St. Mary’s 1939 Basketball Team

Former newspaper reporter C. Weston Dash donated this picture of the 1938-1939 Sandusky St. Mary’s basketball team. Notes on the original picture indicate that the photograph was taken on March 19, 1939. This team was runner-up for the Class A High School state championship in 1939. Coach Lee Zierolf is on the right, in the back row. Team members were: Leroy Riedy, Howard Thompson, Art Link (team captain), Ken Smith, Wayne Stamm, Joe Riccardi, Charles Stanley and John Thompson. You can read more about this team in the March 19, 1939 issue of the Sandusky Register. Coach Lee Zierolf was a teacher and coach at St. Mary’s from 1932 to 1953. Under his leadership, the St. Mary’s basketball team won the state championship in 1936, and were state runners-up from 1937 to 1940. Visit the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center to read more about your favorite local sports teams in issues of the old Sandusky newspapers, now on microfilm.

C. Weston Dash, Reporter and Photographer

C. Weston Dash was born in Cleveland, Ohio on June 7, 1914. Learning the printing business from his father as a young man, Mr. Dash was the editor and reporter for his high school and college newspaper. Later, while he was a correspondent with the International News Service, he covered the 1936 Republican National Cenvention in Cleveland.

He lived in Sandusky from June of 1937 through October 1940. While in Sandusky, Mr. Dash was a reporter and editor with the Sandusky Register and Star Journal. He also served as Sandusky School Superintendent of the Methodist Church, and worked on set construction for the Harlequins. He was the publicity chairman for the Ohio Grape Festival, 1939-1940.  In the summer of 1938, C. Weston Dash married Anne Elizabeth Chamberlain Warren, and they were wed for 62 years. Mr. and Mrs. Dash made lifelong friends with Sandusky residents during their years in Ohio.

In 1990, C. Weston Dash donated several negatives to the historical collections of the Sandusky Library. Below is a photograph from the 1940 Grape Festival held at Sandusky September 19-22, 1940.

During the March 31, 1939 fire in downtown Sandusky, Dash took photographs of the fire and fire fighting efforts for several hours.

C. Weston Dash passed away at the age of 89 in Maine on January 30, 2004. A quotation cited at the end of Mr. Dash's obituary gives us insight into his personality:

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter

 -- E. E. Cummings