Sitting in a seventh-row church pew at a funeral Washougal’s mayor dubbed one of the largest the town had seen, Frederick Lash reached for his open-faced pocket watch when a familiar voice asked, “This spot here, is it open?”
In 1933, Lash had been Camas schools’ superintendent for almost a decade. A respected educator born, raised and educated in Pennsylvania, Lash rose the ranks locally and statewide while leading the small Southwest Washington school district.
What Lash wasn’t proud of, however, is what had become of an interscholastic league serving the county’s high schools. The league he oversaw since its founding in 1924 was shrouded in cheating accusations, sportsmanship complaints and a host of other issues that led to division and dislike among the schools.
The league’s future was in jeopardy.
The man who asked to sit beside Lash did so with an always-recognizable voice. It was Don Leer, the young football coach of Mill Plain’s Union High.
Lash, still holding his pocket watch, acknowledged Leer and slid to his right. Two men whose last interaction weeks earlier ended in Lash being called an “asswhack” by a principal now sat shoulder to shoulder at a packed funeral. It was for Washougal superintendent and high school football coach Harry Craig, dead at age 38 after a four-day bout of septic sore throat.
Craig coached Washougal to five football titles in the early years of the league’s existence, including the school’s last unbeaten team in 1932. His death came 10 weeks later.
Lash, 41, hated funerals. It was the third he attended in eight months. Harry John “Moose” Craig, that damn good human — both men not only were school superintendents with coaching backgrounds in neighboring towns, but served on their town’s chamber of commerce and held high-ranking positions in the Clark County Education Association.
Nobody but Lash knew it at the time, but months after Craig’s funeral on Feb. 1, 1933, Lash would remarry, resign as Camas’ superintendent, and relocate to Seattle.
Camas was about to leave, too. The 1932 football season would be its final year in the league as one of the original members. The school already left the league in basketball.
But Lash decided then and there, sitting in a seventh-row pew at Washougal’s Congregational Church as a pianist’s tones played in the background, that the region’s small-school league — today known as the Class 1A Trico League — couldn’t die either.
Because Lash hated funerals.
“The interests of the high school are and should be as varied as the legitimate interests of society. They are maintained to a reasonable degree and for legitimate educational purposes.”
— From “Fundamentals Laws of School Success” by Frederick Lash
In 1924, the Clarke-Skamania Interscholastic Association debuted as a governing body for football, basketball, baseball, track and field, debate and declamation among the area’s county high schools. Camas, Ridgefield, Stevenson, Union of Mill Plain, Washougal and Washington School for the Deaf were the inaugural football members. Battle Ground remained a football independent. La Center and Yacolt joined in the winter for basketball.
The city’s school, Vancouver High, had membership in the large-school Southwest Washington League.
Lash, already earning a $200-a-month salary as Camas’ schools chief, earned an extra $10 per month as league president. After all, he was familiar with three of its schools. Camas was Lash’s third stint as a local superintendent. In between tenures at Battle Ground and Stevenson, Lash served in the Army during World War I.
Coaches attended the league’s inaugural meeting in September 1924 at Vancouver’s Memorial Hall, a building that opened on East 13th Street between Broadway and C Street that spring. Lash spent the previous day finalizing the eight-week football schedule and stashed the papers inside his briefcase where a scribbled note read, “Return call, Vancouver Evening Columbian #662.” A number of folks wondered if Camas and Washougal must abide by a league schedule — would the annual football game get moved off Thanksgiving Day?
The league meeting was scheduled for 10 a.m. Lash arrived moments after the school’s own coach, Otis Wilson. Next came William Hunter, the area’s coaching dean in his 19th season at the Washington School for the Deaf, and a man whose name is forever attached to the school’s gymnasium.
Then, in walked a man Lash hadn’t met.
“Harry Craig,” Craig said, removing his flat cap as the men exchanged handshakes. “People who know me best call me Moose.”
Then came Craig’s only question that had Lash grabbing a pen from the same breast pocket as his pocket watch. Under his breath, he asked his secretary to make a change.
