A treasured memento once thought lost 43-years ago in a house fire made a miraculous return to its owner recently. As a freshman wrestling for McGuinness in 1982, Jerry Stanbrough won a regional title at 115 lbs. and received the distinctive OSSAA arrowhead gold medal for his efforts.
Only freshmen at the time, Jerry and twin brother Larry, were already accomplished and well-known wrestlers. They had won too many medals to count since beginning wrestling at age five. The regional medal, however, was a special medal for Jerry as it was the first of two high school regional champion medals that he won. Unfortunately, a fire later that year destroyed most of the Stanbrough home at 1115 NW 49th Street in Oklahoma City. Fortunately, no one was injured in the fire, but half of the house was destroyed and all the brackets, trophies and medals won up to that point were lost forever.
Or so they thought.
Fast forward 43 years to Crawford Cameron. Cameron, an avid historian, has been canvassing Oklahoma landscapes for over 50 years with his metal detector finding all sorts of interesting artifacts. Shortly into his search of the recently cleared lot at 1115 NW 49th Street, Cameron got a hit and dug down about a foot, finding a surprisingly well-preserved medal. The medal clearly showed the OSSAA symbol and REGIONAL WRESTLING on one side, and 1st Class 2A, 115 lb. 1982 on the other side of the medal.
Cameron, who has always taken the time to track down and return keepsakes to their rightful owners, including once finding a diamond ring and returning it to a very grateful owner, knew that someone wanted the medal. Cameron, a football and track star at Marietta High School and four-year member of the OSU football team in the late 1970s, knew a bit about high school sports and called the OSSAA, but they were unable to track down records from that time period.
Cameron knew that Perry was a powerhouse in wrestling and thought the medal was possibly won by a Perry wrestler. Cameron called the Perry Daily Journal and spoke with Lori Battles, General Manager for the paper. Battles was intrigued by the story and while not knowing the answer, told Cameron she knew someone who might know.
A bit of personal pride here, as both Lori and Wes Ruth from the OSSAA reached out to me to see if I could find who won the medal. It took me about two minutes to find that Jerry Stanbrough won the Class 2A 115 lb. West Regional title with a 5-0 win over Weatherford’s Kevin Wilson.
Cameron had given Lori his phone number and I called Cameron to let him know who won the medal. When he told me that he found it at 49th and Western, I knew it made sense since McGuinness is located just one block away. Wanting to get the medal back to Jerry and hear both the story from Cameron on how he found it and the backstory from Stanbrough, I excitedly worked to track down Jerry Stanbrough.
Thanks to Facebook, the next part happened very quickly. Posting a picture of the medal and a plea to locate Jerry Stanbrough on the Facebook group “I Wrestled in Oklahoma”, got a lot of traffic with people quickly reaching out to Jerry and Larry. Jerry was with grandkids on a family vacation in Florida, but Larry was available and very excited to meet Crawford and get the medal. A meeting was set up for the next day, and while Crawford was happy to return the medal, he was unaware of “the rest of the story.”
Floyd and Mary Ann Stanbrough and their eight children, lived in the three-bedroom house located at 1115 NW 49th Street since 1957 (Jerry said his dad bought it for $8,000!). Larry and Jerry were the youngest of the eight kids and you can imagine the wrestling that went on in the living room of that house.
Larry and Jerry excelled on the mat from an early age and Larry commented that their bedroom was completely filled with brackets, trophies, and medals that the brothers had won over the years. USJOC, Tulsa Nationals, JH State, and other tournaments across Oklahoma and the nation, you name it, they were there and usually brought home some hardware.
All of that was destroyed by the 1982 fire. Despite an extensive search of the house following the fire, none of hard-earned medals were found. They were obviously disappointed, but life moved on and the medals were just a memory.
Larry recalled that after the fire, they rebuilt at the same location as the house was located right across the street from Tommy’s Drive-In, their family-owned business and McGuinness was just a block away. Larry and Jerry were the last of the eight Stanbrough children to graduate from McGuinness.
With all of the kids graduated, Floyd and Mary Ann eventually sold Tommy’s Drive-In and moved to Jones. Larry said that he would reflect back on the great times he had at the house each time he drove down Western. Just recently, noticing the house had been leveled, he passed the surprising news on to his siblings.
This is where Crawford Cameron enters the picture. Cameron with over 50 years’ experience enjoying his hobby of searching Oklahoma with his metal detector just happened to see the open lot. Knowing that an older house had once been there, he just had a feeling that it would be a good place to search. After getting permission, Cameron started his search and soon discovered the medal!
