By Ron Pesch
LocalSportsJournal.com

MUSKEGON–Paul J. Soper, born in New York, New York, and Ira C ‘Ike’ Kepford, born in Harvey, Illinois, were delivered 780 miles and 495 days apart. The geographic line between those cities is as straight as a pass in football.

Appropriately, the two were united by the gridiron game, with both achieving athletic stardom in the backfield at Hackley Stadium. Separated by a single school year, they followed amazingly similar paths. Both were three-sport athletes. Each served as football captain at Muskegon High.

As a senior, the 5-10, 175-pound Soper pounded out more than 800 yards on the ground, including 159 yards and four touchdowns against crosstown rival Muskegon Heights in 1936. The Big Reds grabbed a share of Michigan’s mythical state title that fall – an honor held by the Heights the previous three seasons. He was also named the honorary captain of the Detroit Free Press All-State team.

“A triple threat man, Soper has been (coach) Leo Redmond’s mainstay all season…He is a star in every department. A natural leader, he inspires his team and furnishes it with that spark so necessary to a winning combination.”

Following graduation, Soper moved on to Northwestern University to play football.

On the day following the MHS postseason banquet, a December 1936 Muskegon Chronicle headline read, “Muskegon Boys Chose Wisely a Captain” when Kepford was unanimously selected by his teammates to succeed Soper as leader of the football squad in the fall of 1937.

Two inches taller, and just two pounds lighter, Kepford’s football profile was the opposite of Soper. Under his leadership, the Big Reds were stellar again and grabbed a share of the state’s mythical title. Like Soper, he was selected to manage the Detroit Free Press All-State team.

“Kepford was the spark plug of a team rated by many as the finest in the state. Although not a sensational ball carrier, Kepford was regarded as the state’s finest blocking back. His performance in every game won him the position of captain.”

At the end of the school year, he followed Soper to Northwestern.

Reunited, again the pair captured headlines in their hometown. “Muskegon Boys Soper, Kepford Stand Out as Northwestern Wins Over Illinois” noted The Chronicle in November 1940 when Soper, now a senior, tossed a TD pass to Kepford. Northwestern dropped only two games that season, one to top-ranked Minnesota and the other to No. 3-ranked Michigan. The Wildcats finished eighth in the poll nationally according to the Associated Press.

On September 16, 1940, the United States instituted the military draft. That winter, Soper enlisted for Naval training and was to report to Great Lakes Naval Training Camp following the conclusion of the school year.

While at Northwestern, Kepford became a student pilot in the Civil Aeronautics Authority in the summer before his senior year and made his first practice parachute descent. His reputation as an outstanding blocking back continued that fall.

Northwestern finished fourth in the Big Ten in 1941. AP ranked the team 11th nationally, with a 5-3 mark. At halftime of his final game, a 27-0 victory over Illinois in Bob Zuppke’s last as Illini head coach, Kepford and a few other teammates officially enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve. Some 15 days later, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

Soper and Kepford’s paths suddenly diverged.

OFF TO WAR

Ensign Soper, stationed at Great Lakes, was still serving there, now as an assistant athletic director in early 1942. Promoted to Lieutenant, he was transferred later that year to Bainbridge Naval Training Station in Maryland.

In mid-February 1942, according to the press, Kepford reported for duty as a flying cadet at the Navy’s air base in Glenview, IL. In April, he was in Corpus Christi, TX for advanced instruction, missing commencement exercises scheduled for June. He completed his training in Jacksonville, FL.

A fantastic 2013 article, available online and well worth seeking out, Muskegon Chronicle Dave LeMieux, details what came next.

“’Under normal conditions I would have finished my college career.’ Instead of becoming a dentist, Kepford would go to war.”

A Chicago Tribune article noted Kepford “has almost recovered from burns sustained when his plane caught fire 100 miles from his carrier” in late June 1943. In December, Kepford shot down four enemy aircraft in a battle royal with a large squadron of fighter, dive bombers and torpedo planes some 30,000 feet in the air over Japanese captured Rabaul, New Guinea during a carrier raid.

“After almost 11 hours patrolling the skies above …the Solomon Sea,” notes LeMieux. “Kepford, low on fuel, dropped down to the deck and was heading back to base when ‘all hell broke loose.’”

“By the time he’d shot down his third plane, Kepford was so low on fuel he radioed a nearby carrier that he needed to land immediately. As he neared the ship, a fourth Japanese torpedo bomber glided in for an attack.”

In a letter sent just days later to Ade Schumacher, an assistant at the time to athletic director Tug Wilson at Northwestern, and published in the Tribune, Kepford wrote:

“I had to steady down and get the pepper on him again. Just a fraction of a second before I fired he dropped his fish. Then I pressed home my attack and he caught fire and plunged into the sea. Thank God the torpedo missed.”

