Howard Payne University Athletics

Otha Barbee of Rule was a three-year football letterman who also played basketball and ran track. He was an All-Texas Conference end his senior year and was co-captain on the Yellow Jackets’ Texas Conference championship football team. He served as an assistant coach during his senior season. Barbee was a guard on the basketball team. In track, he ran the 440-yard dash and half mile and mile relays and was captain of the track team his senior year. Barbee was president of his junior and senior classes at Howard Payne. After graduation in 1939, he coached and taught at Galena Park and then went into the freight trucking business, managing several firms in Amarillo. He was active in the Howard Payne Ex-Students Association, serving as vice president. He died in 2001.