The inductee are Jerry Barger, Billy Ray Barnes, Horace Billings, Cristy Earnhardt McKinney, Joe Ferebee, Robert Pulliam and the late Spencer Lancaster.

The ceremony, closed to the public, is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at the Salisbury City Hall Council Chambers.

The Salisbury Rowan Sports Hall of Fame Committee, co-chaired by Wilson Cherry and Scott Maddox, elected the first seven inductees last fall. To be elected, a nominee had to be chosen by 70 percent of the committee.

Barger, who lives in Salisbury, made all-state, all-Southern and all-America in football at Boyden High School, where he also played basketball and baseball. He went on to star at quarterback for Duke University, where he was the Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year in 1954.

He led the Blue Devils to the 1995 Orange Bowl championship over Nebraska. Barger was twice named National Back of the Week.

He’s already in the Duke Hall of Fame and on Duke’s all-time team.

Barnes starred in football, basketball and baseball at Landis High. He earned a scholarship to Wake Forest University, where he became the first ACC back to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a football season and made two All-America teams in 1956. He also played on the Demon Deacons’ 1955 NCAA championship baseball team.

Barnes has been inducted into the Wake Forest Hall of Fame and has been named to the ACC Silver Anniversary team.

He went on to have an all-pro career in the National Football League with the Eagles, Redskins and Vikings. He was an assistant coach in the NFL before returning home to Landis, where he now lives.

Billings was the dean of North Carolina sports editors when he stepped down in 1989. He was with the Post for 52 years as a sports editor and writer, covering local and national events. He still contributes articles to the Post.

The Winston-Salem native has covered almost every Masters in the last half-century and NASCAR since its beginning. He has won many sportswriting awards.

Billings is so respected in the golfing community that the Rowan Amateur Tournament is named in his honor.

Earnhardt led East Rowan’s girls basketball team to the old Western North Carolina High School Activities Association basketball championship in 1974. She topped the 1,000 mark in career points and rebounds.

Earnhardt earned a scholarship to N.C. State University, where she made all-state her freshman year. She became the first local player ever to play in the Women’s Professional Basketball League before going into coaching.

Now head coach at Rice, her team made the NCAA Tournament in 2000 for the first time in history.

Ferebee put Salisbury on the baseball map in 1955 when he coached Boyden High and the Salisbury American Legion to state championships. His Legion club went on to win the regional title and finished third in the nation in St. Paul, Minn. He later had three state champions with Rowan County.

Ferebee has won an amazing 1,438 games in high school, legion and at Pfeiffer University.

The Mocksville native is already in the Catawba College, Pfeiffer, North Carolina, N.C. American Legion, NAIA, American Coaches Association and NCAA Division II Hall of Fames.

Lancaster, a Connecticut native who died in 1996, coached Salisbury’s Price High Red Devils to state football championships in 1940 and 1951. His 1940 squad had an 11-0 record, outscoring its opponents 330-0.

His coaching record was 183-50-15 in 29 1/2 years.

Lancaster’s coaching philosophy and personal character are remembered by Salisbury High, which gives the S.W. Lancaster Award annually to students who demonstrate exemplary sportsmanship.

Pulliam is regarded as one of the top high school football linemen every to play in Rowan County.He starred in football, wrestling and track at Salisbury High.

Pulliam was named to all-state and all-America teams and played for North Carolina in the Shrine Bowl as a senior.

He was also outstanding as a heavyweight wrestler and as a discus thrower and shot putter in track.

Pulliam earned a football scholarship to the University of Tennessee, then went into coaching. He was head coach at Fayetteville State University.

Now a high school administrator, he lives in Salisbury.