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, the next two inductees were head and shoulders above their peers in the fledgling small college basketball programs in the State of Montana.
J. Worth Timmons, was born in Havre, Montana and grew up an avid sportsman, and participated in fishing, hunting, and bowling, but it was in baseball and basketball that he distinguished himself. As a teenager, he won a batting title at a competition camp in Missoula and received a bat that had been signed by Babe Ruth. Timmons competed for Havre High School on the football and basketball teams during the time that they acquired the name Blue Ponies after a sportswriter described the team executing a fast break.
An outstanding athlete for Northern, he played first base for the baseball team and was known for his defense and his home runs. He was named the Most Outstanding Center by the MCCA (Montana Collegiate Coaches Association) in his last year of competition for NMC. In addition to being voted to every All-Conference team, the Havre native finished that year as the 8th leading scorer in the conference with 121 points, in a tie with teammate Edward Morrison. Under the guidance of first year coach, the legendary R.V. “Sandy” Sandven, the All-Conference duo with Timmons at center and Reed, from Outlook, Montana at guard led the team to the SCC Co-Championship in 1938 with Billings Poly (now Rocky Mountain College) after placing second the year before. . A stalwart on defense, Timmons led the team in rebounds and shots blocked and was also the assist leader, passing to teammate and co-inductee, Arnie Reed.
The son of well-known Havre and Hill County residents, R. C. “Doc” Timmons and his wife Clara, Worth studied engineering at Northern and in 1939 he was hired by the Montana Highway Department as a survey assistant. He joined the army in 1940 and was stationed in Seattle when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He served until 1946 in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in an artillery battalion and participated in the Battle of the Bulge in Germany. After the war, he resumed his career with the Montana Highway Department and, in 1949 he was transferred to Shelby, Montana as a project engineer. He often played basketball for the Shelby town team and it was in Shelby that he developed a passion for golf. He returned to Havre in 1967 to complete his career. Retiring in 1979, he and his wife Florence (McGuinn) moved to Arizona for an extended retirement of golf and travel. Worth Timmons passed away December 2, 2002, at the age of 84, in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
