Helen and Poge Lewis were a formidable team, on the court, off it, and in every corner of St. Louis tennis for decades. 

Helen Lewis was a player first. She competed at Washington University at a level that eventually earned her induction into the ITA Women's Collegiate Tennis Hall of Fame. She was a consistent presence in Midwestern tournaments, winning local and regional championships. But her most lasting contribution came in 1958, when she organized the first women's national intercollegiate tennis tournament at Washington University — a landmark moment for women's college tennis. The USTA recognized her with its Educational Merit Award in 1975, and she was inducted into the Women's College Tennis Hall of Fame in 1995. 

Her husband, Monroe "Poge" Lewis was a different kind of force. Before tennis, he was one of Washington University's greatest athletes, a football and baseball star who, according to one sportswriter, almost single-handedly defeated Missouri and St. Louis University in the same season. He was the 1915 recipient of the Busch Trophy, awarded to the area's top collegiate football player, and was named to the 1990 All-Centennial Football squad. He spent 28 years as a member of the USTA and served as president of the Missouri Valley Tennis Association, earning the Samuel Hardy Award for his contributions to the sport and the Silver Bowl Award for two decades of service to the national junior championship in Kalamazoo. 

(1996)