Bio

Zenobia (Noby) Ruth Denson Houston

Harrison-Stone-Jackson Agricultural High School & Junior College (1927-1932) / Coach (Basketball)
Bay Springs, Mississippi

Noby Ruth (Denson) Houston, born December 24, 1901, graduated from high school in Bay Springs in spring 1920. That fall she entered Mississippi Women's College, a Baptist institution in Hattiesburg, which later evolved into William Carey College. While at MWC she excelled in women's sports, especially basketball. After her graduation from MWC in 1924, she taught one year at Magnolia Consolidated School seven miles west of Wiggins and two years at Piave in Greene County. In 1927, Lee Denson, her cousin who was then superintendent of Harrison-Stone-Jackson Agricultural High School and Junior College at Perkinston, recruited Noby Ruth to teach music and coach women's basketball. Her 1929 team won the Second Place State Trophy in the state tournament held March 16 in the Old Gym at Perkinston. The 1929 tournament was the second annual Mississippi junior college state tournament in the history of the Mississippi Junior College Athletic Association and the first one held in the facilities of a member institution. The trophy taken by Noby Ruth's team in the 1929 tournament was the initial state-level women's sports trophy in the history of the Perkinston-based institution and the only one until the Perk women's basketball team won the South Division title of 1953. In addition to coaching, Noby Ruth, who was the band-orchestra leader, apparently initiated the practice of playing music at sports events. Noby Ruth left Perk in May 1932. The following month she married Reuben Kidd Houston of Sylvarena. After ten years in Texas the couple returned to Bay Springs. Noby Ruth (Denson) Houston died in Bay Springs on November 7, 2000.