Greene County Activities Director Todd Gordon emceed last Thursday night during the inaugural Greene County High School Athletics Hall of Fame ceremony in the HS theatre. All the inductees were well received as they returned to the place they’d spent their high school years, but when Gordon read the name Bill Kibby, the 80 year old former teacher/coach/activities director received the lone standing ovation of the night. The crowd stood and applauded as Coach Kibby walked to the podium to address the crowd.

Never one to draw attention to himself, he spent most of his talk praising others, be it his former players and fellow coaches, or the other HOF inductees, which include the Jefferson-Scranton girls’ track & field squad that won the Class 2A State Championship in 1994, 1988 grad Trisha Waugh Pipkins, ’91 grad Kristi Kinne-Hayes, and ’95 graduate Brent Mac Lagan.

Kibby told Raccoon Valley Radio he was quite surprised when notified he was one of the first five inductees into the brand new high school Hall of Fame here. His football teams qualified for the playoffs 10 times in his 22 seasons guiding Jefferson-Scranton/Paton-Churdan, including advancing as far as the semifinals inside the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls in 1999 and 2006. He is the Rams all-time leader in football victories and games coached.

As A.D., he oversaw one of the golden ages of high school sports based in Jefferson with numerous individual and team conference and district titles, as well as State appearances including the ’94 girls track & field championship. After leaving Jefferson, Coach Kibby returned to Ft. Dodge St. Edmond High School, where he had been before moving to Greene County. Although he didn’t coach football for the Gaels like he’d done for 20 seasons prior to joining the Rams, he did coach boys’ track & field until recently where he won a pair of State Championships when he was in his seventies.