PORT ANGELES — Reaching back through several decades of sports history on the North Olympic Peninsula, a distinguished club of 17 athletes, broadcasters and coaches will make up the huge inaugural class of the Port Angeles Roughrider Hall of Fame.
The Roughrider Hall of Fame has been in the works since last year and is being spearheaded by Hall of Fame Chairman Bruce Skinner.
Skinner said Port Angeles High School Athletic Director Dwayne Johnson brought up the idea of a local sports hall of fame.
“… and I said I would like to take on that project,” Skinner said.
Skinner put together a huge committee of 35 people to sift through names to include in the hall, names Skinner helped collect by going through the school’s annuals all the way back to 1910.
Skinner said he made sure that the committee included people of varying ages who would have their own perspectives of different eras of Port Angeles sports. The committee essentially started by asking a few friends to join, who then asked various other friends of theirs to participate.
“People said, ‘this project sounds like a lot of fun. I want to be a part of it’,” Skinner said.
From over 100 candidates, a first round of voting from the committee cut that number down to 28. Skinner said this wasn’t easy as he discovered that over 107 years, there have been a lot of state champions from Port Angeles. But state championships weren’t the only or even the biggest criterion he and the committee were looking at. Many of the inductees were people who have been involved in Port Angeles athletics for years or even decades.
“We wanted to select people who did more than that [championships],” Skinner said.
The number of 28 in the first round was further cut down to a large opening class of 17. Skinner pointed out future classes will not be nearly this big.
“In our first year, we’re playing catch up,” he said.
The Hall of Fame will include some people who didn’t play Port Angeles High School sports since the school did not have any girls sports from the 1930s until 1975. However, girls still played in local clubs and leagues during that time including a powerhouse badminton team from Port Angeles in the early and mid 1960s.
The 17 honorees will be invited to a banquet on April 21, 2018.
“It’s been a lot of fun. We have spent a lot of time on this,” Skinner said.
All 17 inductees are still living, even three in their 80s who graduated from Port Angeles High School in the 1950s, and all have been invited to the banquet.
The 17-strong inaugural class of the Roughrider Hall of Fame? You’ll see some familiar names:
• Kelli Antolock, golf, 1980 graduate — Antolock won the prestigious US Publinks Championship in 1983. During high school, she was a national high school champion. She was an All-American golfer at Brigham Young University and the female athlete of the year at BYU in 1984.
• Tyna Barinaga, badminton, 1964 graduate — Before graduating from Port Angeles High School, Barinaga was the winningest U.S. junior badminton player in history, capturing many national singles and doubles titles with partner Caroline Jensen as part of the junior badminton program started and developed by long time Port Angeles badminton coach Vern Burton. Barinaga was inducted into the U.S. Badminton Hall of Fame in 2003. Barinaga was a member of the 1963 U.S. team that won the world’s team championship, and won the U.S. Open singles and doubles title in 1968.
• Michael Briggs, football, 1960 graduate — A three sports star at Port Angeles, Briggs played on the outstanding 1959 football team that arguably was the best football team in school history, losing only to Everett in the opening game of the season. Playing both offense and defense, he went on to be an All Pacific Coast Conference tackle at the University of Washington in 1963. He was also an academic All-American and played for the Huskies in the 1964 Rose Bowl.
• Scooter Chapman, 1952 graduate — Chapman has announced over 2,000 Port Angeles High School games on Radio KONP in his career — possibly a national record — and has been involved with Port Angeles sports for 67 years. He was inducted into the WIAA Hall of Fame in 2011. The Civic Field Press Box was renamed in his honor on September 29 of this year.
• Mike Clayton, basketball, 1966 graduate — Clayton was the leading scorer of the 1966 Port Angeles High School basketball team that placed second in the state. He went on to become the all-time leading scorer at Western Washington University and was the 1970 WWU athlete of the year and is in the school’s basketball hall of fame. He also served as the head basketball coach at Peninsula College from 1977-79.
• Sherri Felton, track and basketball, 1977 graduate — Felton made the Seattle Times Golden Girl list of the top 40 female multi-sport athletes in state of Washington high school history in 1989. She was All-State in basketball and high jumped 5-11 during her senior year, which was the best in the nation. She set the Husky single-game basketball scoring record of 36 points against WSU, which stood until all-time NCAA scoring leader Kelsey Plum broke it.
• Bernie Fryer, 1968 graduate — An All-State and All-American performer in both high school football and basketball, Fryer led the state in basketball scoring his senior year, averaging 30.3 points per game. He also starred on the 1966 team that placed second in the state. He led Peninsula College to its only state championship in 1970, scoring 57 points in the championship game. He went on to become an All Western Athletic Conference selection at BYU, leading the Cougars to a WAC title with a league leading 19.2 points per game. Drafted by the Phoenix Suns in the 7th round, Fryer is the only Port Angeles athlete to play in the NBA, averaging 6.3 points per game for the Portland Trailblazers, St. Louis Spirits and New Orleans Jazz. After his playing career ended, he became an NBA referee.
