Whitman Hall of Fame
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Following a three-year stint serving in the U.S. military during World War II, Bobby Rhay captained the Whitman track and field team to the 1946 Northwest Conference championship by tying his conference record to winthe 440-yard sprint and anchoring the mile relay.
His senior season at Whitman culminated with him winning the 1946 Borleske Trophy.
Before enlisting in the Army Air Corps in August 1942, Rhay captained Whitman to its fifth straight NWC track title by again winning the 440 (setting a conference record) and anchoring the winning mile relay.
As a freshman, Rhay placed second in the 440 at the NWC championship meet. Earlier that season, he ran on Whitman’s winning mile relay team at Portland’s Hill Relays, a major meet featuring two Olympians, Glen Cunningham and Don Lash.
Rhay is more than a former collegiate athlete. He is a World War II veteran who flew P-47 Thunderbolt fighter planes, logging 47 combat missions. In 1957, he became warden at the Walla Walla State Prison (the youngest in the nation at that time). He retired 20 years later as the nation’s oldest warden. He later became assistant director of the Washington Department of Corrections in Olympia and then director of corrections in Montana.
Rhay also worked as a chief investigator for Argosy Magazine’s “Court of Last Resort,” which was dedicated to upgrading the American justice system. In early 1953, he appeared on Dave Garroway’s “Today Show” with Silas Rogers, a young man freed from a life sentence based on evidence collected by the Court of Last Resort.
