Since 1943, Washington High School has given the Bob Neumann Sportsmanship Award at the end of the year to a senior athlete, but who was Bob Neumann?

During the 1941-42 WCHS school year, the final year in the old building on Spruce Street before the school moved to Bondurant Street, the basketball team finished with a 21-7 record with mostly an underclassmen roster.  They won the Tazewell County Championship and became the second team in school history to win twenty games.  The leading scorer on that team was Junior Bob Neumann.

The 1941-42 football team went 8-1, allowing only 45 points in those nine games. One of the star players was Neumann who was considered the best athlete in the school.

Neumann was a stand out in baseball and track as well as participating in the music, speech, and drama programs at Washington High School.  He truly was the "Big Man on Campus" by the end of the 1941-42 school year.  On the horizon was Bob's senior year:  a new school on Bondurant Street with high expectations for the talented athlete and student with numerous opportunities that the new school would present.

Around this same time (1941), Eureka Lake was built to give the city a source for drinking water.  The lake also became a free and frequent swimming option for Washington youth.

For all of the activities that Bob Neumann excelled in, swimming wasn't an official school sport at that time. He learned what he could on his own.  On a hot summer day just after his junior year ended, he and a few  Washington boys, including Herman Linder, Jack Shipley, Donald Lucas, and Gerald Lucas went to Eureka Lake to cool off and have some fun.   Neumann and Russell Kinzinger decided to swim across a narrow part of the lake. About half way across, Bob tired and called out for help.

Kinzinger reached out to grab his buddy,  but his much smaller size put him in danger of being pulled under.  Shipley, Robert Shawhan and Eureka's William Lamb all dove in to save Bob to no avail. Neumann's body was pulled from the lake approximately 90 minutes later from an area twenty feet deep.  Resuscitation efforts were attempted but futile.

Services were Neumann were held the next Monday at the Evangelical Church with the entire junior class attending the services for their friend. Neumann's drowning led to the construction of a small beach and restricted swimming area at Eureka Lake.

The next spring, alumni Don Ingle and Loren Miller conceived of and raised funds for the Bob Neumann Sportsmanship Award to be awarded at graduation.  The first recipient was Neumann's good friend Harry Kimpling.