Pat Kuhens, a lifelong Fayette County resident and First-Team All-State player on the 1961 Valley High School girls’ basketball State championship team, holds the program from that year’s tournament in Des Moines. (Zakary Kriener photo)
Remembering the 'Perfect Season!'
Zakary Kriener
News Writer
zkriener@fayettepublishing.com
March 11, 1961, is a date that will never be forgotten by many in the Valley community. This year marks the 60-year anniversary of the Valley Tigers girls’ basketball State championship, which was the first and only in the school’s history.
“Back then people didn’t spend much money or go out. There was no social life, but high school sports was something that the community came our and rallied around. Even if they didn’t have kids on the team or in school, everyone was neighbors and would still come out to watch,” recalled West Union’s Pat Kuhens (Larson), who was a First-Team All-State member of the championship team in ’61. “It would be 15 or even 30 years later and people would come up to me and want to talk about basketball. That’s how much the community loved us!”