A copy of the program cover from the first Sportsarama in 1960. In the attic of Rosser Thrash’s Summerville home sits a small box—about the size of the ones that mail–order fruitcakes are shipped in.

It is filled with programs, press clippings, and some financial records from the early years of the Sertoma Football Classic in Charleston that is marking its 40th anniversary this month (Aug. 19 and 20). Thrash kept the mementos as a reminder of his central role in that event’s founding.

Yet, earlier this summer, when he rummaged through boxes looking for similar mementos from the founding of Columbia’s Sportsarama—the oldest, continually running event of its kind in the Carolinas— he came up empty– handed—even though, by all accounts except his own, he played just as pivotal a role in the creation of what grew into Richland County’s premier preseason football event.

Rosters from Columbia, Dreher, Brookland–Cayce, Lower Richland, Olympia, Eau Claire, A.C. Flora, and Dentsville High Schools as they appeared in the 1960 Sportsarama program. “Someone called me the other day from the club and asked me questions about the event, and I couldn’t answer them,” Thrash said.

On the 50th anniversary of the Sportsarama’s founding, few can.

Not even the event’s sponsor, the Richland Sertoma Club has any mementos from those early years. It fell to Mike Safran, the owner of a Columbia antique and collectibles store, to supply the club with a copy of the program from the inaugural 1960 Sportsarama.

Only a half–dozen or so club members listed in that event program are still alive. Among them are three people recognized as “original” members by the club during its 50th anniversary celebration last year: Thrash, Columbia lawyer Joe Berry, and Frank Ayers. Thrash, 77, remembers meeting as a group—from which the club grew out of—in some name or form in the mid–1950s. He was a charter member along with his late brother Pat, who was the club’s first president. Berry was among the first group of invited members and was serving as club president at the time of the first Sportsarama.

“My recollection is that we were looking for something to raise money for the charitable projects we had going at the time,” Berry said. “Henry Turner had a good friend who lived in Spartanburg, who had started holding an event like this in the mid–1950s. So he suggested, we do it here in Columbia. Rosser and his brother, Pat, owned TNT Sporting Goods, which sold uniforms and accessories to the schools. They were close to all of the coaches in the area, so they were able to open a lot of doors very quickly to help us put it together.”

Even with those contacts, getting the idea off the ground took months.

“It was not put together very hurriedly,” said Art Baker, who in 1960 was the football coach at Eau Claire High School. “They went to the high school league to get the OK; you couldn’t hold an event like this without it. After the high school league approved it, they got together all the schools they thought they wanted to have together. They had to go through the school administrators, including H.B. Rhame, who was the athletics director for all the city schools. He sat in on the planning, and I recall the Sertoma had a breakfast to get everyone together.”

Complicating the process was that, while the Sportsarama concept is commonplace today, in 1960 there were few models which to point.

Thrash said several schools in Charleston had participated in a similar preseason exhibition for two or three years in the post World War II era, but the idea didn’t catch on. At the time of the Sportsarama’s inception, Spartanburg was the region’s only working model.

“The Sportsarama was the first big fundraising project the club undertook,” Thrash said. “And we were a very young club in terms of the age of the members. We were still full of vim and vigor.”

That energy was reflected in the more than 85 individuals filling no fewer than 11 committees that organized the first event. Beach Brooker and Edward “X” Harter served as the co–chairs.

“We were very active and very much enjoyed each other’s company,” Berry said. “We got involved in so many things as a club in the early years. We went into all of the schools and churches all over Richland county and helped with polio vaccinations; that was a great project.

“We did other fundraisers, too, such as holding a rodeo,” Berry said. “We had it at a place up in Blythewood, sold tickets, and the club members performed. They did bull riding, barrel racing—everything. Keep in mind, this was 50 years ago; we were all a lot younger. I don’t know if we raised much money, but I remember that event vividly.”

Though memorable, the rodeo fundraiser didn’t withstand the passage of time, but the Sportsarama— with or without mementos—has endured.