jewel was claiming victory in the four-team competition.
“That was a way bigger deal than any other tournament,” the 86-year-old said. “But we all just played for the fun of it. We didn’t take it so seriously as they do now.”
The fun didn’t stop when games ended. McLeland remembers the school gave each player 50 cents after each game to spend on hamburgers and fries at the local diner a few blocks from the gym. But the era of the Beehive came to an end in 1963, when, against the wishes of local residents, Burnettsville consolidated with Idaville and Monticello to form Twin Lakes School Corp.
“People tried and tried to keep the school here, but Monticello ended up getting its way,” McLeland recalled. The next year, the building became East Twin Lakes Junior High School, and the gym served the middle school students there. Kirby Davidson, who attended in 1969, remembers that time. He said the gym was still used for seventh-through-ninth-grade sports, but the most striking feature came during lunch, when it was transformed into a cafeteria. The kitchen sat in the basement below the stage, and lunch ladies pushed each meal out through a cubby hole onto the gym floor.
Davidson was part of the last class to attend the school before it was sold in 1970 to a local resident, who in 1973 demolished the school but kept the gym. The next year, Myers Spring Company purchased the facility. Holes from where heavy machinery was bolted to the floor can still be seen on the hardwood today.
In 1980, the company’s owner, Walter Myers from Logansport, donated the gym back to the town. Residents didn’t waste any time deciding what to do with it. Through tax dollars and local donations, the town spruced up and repaired the facility and rededicated it as a youth and community center on Sept. 12, 1981.
“The old gymnasium sort of makes the town seem like more of a whole community,” local resident Jeff Saylor commented in a 1981 article in the Monticello Daily Herald Journal.
That feeling still remains. The gym today is the heart of Burnettsville, where for the last 75 years it has served as the location for the town’s annual Community Day in September. For decades, a homemade metal beehive that reads “Feed the Bees! Keep the Hive Alive!” has collected donations for the facility.
Those donations, along with rental fees for private events, mostly cover all the needed upkeep, including the time the town put on a new rubber roof. Local volunteers also help keep maintenance costs down, McLeland noted.
“If you need something done, you just mention it and it gets done,” he said.
Now, old timers like McLeland hope the next generation will step up to keep the hive thriving far into the future and preserve a special piece of Indiana’s basketball history.
“This older generation is the one keeping it going,” he said. “Now, it’s their turn.”