“What game is Thanksgiving Day?”
“A large percentage of pupils fail in their high school career because of their attempt to substitute bluff for honest, personal effort. Bluff will not last long. The honest, plain-spoken dependable pupil is the one who ultimately succeeds.”
— From “Fundamentals Laws of School Success” by Frederick Lash
Craig, a Wyoming native, was new to Washougal. A former Army National Guard captain, he also was a first lieutenant in the Aberdeen Coast Guard while coaching at Aberdeen High and once gained Grays Harbor County fame by winning a semi-pro heavyweight bout over a fighter named “Chub.”
Now, he taught math at Washougal by way of Portland’s Benson High. The school year started in late September after most boys had finished with the annual prune harvest.
Regardless of the sport he coached, Craig urged players to eat right, sleep well, don’t smoke, and one unique rule.
“No lady friends,” he said. “I mean it.”
Craig felt girlfriends in-season were a distraction. At least, that’s what he told people.
But Craig’s football teams meant business. The Panthers steamrolled league opponents his first year, outscoring them 186-9, including a 47-0 drubbing of Camas to win the inaugural league pennant in front of a record crowd at Camas’ field on Thanksgiving Day.
But issues among other schools began as the league split into two divisions for basketball. The league expelled Ridgefield from all activities after unsportsmanlike complaints and misconduct from football. It was reinstated two weeks later under a provisional agreement. School for the Deaf Superintendent George Lloyd questioned the league’s ethics when it was left out of the basketball schedule. La Center’s star basketball forward, Charley Woodward, got suspended midseason after league officials discovered two Ridgefield men paid Woodward to play on a semi-professional baseball team. Stevenson was called out for using players over the age limit.
Then, there was the success of Yacolt, a 40-student high school with 19 boys that placed third at the all-classification state basketball tournament in Seattle. (A story on the team was published by The Columbian in May 2020.) It was the bright spot amid times of tension and turmoil.
Lash, the first-year league president, sent a congratulatory note to superintendent and coach Glen Hill and the Loggers. During his five years leading Stevenson schools prior to Camas, Lash coached basketball. He’d tell the story to anybody who’d listen how the team once traveled to Dufur, Ore. — by train, then ferry, then another train, then walked a half-mile in snow to play in a 12-by-30-foot “gymnasium.”
He wrote, in part, to Yacolt’s team: “May this achievement be a continuous reminder of your immense capabilities.
With utmost joy and congratulations,
F.M. Lash.”
“To do the work of the high school is a real job. It is as much of a job to the high school pupil as is the adult’s job.”
— From “Fundamentals Laws of School Success” by Frederick Lash
Whenever Frederick Lash stepped outside his first-floor high school office and pulled out the pocket watch his bride gave to him as a wedding gift 12 years earlier, Camas students knew Lash was cracking down on tardiness. On an exceptionally warm November day, high school and junior high students flocked to the school’s outdoor steps and lost track of time.
“Mr. Dungan,” Lash said, raising his voice to ensure senior Walter Dungan heard him some 50 feet away. Lash, a former high school teacher and principal, referred to students by their formal salutations when they reached high school, once saying, “Respect goes both ways.”
Dungan started on the offensive and defensive lines in football. He was an exceptional student and earned the title of “Mr. Ambitious” in the school yearbook.
“Sir!” Dungan replied. The teen didn’t wait to hear Lash’s next words. Dungan swung open the main doors and raced up to the second-floor science classroom — books in one arm, football bag full of gear in another.
The 1925 Thanksgiving Day game loomed. Just like the previous season, Camas and Washougal were on track to play for the league pennant. For Washougal, a game with Stevenson is all that separated the Panthers from the championship rematch with Camas.
Stevenson, by virtue of its location and more unpaved roads than its counterparts, felt like an outsider in an otherwise all-Clarke (later Clark) County League. It was, however, one of the few schools with tennis courts, a horseshoes venue and a girls basketball program dating back to 1910.