• Ken Fuhrer, basketball 1952 graduate — Fuhrer was the star and leading scorer of the only Port Angeles boys basketball team that had been ranked No. 1 in the state (for six weeks) by the Associated Press Poll. They finished 19-1 during the regular season, with their only loss coming to the University of Washington freshman team. He was the leading scorer in the state tournament (Port Angeles finished fifth), averaging 21 points per game. He went on to play at Seattle University (then a Division I power). and averaged 8.4 points per game and 6.8 rebounds, during a time when the school reached the NCAA tournament (then only 16 teams) during all four of his collegiate years.
• Penny Graves, track, badminton, basketball, 1984 graduate — A three-time state 800-meter champion in track, Graves also won three national junior badminton titles, was a star on the 1984 girls basketball team that placed at state. She went on to be a star track and cross country performer at the University of Oregon and She was a two-time Pac-10 cross country athlete of the year (1986 and 1989), and won the Pac-10 1500 meter race as a junior and 5,000 meters as a senior. Graves was inducted into the University of Oregon Hall of Fame twice — in 2014 as a member of the 1987 cross country team that won the national championship, and for her individual achievements in 2015.
• Scott Jones, football, 1984 graduate — A standout three sport athlete at Port Angeles High from 1983-84, Jones came to Port Angeles from Clallam Bay, where he played on a Bruins team that made the 1982 state football championship. He is the only Port Angeles graduate to play in the NFL. A tight end and offensive tackle at the University of Washington, Jones played on the 1984 Husky team that finished 11-1 and No. 2 in the country. Taken in the 12th round of the 1989 NFL draft by the Cincinnati Bengals, he played for the New York Jets in 1990 and the Green Bay Packers and the Bengals in 1991.
• Jim Michalczik, football, 1984 graduate — An all-league performer in both football and basketball, Michalczik went on to star at Washington State in football. He was an all-Pac-10 offensive lineman in 1988 and a Sporting News honorable mention All-American. When his playing days ended, Michalczik became an accomplished coach in both college and professional football, coaching at Miami, Montana State, the University of California and the Oakland Raiders. He currently coaches at the University of Arizona.
• Leigh Morgan, basketball and tennis, 1986 graduate — A three sport star at Port Angeles High School, she was the most valuable player in the 1986 state high school basketball tournament, where the Riders girls finished second. In tennis, she played on Port Angeles High School’s only state championship team in 1986, finishing second in state tournament doubles behind Mary Dill and Carolyn Christ of Port Angeles. Morgan went on to play basketball at Duke, and has been named as one of the Top 25 Duke players of all time. She was the starting point guard for the first Duke women’s team to qualify for the NCAA tournament.
• Jeff Ridgway, baseball, 1999 graduate — A starting pitcher for the Roughrider team that finished fourth in the 4A state tournament in 1997, Ridgway was an All-State performer. Drafted by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1999, he became the only Port Angeles High School graduate to play in the major leagues. He made his debut for the Devil Rays on September 17, 2009, and also pitched for the Atlanta Braves. In 2007 — 2008 he had a 1-0 record in 13 games, closing two of them. He was a member of Team U.S.A. in 2006.
• Art Sandison, track, 1966 graduate — Sandison was the 1965 Washington state champion in the 880-yard run and still holds the record at 800 meters for college or high school in the state. He went on to run at WSU, where he was a standout middle distance runner in the late ‘60s. While running for the Cougars, he held the second fastest 800 meter time in American track history. He won the silver medal at the Pan-American games in Cali, Columbia, in 1971. He was inducted into the Washington State University Hall of Fame in 2012.
• Lee Sinnes, basketball, 1966 graduate — Sinnes was the second-leading scorer and leading rebounder for the Port Angeles team that finished second in the state in 1966. Named to the All-State team, he went on to lead Pacific Lutheran University in scoring for three seasons and was an NAIA All-American in his senior season. Named to the PLU athletic hall of fame in 2002, he became an outstanding high school coach for 40 years. He was also named the Washington AAA Coach of the Year in 1995, and was elected to the Washington State Coaches Hall of Fame in 2012.
• Joel Thomas, football and wrestling, 1993 graduate — Thomas was one of the very few four-sport athletes at Port Angeles High School. An outstanding wrestler, he finished second in the state in 1993. He went on to star at the University of Idaho, where he became the all-time leading rusher in Idaho football history. A charter member of the Vandals Hall of Fame in 2008. He currently is the running backs coach for the New Orleans Saints.
• Henry Wyborney, track, 1958 graduate — Wyborney set the state high jump record with a leap of 6-8 3/16 in 1957, which was also the top mark that year in the nation. Serving as the captain of the track team, he won the state title again in 1958, and also placed third in the state discus competition with a throw of 152-6. He went on to compete at Washington State, where he set the WSU high jump record of 6-11 in 1960.
