Arnold M. Reed and
J. Worth Timmons, played basketball for Northern Montana College from 1936-38. This team was playing the game of basketball as the game of basketball itself was evolving. The required center jump after every basket had just been eliminated and it was the year before the one-handed jump shot was legal. Typical game scores were 58-34, 50-31, 41-25. Certainly, these two inductees were head and shoulders above their peers in the fledgling small college basketball programs in the State of Montana.
After graduating from NMC with a two-year engineering degree, he transferred to Montana State College in Bozeman, Montana where he became a defensive standout for the Bobcats from 1938-1940. He chose not to play his last year of eligibility to take a teaching and coaching job at Stanford High School in Stanford, Montana where he taught math and science and coached all of the sports offered at the school. Reed continued to compete in various invitational tournaments and in 1947, he played on the top Pacific Northwest team, the Alpine Dairy when they placed 4th out of 64 teams at the National Amateur Athletic Union tournament in Denver, Colorado. During his career he played against such notable players as Bob Kurland, a 7’ center from the University of Oklahoma, Hank Luisette from Stanford University who introduced the one-handed shot to the game of basketball, Jim Pollard, Ace Grueing, Bud Browning, and original Globetrotters, Duke Cumberland and Babe Pressley of the Minneapolis Lakers. Reed retired from playing in 1949, but began a lifetime of assisting at basketball games. For many years until 1992 when he retired, he kept score at many a game. He still keeps time, picks place winners at Billings’ track meets, and is a timer and judge for the Big Sky State Games.
For over 35 years, he has worked with Montana schools and universities as the Jostens’ representative and is credited for helping build the Jostens’ company. He was named to the Jostens’ President’s Cabinet for his outstanding sales. For seventeen continuous years, he was the guest speaker at the annual salesman’s awards banquet. He was President of the Pacific Northwest Shrine Association, the oldest in North America, and he chaired the fundraising committee to build the Masonic Center in Billings, Montana. Active in Kiwanis, he was a member of the Golden “K” Club. In 1997, the Billings community recognized him with a “Celebration of Life” Award for distinguished service.
