Buddy Holly's high school sneakers find a home at the Buddy Holly Center

After spending 22 years in another country, a pair of Converse high-top sneakers that once belonged to rock ’n’ roll legend Buddy Holly have returned to Lubbock.

The white Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star shoes, trimmed in red along the rubber soles, went on display this week at the Buddy Holly Center.

The initials B.H. were written in ink on the canvas above the outer heel of each shoe.

“For being more than 50 years old, they’re still in pretty good shape. The rubber is still supple,” said Jacqueline Bober, curator of the Buddy Holly Center.

Personnel at the center haven’t found a photo of Buddy wearing the shoes, but the sneakers are believed to have been worn by him during his late high school years, she said.

The Converse shoes replaced a pair of black Oxford shoes, size 11, in a display case. They appear to be about the same size, which leads Bober to think he owned them at a mature age.

The shoes were purchased by Toronto singer-songwriter Ken Blyth in a Sothebys’ auction in New York City in July, 1990, she said.

After owning them for more than two decades, Blyth sold them this spring to Civic Lubbock Inc., which made a permanent loan of them to the Buddy Holly Center, Bober said.

Blyth, 51, said in a telephone interview from his Canada home he decided to sell the shoes about a year ago.

“As much as I am a Buddy Holly nut, material items don’t add up to the music. (The shoes) were not as important as I thought they would be. I wanted them to go somewhere where they would be appreciated,” he said.

He received other offers to buy the shoes but turned them down, Blyth said.

“I truly felt they should go to the museum,” he said.

Blyth said he learned Buddy Holly items would be auctioned a year before the Sotheby auction when he was in Lubbock and visiting at the home of Buddy Holly’s older brother, Larry.

He went to the auction, hoping to make a spectacular addition to his guitar collection by winning Holly’s Fender Stratocaster guitar.

Although he was outbid on the guitar, he didn’t leave the auction empty-handed. He won the Converse sneakers, a sweater, a high school pin and a ring that had belonged to Buddy Holly.

He has sold the sweater and ring, he said.

Bober said she is happy to add the shoes to the items on display at the Buddy Holly Center.

“It feels like things are coming home. Pieces of the puzzle that was Buddy are coming back together,” she said.

She felt the same way in 2009, when Buddy’s bedroom furniture was acquired, she said.

Blyth has a band called Reminiscing, which plays Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley tribute songs with Blyth dressed and singing in the style of the late artists.