Hall of Fame
If there was a Hall of Fame for quality human beings, Roger Gilmore might have been the first inductee. And chances are, if you scored a touchdown, made a basket or got a hit playing for DeLand High or Stetson University at some point over five-plus decades, Roger put your name in a newspaper. Starting in 1959 with the DeLand Sun News and continuing from 1992 with The West Volusia Beacon until early in 2013 when health issues led to his retirement, Roger captured the DeLand area sports scene through words and photographs. He passed away on October 22, 2013, at the age of 84, but his reach in the community was so large that his memorial service was held at Melching Field. Roger was a Navy veteran who had recently graduated from the University of Florida when he came to DeLand on Feb. 2, 1959. That fall he covered the first of 509 consecutive DeLand High football games. The Florida High School Athletics Association honored Gilmore with induction into its Hall of Fame in 2001. He also is in two other halls of fame for West Volusia high schools. A DeLand Little League field is named after him, and in 2006 he was selected as The Daytona Beach News-Journal‘s West Volusia Sportsperson of the Year. Roger’s support for all things DeLand included Stetson University, where he developed lifelong relationships with athletes, coaches and administrators, moonlighting for years with the baseball program as equipment manager, doing anything and everything that needed to be done. Roger was posthumously inducted into the Stetson Athletics Hall of Fame in 2014.