“Out of ammunition and flying on fumes, he landed on the carrier he’d just saved,” added LeMieux.

They counted 126 holes in Kepford’s fixed-wing aircraft when he got back to the carrier.

“Funny how cold and calm you are in a fight,” Kepford noted in his letter to Schumacher, “just like after the kickoff in a big football game. Everything I did seemed to come as clear as a bell thanks to good navy training and long hours in the air.”

The pilot’s heroism was relayed across the land. The details of his success in the sky filled countless newspaper column inches. In February 1944, he had taken down 13 enemy aircraft with his Corsair (#29) fighter. In late March, Kepford and other members of the Navy’s VF-17 squadron, famously known as “The Jolly Rogers” and recognized by their skull and crossbones insignia, were on their way home for leave. Contemporary reports credited the squadron with downing 154 planes over just 76 days. Kepford was the unit’s top ace, credited with 16 documented kills. (Modern accounts occasionally say it was 17).

On Wednesday, April 5, 1944, Ira ‘Ike’ Kepford, a true war hero, returned home. Just days later, Lieutenant Junior Grade Kepford was honored by the Junior Chamber of Commerce with their gold key and scroll of achievement award at a ceremony in Evanston, IL. The occasion was broadcast on Chicago’s WGN radio to the delight of Muskegon area residents. Kepford was one of just 10 selected nationally for the award for outstanding achievements in 1943.

During his whirlwind time in Muskegon, Kepford spoke before a capacity crowd of 200 World War I veterans and servicemen on leave at a banquet held in his honor. He autographed war bonds at Grossman’s in downtown Muskegon on a store-sponsored ‘Ike Kepford Day.’ He appeared at the Muskegon Armory for a Military Ball and spoke to the Muskegon Air Force Parents Association at radio station WKBZ’s auditorium on Apple Avenue.

At the end of May, Kepford was introduced before a crowd of over 2,000 attending the baseball season-opening doubleheader at Marsh Field between the local Outwin Zephyrs and the Detroit Colored Stars. Also on hand for the festivities was Olympic sprint and hurdles champion, Jesse Owens, who gamely raced local speedsters Gayle Robinson and Bob White, with Kepford serving as the honorary starter of the races.

The honored guests were met with tremendous ovations. Owens redirected the attention.

“What I have accomplished in sports pales by comparison to the job your hometown boy…in fact the United States’ boy, Lt Kepford has performed. He has done a job that has brought the war closer to an end. He, not I, should get all of the applause this afternoon.”

On June 1, Kepford reported back to the Pacific coast. Originally granted 30 days leave, he was granted additional time as he also had squeezed in a trip to Washington and the East Coast for the Navy and had attended various naval shows for the branch.

Upon his return to the coast, he was awarded multiple awards, including two Distinguished Flying Crosses, a Silver Star for destroying eight planes over a 10-day period, two Navy Crosses for extraordinary heroism, and numerous other medals.

His post-military success was nearly as impressive.

“When the war ended, the Navy wanted him to stay,” noted Kendall P. Stanley in a 1985 Petoskey News-Review article that recapped the life of a quiet, private man, living out his years out of the spotlight in Harbor Springs, MI with his wife, Kraeg. Initially, he served time as an Admiral’s aide. “I was a young guy, wanted to do other things.”

While he remained in the Naval Reserve until 1956, he went to work for a division of the Leggett-Rexall drug store chain.

“He started out doing window displays and working in the warehouse,” wrote Stanley. “He learned all facets of the business, including cosmetics.” He worked up to managing an Owl-Rexall store in Los Angeles. In 1948, he was appointed merchandising director of the Pacific Southwest region for the Liggett-Rexall Company. A year later, he was a vice president, with an office in New York City.

In an interesting twist, Kepford and Soper reunited in the business world.

Soper had continued his service in the Aleutian Islands, a fierce battleground during the war, as a welfare and recreation officer. Following his service, he worked as a salesman for a drug firm. Soon after he, too, joined a division of Liggett-Rexall based in Los Angeles. In 1957, Soper was promoted to vice president in charge of sales for Liggett Drug stores throughout the United States. His office, too, was in New York City.

At age 37, Kepford would become president of Liggett-Rexall, spending 23 years with the company before retiring. In 1971, he returned to Michigan.

Both men died in 1987, three months apart from each other. Both have been inducted for their athletic exploits into the Muskegon Area Sports Hall of Fame.

Thanks to fate and the efforts of his wife and family, Kepford’s story will likely never be forgotten. He’s enshrined in the Michigan Aviation Hall of Fame, and numerous items including his medals are on exhibit at the Michigan Heroes Museum in Frankenmuth.