When Bridgeport High School held its Senior Assembly where more than $4 million in scholarships were announced to members of the graduating class, there were plenty of people in attendance from seniors and their parents to faculty, staff and scholarship presenters.

 

Among the throng of nearly 200 BHS graduates was senior Donald Kummer. Kummer was in line to receive several scholarships that day as he donned the cap and gown for the event. And when he arrived and saw a family friend, he didn’t give it much of a second thought.

 

“When I got there I saw him and said hello. I didn’t know why he was there, but it wasn’t unusual to see him there,” said Kummer.

 

The “him” in this case was Doug Hogue, or Coach Hogue or Mr. Hogue or even Principal Hogue. Or, for the reason that Kummer and probably so many others didn’t see anything unusual is that Hogue is currently the President of the Harrison County Board of Education.

 

Hogue’s presence at an event of this nature was far from unusual. In fact, it probably didn’t even cause anyone to bat an eye. However, his presence had nothing to do with his role as BOE President and everything to do with Donald Kummer and Doug Hogue’s late wife – Janice Rae Miles Hogue.

 

Doug Hogue knew why he was there. His daughters Amanda Phares and Karey Kirkpatrick knew why their father was there.

 

On this day, Doug Hogue was going to announce that Donald Kummer was the recipient of this year’s Janice Rae Miles Hogue Memorial Scholarship. While the presentation of a scholarship to a student on this day wasn’t unique in the slightest, the back story to this presentation is one of lifelong friendships and a woman who went out of her way to make a child not only comfortable, but part of her own family.

 

“My wife started the children’s choir at Vincent Memorial (United Methodist) Church and she was having a hard time getting kids that were little to sing. They were all a little embarrassed and she figured if she could get a few kids to join she could get a lot to join,” said Hogue.

 

The strategy paid off. And the strategy started with a youngster named Donald Kummer.

 

“She talked to Donald and she came to find out he had a great voice. He agreed to sing in the choir and, boy, did he hit the ground running,” said Hogue recalling those days many years ago. “After that, there were a bunch of kids wanting to join and the choir grew rapidly.”

 

If the story just ended there, it would have been great. Instead, it turned out to be wonderful.

 

At that time, the Hogue family and the Kummer family were already friends. Doug Hogue, who was a successful basketball coach at Roosevelt-Wilson High School, coached Donald’s father Brian back from 1979 to 1981 on some really good Presidents’ basketball teams.

 

As is often the case with player and coach, they took that relationship and built it into one of friendship afterwards. Hogue served Donald’s father as a role model and mentor during and then after his school years.

 

“We all kind of knew (Coach Hogue) growing up with all of us in Broadway or East View, but when Doug began coaching me (my sophomore year) he was a help in more than just basketball. He helped me through some tough times in high school and kept me focused on the right things. He was a great mentor to me and kept a lot of kids stay on a straighter path than they would have been on had he not been there,” said Kummer. “I’ve been close with him ever since.”

 

Of course, when Donald Kummer joined the family circuit it was only reasonable Hogue would be there to enjoy watching his former player’s son grow up. The fact that Hogue’s wife was getting him involved in the choir at church was sweet icing on the cake as was a chance to be Donald’s principal at Washington Irving Middle School before the family moved to Bridgeport.

 

“It turned into a great choir and Donald was her lead guy,” said Hogue. “I’ve been able to watch him grow from that into a fine young man, but some of my earliest and best memories of him are singing.”

 

Make no mistake, Donald Kummer can do more than carry a basketball team as a point guard. He can also carry a tune.

 

Long before he was a teen – his father says Donald was probably 5-years-old at the time – he was not only in the choir, but doing solo performances.

 

“It was so long ago I really have a hard time remembering how I sounded, but for whatever reason I remember thinking it was fun to watch other people sing. I’d sit in the pews in church and wondered what it would be like if I tried and when I did, I liked it,” said Donald. “She got me so excited to go to church that I couldn’t wait for Sundays to get a chance to see her. I was just a little kid, but I remember so much that she ended up being like my best friend.”

 

Donald Kummer ended up staying close to Janice Hogue as he grew older. Then, in 2008, something devastating happened to the person that he had grown so close to. Janice Hogue would succumb to cancer.

 

“That was a tough time,” said Brian Kummer. “We all knew what Coach was going through and then my son was facing losing someone he was close to as well. It was a difficult situation.”

