Remembering the Legends: Carmon Dugger

Published 3:31 pm Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Elizabethton High School

BY C.Y. Peters

Star Correspondent

Carmon Dugger attended schools at Southside Elementary and Elizabethton High. At Elizabethton, he was selected all-conference in baseball all four years.  Dugger left for the Marines in 1948, stationed in Hawaii and Japan, and was a veteran of the Korean War.

   After the service, he began playing for many teams in single and double A’s including the St. Louis Cardinals. Dugger played three years with the old Six Star baseball league in the early 40s. In the military, he was a great pitcher who got to see a lot of action on the baseball diamond. At one time while playing in Japan his pitching record was 49-2 with his best game coming where he threw a three-hitter and struck out 15-batters against the Calvary squad from Camp McGill.

He became the first Elizabethton Parks and Rec when he returned to Elizabethton in 1966. Dugger served at Parks and Rec for over 25 years beginning in 1966 and continuing to 1991. He also started the first Senior Citizens Center here and remodeled the old armory for a recreation center. In his time he built thirteen ball fields, thirteen tennis courts and five playgrounds. Riverside Park,(where the Twins play) has been named Carmon Dugger Park in his honor.  He was inducted into the Carter County Sports Hall of Fame in 2013.

Dugger enjoyed hunting and fishing as well as being an avid golfer. He set up golf tournaments for Elizabethton Municipal Golf Course and began the Buck Van Huss and Charlie Bayless annual tournaments, winning many of them. After retirement, he bought and remodeled a home in Seville, Florida, where he had a small orange grove. He loved to bring fruit back and give it away. Carmen Dugger was married to Charlotte Hendrix Dugger for 64 years until his death on March 24, 2016. They raised five children, he also had five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.