Jack Etherington

Jack Etherington

Father of the PHS Stadium

PHS Class of 1950

Jack Etherington loves Payson High School. While a student, he excelled in academics and also athletics. He played football alongside Jim Durrant, and together they were both awarded all-state honors in 1949. Following graduation in 1950, Jack married his high school sweetheart Carol and he entered a career at Geneva Steel where he began as a laborer and worked his way into becoming a skilled electrician. Meanwhile, Jim Durrant, his former teammate, had become the head football and track & field coach at PHS.

When the school’s second building was finished in 1967, it did not have a stadium. (Click here to read more about the history of Payson High School.) Coach Durrant enlisted his friend Jack to be the chairperson for the “Payson High School Development Fund,” hoping to get a stadium built. And when you put Jack to work on something, it gets done; and done right! Jack immediately set to work organizing the community effort to get the Lion stadium built. He formed a donation program to raise funds, which included outreach work throughout the community and among PHS alumni. He also lined up volunteers to donate building materials and work hours. In true Payson fashion, the community rallied to the cause. After a lot of hard work, the stadium was completed. Though the track and bleachers have been repaired and replaced multiple times since then, our current stadium stands in the exact same location. In addition to the stadium, Jack made and donated many artifacts to the school, including the beautiful wood frame for the mural of the 1912 PHS building that hangs in the school entryway. Every athlete, parent, fan, or student who has ever participated in or attended a Payson Lions event in the stadium has been impacted by Jack’s legacy of dedicated volunteerism and the community’s generosity.

After retiring from Geneva, Jack worked as a private electrician and skilled cabinet & furniture maker. He once said, “if you show me a picture of it, I can make it.” After the tragic death of his wife Carol, Jack married RaNae (a fellow PHS classmate). Between them both, they have eight children, 38 grandchildren, and 51 great-grandchildren, as of the writing of this short biography.

Inducted 1994