 

One made even more difficult by the fact that just a few days after his wife’s passing, Doug Hogue would be diagnosed with cancer himself. It’s a battle he’s maintained, in some manner and with a dogged determination, ever since.

 

Yet, the story turns here. It turns in a manner that led to a unique and happy encounter May 17 in the auditorium at Bridgeport High School.

 

Many of Hogue’s former players and other alumni of Roosevelt-Wilson, Washington Irving and the merged Robert C. Byrd High School put on a benefit basketball game to raise funds to give to Hogue to use in whatever manner he wanted. And that manner, he decided, would best serve the honor of his wife who taught in the Harrison County School system and loved other children as if they were her own.

 

“We were blessed to have good insurance and the majority of the medical costs our family had incurred in the situations with cancer had been paid off so we had almost $8,000 raised from that game for me to do whatever with,” said Hogue. “We put it into a scholarship fund and we’ll give out a $500 scholarship each year until that money is gone.”

 

Hogue, whose involvement was primarily at the school that now is Robert C. Byrd where he served as a vice principal and athletic director, said the scholarships in the past have always went to a member of RCB’s graduating class. There was the exception, he said, where one year it went to a student at Lincoln that had written an article about Janice teaching her in Kindergarten.

 

“I get with my daughters to make the decision each year. This year, there was no question that we all wanted Donald to get that scholarship in her memory,” said Hogue. “Donald was so very special to her.”

 

And so as Hogue began to speak to the packed crowd that morning, no one knew what he was speaking about. Then he began to talk about his wife and his own battles and he began to talk about a special young man who, even then, wasn’t sure what was going on.

 

“He was right there in front of me and when he came in he said ‘hey coach.’ I knew he had no clue and that made it even a little more special,” said Hogue.

 

As he described that special boy, the majority of those gathered still had no idea who the young man that sang for the church choir was. Brian, Debbie and Donald Kummer all knew.

 

“I remember him saying something about this young man always used to sing in church and my heart stopped. I don’t usually get nervous, but I was real nervous really fast,” said Donald. “Everything came back to me about her. Sometimes you forget about people who were important to you when they’re no longer around, but it just slammed into me how close we were. I can’t tell you how honored I was.

 

“That scholarship wasn’t the biggest one I was fortunate enough to get, but it meant more than the rest,” he continued. “It was the most important because it was in honor of my friend Janice.”

 

As Hogue called Donald Kummer forward, they embraced. The student-athlete point guard for once was a little off his game with his emotions, but that was okay. Everyone that knew Coach Hogue, his wife and their situation was taken aback in the most positive of ways.

 

“It was very emotional to see that come full circle; something that started back in church,” said Brian Kummer. “It’s nice to see the world come back to you in a positive manner. How could anyone not think that moment wasn’t a good thing? It makes you know that you always have to look out for your friends.”

 

And today, Brian Kummer and plenty of the old R-W gang – many of whom now call Bridgeport home – are taking care of Doug Hogue who still battles. He’s been receiving treatment for multiple myeloma, where the cancer weakens the bone cells.

 

“Brian calls to see if I’m doing okay or if I need anything. I’ve got a lot of former players that offer me rides for treatments, help or just to check on me. The good news is that my numbers have improved as the result of a clinical trial that I’m on so I have just one treatment a week and they are hoping it’s for maintenance,” said Hogue. “It’s comforting, though, knowing those kids you coached are always there.”

 

And Hogue said his wife Janice would have wanted to be there for the ceremony and, in a way, he believes she was. Hogue said his wife always brightened a room to the point you knew she was there – much like at the BHS assembly.

 

“I know she was thinking of him. She was thinking about how he sang. When Donald sang, he woke up a church,” said Hogue. “She always remembered that.”

 

The family did too. Because of that, a bond formed between player and coach decades ago is just as strong now as it was then. Strong enough, in fact, to render cancer useless.

 

On this day, cancer was simply no match to what had already been created. And that was music to everyone’s ears.

 

Editor's Note: Top photo courtesy of Joey Signorelli of www.sigsphotography.com, shows Donald Kummer, right, and Doug Hogue embracing after the scholarship was announced. In the second photo, more people know Kummer for is basketball than his singing. In the third photo, Doug  Hogue addresses the BHS Assembly, while the two shake hands as soon as the announcement was made. Bottom three photos by www.benqueenphotography.com.