Betsy Wooton

Keeper of the basketball bible, Betsy kept record of AHS basketball history with a year by year listing of scores, games, coaches, pictures, and sideline material from the year 1911. It is perhaps the most complete chronological history of any prep basketball team in the state. But she is best remembered as the electrifying spirit behind the great championship teams of the 1930's and early 1940's. The athletes were her boys!

Portland area high school basketball coaches during the 1930’s and 1940’s dreaded the long winter trips to Astoria for a game with the Fishermen basketball team. First you had to navigate the old Columbia River highway, which was no more than a gravel road at the time. Once you arrived at Patriot Hall, a coach had to prepare his team for a baskeball program that was already legendary in the state of Oregon and Pacific Northwest.

Once the game started, your team would have to deal with the AHS math teacher. That’s right! Math teacher.

Betsy Wooton, the longtime AHS mathematics instructor could work the AHS student body into a deafening frenzy that would send a chill down the back of any visiting Portlander.

Astoria newspaper, The Astoria-Budget, had the following to say about Wooten. “Miss Wooton’s zeal for her career and for her school made her undoubtedly it’s best known teacher. Her interest was not confined to her teaching job, but she was a leader and advisor for many school organizations and numerous individual students as well.”

Her interest was particularly centered on AHS athletics and for years she personally “adopted” the teams and the individual members. Her friendship with former members of the football and basketball teams has continued despite their scattering to distant places. For years she has kept a full record of Astoria’s athletic achievements and of it’s individuals. Hall of Famer, Wally Palmberg, who was a player and coach at AHS during Wooton’s tenure, wrote many times why Wooten was valuable to the success of the Fishermen sports program. “It was a simple truth, the athletes were her boys. She was their staunch and enthusiastic supporter. Right or wrong, Betsy stood up for her boys. Betsy embodied the spirit and the will to win that permeated the school. She was the heart and soul of the great championship years. If the school had not had a Betsy Wooten, it wuld be reasonable to assume that the trophy case might have fewer championship trophies. I know, I was one of her boys.”

Wooton graduated from AHS in 1909 and was back in the classroom a year later as a teacher at the Upper Walluski school.

By 1911, she was off to the University of Oregon campus to earn her college degree. After finishing her studies in Eugene, she taught in McMinnville until Astoria made a bid for her services in 1919. Serving her alma mater as a math instructor for 28 years, at the time of her death in 1947, her passing received front page attention in the local newspaper.

As would be expected, former AHS athletes served as pallbearers at her funeral and members of the Girls Pep Squad, which she was the advisor for many years, filled the church.