Date:
Friday, February 5, 2021
Known to all as “The Chief,” H. Roe Bartle (FUMA Class of 1920) was the powerful and popular mayor of Kansas City in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1963, he convinced team owner Lamar Hunt to move his football team, the Dallas Texans, to Kansas City. After a public “name-the-team” contest, Lamar Hunt (who’d originally wanted to keep the name “Texans”) bowed to public sentiment and announced that his team would be named the Chiefs, in honor of the city’s popular mayor, and Fork Union Military Academy alumnus, H. Roe "The Chief" Bartle.