Its athletic field, though, had a leaguewide reputation: No grass, hard as concrete, mud ankle-deep when it rained. It sat on the property that’s now Stevenson Elementary. In fact, part of School Street, directly to the field’s left, was needed to make the field 100 yards.
Harry Craig’s Washougal team, on its way to a 33-0 victory over Stevenson behind four first-quarter scores, saved its final touchdown for the fourth quarter. As halfback Euhl Harris crossed the goal line, he slipped on School Street’s gravel. A Ford Model-T Roadster then slowly drove past, its driver with a hand on the horn, “Aaoogha.”
Three days later is when Lash spotted Dungan, Ray Borgio, and Elton Jones on their way to Camas’ athletic field. The team had an afternoon scrimmage with Rainier (Ore.) when Lash asked the boys what the team’s motto was for the Thanksgiving Day game, three days away.
“White Wash Washougal.”
“Like every venture in life, there are certain fundamental elements that must be observed, if success is to be assured.”
— From “Fundamentals Laws of School Success” by Frederick Lash
Two hours ahead of the 1925 Thanksgiving Day kickoff, Camas schools superintendent Frederick Lash downed three cups of black coffee. Plenty raced through his mind as he left the home on Fifth Street in Camas he shared with wife, Rae, and daughter, Barbara, for Washougal’s field west of Washougal Woolen Mills.
The annual Camas vs. Washougal game had become a county spectacle. This year, the game would decide the league pennant.
Nearly 1,500 were expected, a record crowd, for a game Washougal was favored to win, despite only three substitutes available because of season-ending injuries to multiple players.
“Every scrimmage adds to the list of hospital patients,” Washougal football coach Harry Craig said.
Nearly 20 special police officers were assigned to the game — an annual requirement after “severe incidents” three years earlier. They were briefed upon arrival: One included keeping an eye out for three Vancouver men who, at the previous year’s game, shouted bourbon-fueled rants while placing bets.
Three trophies also awaited the winner: the league pennant, the Camas-Washougal Kiwanis Cup and a special trophy made by a Vancouver businessman. The man tried to convince school leaders for a game with Vancouver High to determine the county’s true champion since the league champion “can be depended upon to play real football,” the man claimed. The state’s high school athletic association, however, forbid games after the final Saturday in November.
The game featured four lead changes, and Washougal regained the lead at 9-7 to start the fourth quarter. New Camas coach Frank Horrigan, after seeing quarterback George Karnath’s successful point-after kick on Camas’ only touchdown earlier in the game, called for Karnath’s leg on third down. Karnath’s drop-kick field goal sailed 20 yards, caught Washougal off guard and gave Camas the 10-9 lead late. The defense stopped Washougal on downs at the 12-yard line to secure the win.
Horrigan, for his work on short notice replacing coach Otis Wilson that week, received a commemorative platinum pin from players.
Lash presented the league pennant to Horrigan. In a surprise move, Craig presented both the Kiwanis Cup and the specialized Camas-Washougal trophy to the Papermakers. Words followed on the game’s fixture for its two communities, and the importance of being part of something greater than one’s self.
“This represents unity through competition,” Craig said.
“Success in the daily affairs of life, in any sorts of business or vocation, is dependent upon the regularity of one’s efforts.”
— From “Fundamentals Laws of School Success” by Frederick Lash
Craig’s words entered Lash’s mind when a firing squad from the Vancouver Barracks paid tribute to Craig, signaling the end of his funeral on an overcast February day in 1933.
Craig’s untimely death at age 38, after a four-day bout of septic sore throat, rattled the community. It came at a time when infighting and division threatened the Clarke-Skamania Interscholastic Association, a league of the area’s smaller high schools formed in 1924 that would go on to become the Class 1A Trico League.
Craig, who coached football, basketball and baseball, led Washougal to four more football league titles since its inaugural one in 1924. An 8-0-1 record in 1932 two months before Craig’s death remains the school’s last unbeaten season.
By this time, Yacolt’s high school had closed, Camas was about to go independent in football, and Stevenson was on its way to opting out of the league for five years, sparked by an eligibility dispute.
