The real Mighty Mites of ’12 Mighty Orphans’: A stirring subject for a mighty movie

The home of the Mighty Mites closed in 2005, but it is poised for a comeback.

Forgotten for decades, shelved like a dusty antique, the Masonic Home Mighty Mites are ready to burst out of scrapbooks onto the silver screen.

Now in their 80s, some of the football heroes returned to the old “orphans’ home” in Fort Worth last week.

For a day, they walked the lawns again, this time to show movie producers and actors where Depression-era kids built friendships for eternity.

Last year, the Mites’ saga made headlines all over again as a bestselling historical novel, “Twelve Mighty Orphans.” Now, TV actor Matt Barr and friends hope to put together a Masonic Home movie.

Mites quarterback C.D. “Wheatie” Sealey, 84, of Fort Worth said he’s thrilled.

“I went to the home when I was 6, and those were the best years of my life,” he said.

“I know a movie would be as much story as truth. But I think it’d be good for the home.”

Playing mostly at LaGrave Field and competing against Texas’ largest schools, coach Rusty Russell’s Mites tied for a state championship and won about eight games a year between 1928 and World War II.

But the home closed in 2005. It was falling apart.

Soon, children will return. The campus will reopen as a new location for All Church Home for Children [later renamed ACH Child and Family Services]. A discount superstore and other shops are planned for the lawn.

Not to mention the book and movie.

Barr, 24, a former quarterback at Allen, starred in “American Pie Presents Band Camp” and had stints on TV’s “One Tree Hill” and other series. He toured the campus last week with childhood friend Ryan Ross, now an executive assistant at Imagine Entertainment, the company that adapted “Friday Night Lights.”

Barr said that walking with the former Mighty Mites was a “magical experience” that combined 1930s nostalgia with Texas football spirit.

“We want to do the story of what the home meant to the orphans and the lasting friendships there,” he said.

Ross said he was surprised.

“I went into it thinking, ‘This is an orphanage,’ “ he said. “We found out it was a place of love and respect.”

Former Mites end Miller Moseley, 86, of Fort Worth was 6 when typhoid took his father.

From the home, he went on to a career as a physicist working on the atomic bomb.

“It’s sort of depressing to see holes where buildings used to be,” Moseley said. One hall was demolished.

All Church Home executive Wayne Carson showed the actors and alumni around.

“Their story is inspiring,” he said. “We are looking forward to having the campus open and families and children here again.”

The campus will include Masonic Home remembrances, he said.

Texas sportswriter and author Jim Dent, a former Star-Telegram writer, brought “Twelve Mighty Orphans” to life as an inspiring story and sold it as a movie. He was headed to Indiana on Saturday to tell the Mites’ story to a Notre Dame reunion.

“It’s a coming-of-age story,” he said.

“It’s kids down on their luck with nothing to lose, nowhere to turn, and little hope. Through hard work, their lives got turned around.”

Even after nine months, “Orphans” remained the No. 2 Texas history book and No. 19 football book overall Friday on Amazon.com.

“I think Fort Worth is going to like this movie,” he said.

What counts is whether Hollywood likes it.