The game makes its way to the Wild West and starts to flourish with the help of a Blanchard daughter

In 1964, Peter Dominick (Colorado US Senator from 1963-1975) was working on subdividing a family farm in Cherry Hills Village (just south of Denver) and set aside a parcel for a family swim and tennis club. Hig Gould 1, a transplant from the East and related to Dominick through marriage, was working of the subdivision that was to include the club, now know as the Arapahoe Tennis Club, and persuaded the other founders to include two platform tennis courts.

The game started to flourish there and was helped by the arrival of Fess Blanchard’s daughter, Ruth, who moved there after the death of her husband Fred Walker (Hall of Fame 1966) in 1964. Ruth Walker Johnson was an accomplished player having been a finalist in the 1956 and 1959 Women’s Nationals.

Note 1: Gould was a stand-out hockey player at St Paul’s and Yale. After graduation from Yale he did two years of active duty in the Naval Reserve – during which he was an alternate on the 1956 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team and, in 1957, a member of the U.S. National Hockey Team which toured Europe- which were followed by study at the Harvard School of Business Administration.

Upon receiving his M.B.A. degree in 1959, he accepted one of many offers from firms in the Southwest and Mountain States, and moved to Denver to take a position in the venture capital department of Bosworth, Sullivan & Co., investment bankers. Later, he joined the Gates Rubber Company, becoming assistant to the president for corporate planning and then president of Gates Aviation Corporation. When the company was merged with Learjet, he was named vice-president and finally, last fall, president of Gates Learjet Corporation.
Source: St Paul’s School Alumni News

National Championships – Inaugural Junior Boy’s (under 20) and Men’s 50+ replaces Men’s 45+

1964-Rev 1

The Men’s 45+ was discontinued and was later reinstated in 19721.

A Men’s Senior 50+ event was added as the new Senior Men’s event.

In the Men’s, David Jennings and Oliver Kimberly, the previous year’s finalists, emerged as the winners over Thomas Holmes and Michael O’Hearn.

Charlotte Lee and Buffy Briggs won their second straight Women’s.

The Fox Meadow pair of Zan Carver and Barbara Koegel won the Mixed (Zan had wanted to take a cigarette break after they had split two long sets, as was his way, but Bobbie would not let him, as was her way!).

Germain Glidden and William Park won the inaugural 50+.

William deSaussure IV and Geoffrey Nixon won the inaugural Boy’s Junior event [Also see APTA 1963 Annual Meeting Minutes], the first of three straight titles for the team.

Note 1: The reason for this was that the APTA concluded that their initial decision to use age 45 for the “senior” category was too young, since four men over 45 years of age had won the 45+senior event as well as the Men’s National Championship between 1964 and 1972. In 1964 the “senior” age became 50+. [Also see APTA 1963 Annual Meeting Minutes]

Source: Oliver H. Durrell The Official Guide to Platform Tennis, 1967; and APTA Platform Paddle Tennis 1963-1973: Rules and Records, 1973; Personal communication from William F. Koegel.