Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Branch to speak at Chamber Banquet

Gurdon's Chamber of Commerce Banquet has been set for March 2, 2004, at 7:00 p.m. in the Gurdon High School Cafetorium.

Tickets will be $15 each and can be purchased at both area banks and the Gurdon Chamber of Commerce office within the next few weeks.

The deadline has been set for nominations to be turned in for citizen, teacher and Chamber member of the year. A letter of nomination must be sent in to Michelle Anderson at P.O. Box 187, Gurdon, by 9 a.m. on Friday, February 27.

Entertainment for this year's banquet will be Allen Wimberly, Gurdon Band Director. Wimberly not only entertains with his voice, but he can also play the saxophone.

New Chamber of Commerce board member Bill O'Connell will be in charge of the invocation this year.

Jesse Branch, the football coach with Henderson State University, will be this year's guest speaker.

Branch is the second year head coach for the Reddie football team.

He is a native of Pine Bluff where he graduated from Watson Chapel High School in 1959. He attended college at the University of Arkansas, where he won two letters as an offensive and defensive back. He earned All-Southwest Conference honors as a senior in 1963 and graduated in 1964.

After graduation, Branch played two seasons for the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League, leading the league in punt returns in 1964. In 1966, he took his first coaching position, serving as running backs coach at Mississippi State. After one season in Starkville, he went to Kansas State and was the Wildcats' secondary coach from 1967-72. He then spent the 1972 season as the defensive coordinator at the University of Oregon before moving to offensive coordinator in 1973.

He returned to Kansas State for the 1974 season, serving as assistant head coach and defensive line coach. In 1975, Branch went back to Fayetteville and spent the next 11 seasons working with everything from wide receivers to running backs to defensive backs to quarterbacks. He worked under Frank Broyles, Lou Holtz and Ken Hatfield during his tenure as an assistant coach at Arkansas, and the Razorbacks made nine bowl appearances during that time.

Branch left the University of Arkansas in 1986 to become the head coach at Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield, Mo. In his nine seasons at SMS, Branch compiled an overall record of 55-44-1. He is the only head coach in school history to win two conference titles and have five consecutive winning seasons.

He was the Gateway Conference and Kodak Regional coach of the year in 1989 and 1990, leading the Bears to the NCAA Division I-AA playoffs in both of those seasons.

Branch left the coaching profession in 1995 to return to his alma mater. His duties as the Razorbacks' associate athletic director included serving as the compliance coordinator, working with the Razorback Foundation and serving as the administrative supervisor for academic support and student life.

Branch retired from that position on Sept. 15, 2000. He and his wife, Lee Ann, moved back to Springfield, but it did not take long for Branch to realize that he wanted to get back into collegiate athletics. More specifically, he wanted to coach again. He applied for the vacant job at Henderson State and was hired as the Reddies' 17th head coach on May 22, 2001.