Craig’s death emphasized the need for unity in the league and change for the better, Lash thought. Three weeks later came the league’s two-day basketball tournament at Camas’ new gymnasium and Lash asked his secretary to have representatives from all schools arrive early. Once inside a vacant high school classroom, 16 men from six of the seven schools watched Lash intently like a pack of dogs write, “The Fundamental Laws Of School Success” on a blackboard.
“Christ, Fred, a literary lesson!?”
The tone in which that question was asked led Frederick Lash to turn around so fast, he bumped the desk in front of him and knocked his pocket watch on the floor. He didn’t recognize the coach who spoke up, but learned it was the new coach at La Center who forfeited the team’s 1932 football season after one game.
Just when Lash attempted to pick up what he presumed to be a broken watch, the classroom door swung open.
“Mr. Moore!” a surprised Lash said.
Nobody expected Washougal, the school not represented at the meeting, to be in attendance. Especially John Moore, the same man seen as a pallbearer at Craig’s funeral just named interim superintendent of Washougal schools.
By having its leader present, Washougal showed strength and commitment to the shared value of sports in the wake of Craig’s untimely death.
It was the kind of resolve Craig would have been proud to see.
Before Lash could introduce the former grade school principal to the room, the men were getting out of their seats. One by one, they introduced themselves to Moore with firm handshakes, and conversations followed for nearly an hour.
The room was galvanized. Differences were resolved. The future Trico League was saved.
At some point, Lash turned to erase “The Fundamental Laws of School Success” from the blackboard and retrieved his pocket watch off the floor.
Relieved, the watch wasn’t broken. Neither was the league.
Months later, Lash was appointed state director of adult education by the Washington Education Association, and left Camas schools. He went on to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Washington, and in 1936, ran unsuccessfully for state superintendent of Public Instruction. After being called into the Army Air Corps for World War II, Dr. Lash returned to his superintendent post at Western State Custodial School in Buckley, which served 600-plus children with developmental disabilities. He died in 1959.
“The high school occupies a period of life in which the individual is rapidly forming habits … which to a very great extent, will dominate all the years that are to follow.”
— From “Fundamentals Laws of School Success” by Frederick Lash
For decades, the Tri-County League has served various schools across multiple counties. The Tri-County (Clark-Cowlitz-Skamania) name was only meant to be temporary after Woodland’s addition and Stevenson’s readmission in 1939. Today, the Trico has eight members across four counties.
Trico schools’ success went beyond Southwest Washington once the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association instituted its state playoff system in 1973. In a six-year span, Washougal won Class A state baseball titles in 1973, ’74 and ’78. In boys basketball, Stevenson won seven league titles in eight years from 1978-86 under future Hall of Fame coach Mac Fraser, and reached the state tournament six times. Fraser went on to coach at Mount Vernon, retiring in 2001 after 492 victories and his third state title.
In 1995, Ridgefield captured the county’s first football state title under the WIAA playoff format, defeating Cascade of Leavenworth for an undefeated (13-0) season in Class 1A.
The Trico became infamous for another reason. Well before La Center’s boys basketball state championship glory of the mid-90s, the football program’s 37-game losing streak was the nation’s second-longest. From 1980-89, the Wildcats won nine games and lost 78.
Those days are long gone. La Center has now won five straight football league titles and 11 of the past 13 under longtime coach John Lambert. Another Trico school, Seton Catholic, is coming off a banner 2023-24 year: state berths in all but two sports, including a semifinal appearance in football, and a runner-up placing in softball.
Lambert, the dean of Clark County football coaches entering his 26th season, said the Trico League remains the definition of small-town Americana. As the “county league” celebrates 100 years, La Center and Stevenson remain from its inaugural year in 1924-25.
“I think there’s something special about the small-town stuff,” Lambert said. “I didn’t really experience that (growing up), but why would I want to leave this?”
ABOUT THIS PROJECT: All details, facts, and reporting for this story came from newspaper archives, school yearbooks, and family tales. Special thanks to Clark County football historian Bryan Levesque for his long-standing work at GSHLfootball.com.
