WORRIED OVER HISTORY, MARION COACH SUICIDED--Marion, Ill., Sept. 10-Sidney Gepford, athletic director of the Marion Township High School, ended his life yesterday by shooting hemself in the head with a pistol used as a starting gun. Just one week ago he took charge of football practice at the local school.
He went to his boarding place at 10 o'clock, locked himself in his room, wrote five letters and then fired the fatal shot. He had removed his shirt and marked a cross on his undershirt over his heart, but failed to use this target. An open note explained that "the history classes worried me to death," with the work "death" underscored.
Gepford was 27 years old, the son of J. F. Gepford of Decatur, Ill. He graduated from the Decatur High School, attended Milliken University at Decatur for two years and graduated from Bethany College, West Virginia, where he was a 'star athlete'. For the past two years he taught at Farmer City, Illinois.
Gepford is the second coach the Marion School has lost by death within a year. D. Willard Smith died in the Murphysboro Hospital on Armistice Day last year from pneumonia, while his team was engaged in a game at Murphysboro.
Edwardsville Intelligencer (Edwardsville, Illinois), September 10, 1924
He went to his boarding place at 10 o'clock, locked himself in his room, wrote five letters and then fired the fatal shot. He had removed his shirt and marked a cross on his undershirt over his heart, but failed to use this target. An open note explained that "the history classes worried me to death," with the work "death" underscored.
Gepford was 27 years old, the son of J. F. Gepford of Decatur, Ill. He graduated from the Decatur High School, attended Milliken University at Decatur for two years and graduated from Bethany College, West Virginia, where he was a 'star athlete'. For the past two years he taught at Farmer City, Illinois.
Gepford is the second coach the Marion School has lost by death within a year. D. Willard Smith died in the Murphysboro Hospital on Armistice Day last year from pneumonia, while his team was engaged in a game at Murphysboro.
Edwardsville Intelligencer (Edwardsville, Illinois), September 10, 1924
WORRIED OVER HISTORY, MARION COACH SUICIDED--Marion, Ill., Sept. 10-Sidney Gepford, athletic director of the Marion Township High School, ended his life yesterday by shooting hemself in the head with a pistol used as a starting gun. Just one week ago he took charge of football practice at the local school.
He went to his boarding place at 10 o'clock, locked himself in his room, wrote five letters and then fired the fatal shot. He had removed his shirt and marked a cross on his undershirt over his heart, but failed to use this target. An open note explained that "the history classes worried me to death," with the work "death" underscored.
Gepford was 27 years old, the son of J. F. Gepford of Decatur, Ill. He graduated from the Decatur High School, attended Milliken University at Decatur for two years and graduated from Bethany College, West Virginia, where he was a 'star athlete'. For the past two years he taught at Farmer City, Illinois.
Gepford is the second coach the Marion School has lost by death within a year. D. Willard Smith died in the Murphysboro Hospital on Armistice Day last year from pneumonia, while his team was engaged in a game at Murphysboro.
Edwardsville Intelligencer (Edwardsville, Illinois), September 10, 1924
He went to his boarding place at 10 o'clock, locked himself in his room, wrote five letters and then fired the fatal shot. He had removed his shirt and marked a cross on his undershirt over his heart, but failed to use this target. An open note explained that "the history classes worried me to death," with the work "death" underscored.
Gepford was 27 years old, the son of J. F. Gepford of Decatur, Ill. He graduated from the Decatur High School, attended Milliken University at Decatur for two years and graduated from Bethany College, West Virginia, where he was a 'star athlete'. For the past two years he taught at Farmer City, Illinois.
Gepford is the second coach the Marion School has lost by death within a year. D. Willard Smith died in the Murphysboro Hospital on Armistice Day last year from pneumonia, while his team was engaged in a game at Murphysboro.
Edwardsville Intelligencer (Edwardsville, Illinois), September 10, 1924
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