With the medal found and the owner of the medal located, the meeting with Crawford and Larry took place quickly. It was a fun afternoon as both shared great stories about some fun life experiences. When walking the site, Cameron went to where he found the medal and Larry excitedly pointed out that was where their bedroom and all the medals were located.
Of course the question remains, how did one medal survive while none of the others have ever surfaced? Cameron’s guess is that the medal somehow fell into a crack or crevice that saved it from the fire. After hearing Larry’s story about none of the other medals ever being found, Cameron is hoping to return to the site soon for another search.
As all wrestlers do, meeting Larry and sharing wrestling stories could have gone on all day. Crawford shared that his fiancés brother, Fritz Zagorski was a 1990 national champion and 4X All-American for DIII Brockport College in New York. Side note, Zagorski, an accomplished Greco-Roman wrestler, has some great YouTube videos of some nice 5-point throws. To view, just do a google search of Fritz Zagorski.
During the conversation, a strange coincidence was shared that Cameron suffered a similar loss to the Stanbrough’s as he lost all of his track medals due to a house fire in the 1980s.
Crawford, who exceled in track and football, went to OSU as a preferred walk-on. Hoping to make the team as a punter, Crawford caught the coach’s eye when he ran a 4.6 40 yard dash on the grass and the coaches decided they wanted him as a receiver. This background in sports and understanding the commitment, dedication and sacrifice required to succeed helped motivate Cameron to find who the medal belonged to as he knew it was important to that person.
Larry was very emotional when Cameron presented the medal to him and greatly appreciated Cameron’s efforts in not only finding the medal but taking all the steps necessary to find the owner. Larry repeatedly thanked Cameron for all that he did in returning the medal to the family.
Upon his return from the family vacation, Jerry shared the same emotion and excitement in the recovery of the medal. Jerry was extremely grateful to Cameron, and his first response was expressing a big THANK YOU to Cameron for his extra efforts in returning the medal to him. Jerry went on to say that the medal brings back such great memories of all of his time on the mat.
Larry and Jerry didn’t waste any time in filling the walls with new medals and brackets as they both enjoyed stellar high school careers. The biggest highlight was the twin brothers winning state titles their sophomore and senior years. Larry was a 2X state champion and 4X state finalist, while Jerry was a 2X state champion and 3X state placer.
In 1982, as we know, Jerry won a regional title at 115 lbs. and Larry joined him as a regional champion at 108 lbs. At State, Larry advancing to the state finals, where he fell to undefeated and 2X state champion, Darrell Hume from Stilwell to finish the year with a 23-2 record. Jerry advanced to the semifinals, but dropped his next two matches to finish the year with a 23-5 record.
In 1983, the twins won back-to-back state titles at 115 and 123 lbs. Larry completed an undefeated 24-0 season with a 9-7 win over Stilwell’s returning state champion Brett Gray to win the 115 lb. title. The loss kept Gray from being a 4X state champion as he won titles the next two years. Jerry immediately followed Larry, winning the 123 lb. state title with a tight 2-1 win over Vinita’s Clint Markham to end his sophomore season with a 21-4 record. They were the first state champions for McGuinness.
In 1984, McGuinness moved up to Class 3A (now 5A), with Larry once again making the finals and Jerry earning a 3rd place finish. Larry, was undefeated until he fell in the finals to McAlester’s Kyle Rosebure, who won the first of his four state titles. Jerry earned a 3rd place finish with a 2-1 win over Mustang’s Scott Minor to finish the season with a 28-3-1 record.
Wrestling back in Class 2A (now 4A) in 1985, the twins capped their incredible careers, once again winning back-to-back state titles. Larry won the 123 lb. title with a 4-3 win over Marlow’s Scott House to finish the year with a 27-1 record and a sparkling 104-4 career record. Jerry followed, winning the 130 lb. title in style, getting a fall in just 0:43 over Anadarko’s Terry Jones. Jerry finished 27-4-1 that year and had a career record of 99-16-2.
At that time (1985), the 0:43 fall in the finals by Jerry was the 5th fastest fall in the State Tournament Finals history and still ranks as the 15th fastest fall in the State Tournament Finals.
Both earned college wrestling scholarships to OU, but injuries cut Jerry’s career short and after two years at OU, Larry transferred to Huron University in South Dakota. Larry had tremendous success at Huron, winning an NAIA national title at 126 lb. in 1989 and was a 3X All-American.
Quite a story! Stay tuned and we will let you know if Cameron finds anything on his next trip to the house.
