Pillow Academy will induct five new members into its Sports Hall of Fame on Friday, including two key players from the girls basketball team that once won 100 straight games.
Gwen Wier Toomey and Dee Dee Harmon Thach will join coach Tommy Crenshaw, Terry Thompson and Dr. Perry Whites in the Hall of Fame. The ceremony is set for 5 p.m. in the Tol Thomas Library.
Toomey, a 1973 PA graduate, lettered four years in basketball and was named to the North District AAA team and state AAA team.
She has worked as an educator in the public and private school system for 24 years — with 19 of those years at Pillow Academy. In 2013, she was selected as Pillow Academy Elementary Teacher of the Year.
Her former basketball teammate, Thach (PA class of 1974), lettered four years in basketball and was named to numerous all-tournament teams over the years and was named best defensive player for Pillow.
She worked as a speech pathologist in the field of education for 40 years, including the last eight in a part-time position.
Whites, a 1979 graduate, was a football and baseball standout at Pillow.
As a junior, he won the football 100 percent award and was named best defensive player on the North AAA championship team.
As a senior in football, he was all-conference, first-team all-state and voted to the all-star game. He went on to play baseball at Mississippi Delta Community College and is a former board president at PA.
Crenshaw came to Pillow in June of 1969, when there were only two buildings on the campus at that time.
He helped get the sports programs started there while coaching football and track.
In the spring of 1970, he watched the boys and girls track teams excel and the baseball team play for an MPSA championship.
Thompson was a standout baseball player. The 1971 Pillow graduate was drafted by the Chicago Cubs and played professional baseball in the Cubs and Cleveland Indians organizations.
He has coached in high school, junior college (Mississippi Delta 20 years), professional baseball and the prestigious Cape Cod Baseball League.
He has coached or trained 13 Major League Baseball players and owns his own business in the Jackson area, Pro Pitching, that specializes in training pitchers.
