Tony Peyton

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Charles Anthony "Tony" Peyton (March 3, 1922 - July 23, 2007) was the last surviving member of the original Harlem Globetrotters basketball team. In the early 1940s, the Globetrotters played and defeated many of the country's top professional basketball teams.

Peyton was also one of the first twenty African Americans to have earned the rank of ensign in the United States Navy. He enlisted in 1941.

Peyton was born in Elyria, the seat of Lorain County in Ohio. He graduated from Scott High School in Toledo, where he played basketball and football and ran track. He earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

After his World War II naval service, Peyton joined the Harlem-based team long before it became known primarily for its comical antics. His basketball success would now be considered unusual in that he was only five feet, eight inches in stature. Peyton also played briefly for the Chicago Studebaker Flyers (later Chicago Studebaker Champions), a former professional team in the National Basketball League. As a part of the Studebaker Champions, Peyton was a member of the first professional basketball team that included both black and white players. He retired from basketball in 1956. In 1996, he was installed in the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.

After his basketball career, Peyton worked for twenty-eight years in the beverage industry.

In 1988, Peyton moved to Lubbock, Texas, where he was active in youth basketball. He was a high priest of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 2001, he moved to Midland, Texas, where he died at the age of eighty-six.

Peyton was married three times. The former Chulla Hutchinson bore him two children, Leonard Peyton of San Antonio and Marilyn Peyton of Toledo. Marloe Ann Goins died in childbirth and left him with a daughter, Antia Marlowe Peyton of Davie, Florida. His last marriage to the former Neville Diane Sires (born ca. 1957), produced two sons, Tyler Anthony Peyton and Terrance Anthony Peyton, both of Midland. There were also nine grandchildren, sixteen great-grandchildren, and five great-great-grandchildren.

A memorial service was held on July 28, 2007, at an LDS meetinghouse in Midland.