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Damon Bailey, Heltonville, was the state's 1990 Mr. Basketball and an Indiana All-Star. -- Star file photo   Special section • Star Century: 100 years of The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis Star Indiana High School All-Star Game vs. the Kentucky All-Stars is a Hoosier institution. For more than five decades, thousands have watched the likes of Oscar Robertson and Larry Bird play on an elite high school team -- then seen them return to the city as NBA stars.

But this annual showdown between archrival states is more than a mere exhibition.

Since 1946, the All-Star series has proved to be a gold mine as a fund-raiser for The Star's community involvement efforts.

Indianapolis ticket sales have generated $2.5 million for more than 100 Central Indiana charities. Last year, the boys and girls games played in Indianapolis raised $100,000. (Since 1955, one game of each two-game series has been played in Kentucky, which donates its gate receipts to that state's charities.)

For most of the series' history, Indiana's proceeds went to The Star's Fund for the Blind, benefiting the Indiana School for the Blind and related services.

Over the years, money from the June games helped the school establish and finance an annual winter holiday dinner and dance, as well as a variety of supplies, classroom equipment, and staff training, said Jim Durst, the school's superintendent.

The Star's Fund for the Blind made its last contribution to the public school in 1998, when $32,000 paid for a minibus the school still uses to take its students on field trips and other activities, he said. In 1999, the fund was rolled into the paper's fund-raising campaign, "Season for Sharing."

"The legislature is very fair to us, very supportive of the school, but the extra dollars frequently allowed us to purchase things we couldn't otherwise have. We do miss it," Durst said.

Season for Sharing accounted for more than a third of the newspaper's total philanthropic giving of money and services in 2002. Of the total $3 million donated last year, Season for Sharing put about $852,400 into 78 Indiana nonprofit organizations, said Jennifer Gombach, The Star's marketing and communications manager.

The series -- dubbed The World Series of High School Basketball by USA Today -- and the funds it generates in Indiana makes it the largest single fund-raising event hosted by The Star each year. It debuted in 1939 and also is considered to be the nation's oldest such competition.

Call Star reporter Marcella Fleming at 1-317-444-6089.