The late Kirk Warner will be among five inductees for the Liberty County Athletic Hall of Fame’s class of 2025.
The induction ceremony will take place April 24 at the John McIver Auditorium at the Liberty County East End Complex in Midway, with doors opening at 6 p.m.
Other members of the class include Jeff Deloach, Charmaine Milton Gatlin, Bill Stanford and Rick Wege.
Jeff Deloach
Jeff Deloach earned three varsity letters in cross country and two in basketball at Liberty County High School, but it was on the golf course where he planted his flag.
Deloach earned three letters in golf at LCHS and also earned many accolades on the junior golf circuit. He was one of eight named to the 1994 American Junior Golf Association scholastic all-America team and played in the 1994 U.S. Junior Championship at Echo Lake Golf Club in New Jersey. He won the 1993 Ping Gulf Coast Junior Classic in Pensacola, Florida, and won back-to-back Okefenokee Country Club Junior Invitationals in 1993 and 94.
He was top five at the 1995 AJGA Raymond Floyd Junior in Aventura, Florida, and top five at the 1995 AJGA Ping Myrtle Beach Junior Classic.
Deloach played collegiately at Furman University, becoming a four-year letter winner for the Paladins. He helped Furman win four team titles during his career, including the 1997 Southern Conference championship. He holds one of the top individual rounds in Furman golf history with a 66 in the first round of the University of Virginia’s tournament at Keswick Golf Club in 1997.
He competed on Furman’s team in the 1997 NCAA East Regional at the Homestead in Virginia, and led the Paladins with a stroke average of 73.5 for the 1997-98 season. A co-captain of Furman’s 1998-99 team, he had one top-five and two top-10 finishes in his collegiate career.
A 1995 graduate of Liberty County High School, Deloach also played on several Hinesville Gators GSSA state championship teams and now resides in Athens.
Charmaine Milton Gatlin
Charmaine Milton Gatlin is a 1991 graduate of Bradwell Institute and starred in both basketball and softball.
She was a four-year letter winner in both basketball and softball and was a two-time captain in each sport and was MVP her senior year. She also was named to the North-South allstar team her junior and senior years.
She was named to the Savannah Morning News all-Coastal Empire basketball team as a senior. She led the Lady Tigers to the state quarterfinals her junior and senior season and she averaged 10 points and 7.9 rebounds per game as a senior, leading her to sign a scholarship with Stetson University, becoming the first female athlete in Liberty County to sign a four-year scholarship.
Off the court and the field, she was named vice president of her senior class and was secretary of the FBLA, winning a state competition.
She was named to the conference all-academic teams her freshman and sophomore seasons at Stetson but suffered a season-ending ACL and meniscus tear as a freshman. She transferred to Florida before her junior season, joining her baby sister DeLisha Milton-Jones on the roster, but her knee injuries relegated her to a player-coach role.
Charmaine graduated with a degree in French from Florida and also was named the student- athlete representative at Florida and was a member of the Southeastern Conference Student-Athlete Advisory Council. She has had a remarkable career in sports after graduation, becoming the first female to run the FedEx Orange Bowl, which she did for seven years. She also spent 11 years planning and coordinating the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl youth clinics across the continental U.S. and Hawaii.
She is currently the co-president of Jackson Health Foundation, which raises funds for Jackson Health System, the largest public hospital in Florida. She and her husband Dr. Arthur Gatlin have three children, Artese, Alexis and Trey, and Alexis has received a full scholarship to play softball at Alabama A& M.
Bill Stanford
Bill Stanford was a multi-sport star athlete at Bradwell Institute and returned to coach dozens of young athletes in football and track.
Stanford also participated in several fine arts at Bradwell, including being in several plays and in chorus. He also was elected senior class president by the class of 1966.
In athletics, Stanford earned 13 varsity letters, including four each in football, baseball and track, and one letter in basketball.
As a senior in track and field, he ran the 440-yard dash, anchored the 4x110 and 4x440 relay teams and threw the shot put and the discus. In football, he ran for more than 1,000 yards his senior year and scored 135 points on 14 touchdowns and 51 PATs. He was voted best back and elected a team captain. He also was named all-state honorable mention.
Stanford ran for 219 yards in the South Georgia championship game against Pelham and was named to the North-South All-Star Game. He signed a letter of intent with Memphis State (now Memphis) University and played freshman football there before transferring to Lees-McRae Junior College. He led Lees-McRae in rushing and helped lead the team to a spot in the Junior College National Championship Game.
After graduating from Georgia Southern College, he returned to Bradwell and coached football and track for several years before entering private business.
Kirk Warner
Kirk Warner was the head coach at Liberty County for 20 seasons, leading the Panthers to 11 state playoff berths and three region championships. He had more than 1,000 players during his tenure, including two – Raekwon McMillan and Richard LeCounte – who went to the NFL.
Off the field, Warner was active in the community and was a deacon at Emmanuel Christian Church for 10 years, assisting in a number of ministries, especially those for the underprivileged.
Warner also had been an assistant basketball coach. He came to Liberty County as an assistant football coach at Bradwell Institute and served as an assistant basketball coach. He later left to coach at his alma mater, Bleckley County, before being offered the head coaching spot at LCHS.
He led the Panthers to their first state playoff appearance in 2006. In 2016, he led the Panthers to a 11-2 record, the best in school history, and to the first of two consecutive appearances in the state quarterfinals.
Warner played tight end at the University of Georgia, playing in 42 games and catching 50 passes for his career, with an average of 14.7 yards per reception. He was a star athlete at Bleckley County High School, where he was named Class AA basketball player of the year as a senior. He was also an assistant coach on Liberty County High’s 2016 state championship basketball team.
He and his wife Kimberly had three sons – Kelzey, Kameron and Karrington.
Rick Wege
Rick Wege was a star on the soccer field from early on.
He played for the Hinesville Soccer Association’s Gators from the time he was 6 into high school, and joined the Savannah Wave traveling team. At Liberty County High School, he earned four varsity letters in soccer and was named all-region his junior and senior years. He also was named MVP as a junior and was a three-year team captain.
He scored 30 goals in an 11-game season during his senior year and finished his LCHS career with 64 goals, which then was the most goals in county history. He also led the region in points and goals.
He also lettered in baseball for four years and lettered in cross country as a sophomore and a senior, qualifying for the state meet as a sophomore. He also earned a letter in football and a letter in track.
Rick was named the Liberty County High School athlete of the year for 1999 and received the Golden Panther Award for excellence in academics and athletics.
He earned a soccer scholarship to University of South Carolina-Spartanburg, and the Rifles won two Peach Belt Conference championships in his time there. They also qualified for the NCAA Division II national tournament. Rick won the coaches award at the USCS athletic banquet for soccer and was awarded the USCS athletic player of the week. He also was on the dean’s list every semester.
After graduation, he moved to Australia in 2007 for his job and played club soccer there for several years until his cancer diagnosis and bravely battled the disease until his passing in December 2018 at just 38 years old.
Tickets are $20 and are available at the front desk of the Liberty County Recreation Department office, 607 Oglethorpe Highway in Hinesville.