On March 29th 2012 Starrlene Faye Welborn Boatwright, age 61, passed away after a courageous battle with stage 4 breast-bone cancer. Starr and her loving husband Steve were married for 41 years and lived 36 of those years in the Colbert Heights Community. In 1978 a Dixie Youth Boys Baseball Program was started in the Colbert Heights community. Due to a change in Steve’s work schedule, Starr and Janice Davis Fuller coached the boys 5 & 6 year old team. In 1979 Starr organized a girls softball program in Colbert Heights and working with her softball playing friends teams were also organized in several other communities in Colbert County resulting in a girls softball league for Colbert County. Starr continued to coach in the Colbert Heights girls softball league unitl 1994. In 1984 Starr talked with Mr. Leroy Finch, Principal of Colbert Heights High School, about getting a girl’s varsity softball program started for the 1985 season. As the 1985 season approached there was not a girl’s varsity softball program in place.
Starr meets again with Mr. Finch and informed him she was in the process of filing a Title 9 Suit against him and the Colbert County School Board for discrimination and the only way she would drop the suit would be if a girls varsity softball team was organized and ready to play in the spring of 1986. Starr then tells her husband, Steve, who was a member of the Colbert County School Board what her plans were and asked for his advice and tells him she knows what his vote will be on this issue!!
Needless to say in the spring of 1986 the Colbert Heights High School Lady Wildcats played their first game. Without the untiring devotion, dedication and commitment of Starr Boatwright, Colbert Heights High School Lady Wildcats Softball would not exist today.
In 1997 the Colbert Heights High School Lady Wildcats won the Alabama 2A State Softball Championship. About 80% of the girls on this team were all coached by Starr in the youth program. The night the team arrived home from Montgomery they went to the softball field and called for Starr to please come up to the field because they had something to show her. The girls jumped for joy as they presented Starr with the State Championship trophy and told her they never could have won it without her influence in their lives. In 2000 some of the same girls were on the Lady Wildcat Softball Team that was the 3A State Runner-up.
April 12, 2012 the Colbert County School Board adopted a resolution naming the Colbert Heights High School softball field in honor of and to the memory of Starr Boatwright. On April 19, 2012 at 4pm a dedication ceremony was held as the first game ever was played on “Starr Boatwright Field”. There were 10 of the 16 members present from the 1986 Lady Wildcat Softball Team.
As the 2012 Colbert Heights Lady Wildcats took the field to play the starting catcher was Freshman Kaelyn Holt, Granddaughter of Steve & Starr Boatwright.
Steve and Starr were strong supporters of the Enlisted Associations that make up EANGUS and she will be missed. Thanks to the Author of this story and to Jenny Lainhart for publishing it in the EANGUS Auxiliary publication, The Signal (June Issue).
