PORT ANGELES — Attendees will be coming from all across the country for the biggest dinner in Port Angeles, the second annual Port Angeles High School Athletic Hall of Fame induction ceremony Saturday night.
Fifteen Roughriders and two teams will be inducted this year, joining the 18 inducted in the inaugural class of the hall of fame.
The event will begin with doors opening at the Vern Burton Community Center at 5 p.m. Dinner will begin at 5:30 p.m. and the ceremony will begin at 7 p.m. There also will be an auction with proceeds benefiting the Port Angeles High School athletic departments.
Bruce Skinner, organizer of the event, said proceeds from the auction will go toward items such as helmets for the football team, wrestling mats, etc.
Skinner said the biggest change this year will be that two teams are being inducted. Last year, it was strictly individuals.
The teams include the 1959 Port Angeles football team and the 1985 tennis team, the only Port Angeles High School team to win an WIAA state championship.
Skinner said 18-20 members of that 1959 team are expected to attended.
“The class of 1960 purchased 10 tables,” he said.
Skinner said one thing he learned in last year’s inaugural event is that for many people, the night is a class reunion.
“Lots of people buy tickets who are in the same class” as the inductees, he said.
The capacity of the Vern Burton center is 544, and there should be about that many people in attendance, Skinner said.
“We’ve already oversold our tickets. It will be another huge crowd. It’ll be about like it was last year — the biggest dinner in Port Angeles,” he said.
Next Door Gastropub and the Red Lion are catering the dinner, which will be chicken piccata, duck fat potatoes, Brussels sprouts, salad and bread.
This year’s inductees:
• 1985 girls tennis team. All five members of the 1985 team placed at state and the team as a whole won the state championship. The doubles team of Mary Dill and Carolyn Crist beat their teammates Leigh Morgan and Nicole Ostrowski in the state championship match.
• 1959 football team. Coached by Elway and quarterbacked by Gagnon. Four players from the team made the Associated Press All-State team. The team lost one game all season, to No. 1 ranked Everett. Nine players went on to play college ball.
• John Camp, class of 2009. He went 40-0 in the heavyweight wrestling division his senior year, winning a state championship.
• Cec Coulson, class of 1986. Softball and basketball. She went on to play softball at the University of Oregon, helping to lead her team to the College Softball World Series. She also played 15 seasons for the Seattle Express, winning the 2005 United States Specialty Sports Association world softball championship.
• Kay Dill, basketball and tennis coach. Dill coached the girls’ 1985 state championship tennis team and was named state coach of the year. She also coached the 1977 girls basketball team to a fifth-place finish at state.
• John “Jack” Elway, Port Angeles coach 1953-60. Elway coached baseball, basketball and football, including the 1959 Roughriders football team that produced nine college football players. Elway coached for years in college football, including at Stanford.
• Elway is the father of John Elway, who was born in Port Angeles, who starred as quarterback for Stanford and the Denver Broncos and is now the president and general manager of the Broncos. Jack Elway passed away several years ago and John Elway is not able to attend (the NFL Draft is next week), but he did record a video that will be shown at Saturday’s ceremony.
• Don Fairbairn, swim coach for 32 years. Fairbairn is a member of the Washington State swim coaches Hall of Fame and coached the 1967 boys team to second-place finish at state.
• Gary Gagnon, class of 1960. Gagnon set the state passing record in 1958 and 1959 and started for two years at Idaho. He also coached at Evergreen High School and at Washington State as an assistant.
• Karena Greeny, class of 1997. Greeny won league MVP honors in basketball and soccer and held several records in the shot put and discus. She went to play college basketball at Hawaii, leading the Western Athletic Conference in scoring.
• Hester Hill, class of 1967. Hell won several national junior doubles badminton titles from 1963-1968. She won the national collegiate doubles title at Western Washington. She also coached badminton at Port Angeles High School in the 1970s.
• Caroline Jensen, class of 1965. Jensen won numerous national junior badminton titles, her first coming at age 12. She also won doubles and mixed doubles at the U.S. championships in 1969 and the doubles title in 1968.
• Leonard Johannes, class of 1925. Johannes was the first great football star for Port Angeles High School, rushing for 316 yards against Kent in 1924 and 223 against Port Townsend.
• Bob Klock, basketball coach and athletic director. Klock had the best basketball won-loss record in Port Angeles history and took his 1966 team to the state championship game. He was also an assistant football coach and the school’s athletic director for 21 years.
• James Madison, class of 1995. Madison is the most prolific scorer in Port Angeles boys basketball, averaging 22.6 points a game. He went on to become a four-year starter at Cleveland State and the sixth-leading scorer in that school’s history.
• Jessica Madison, class of 2011. Jessica broke her brother James’ scoring record, tallying 1,896 points during her career.
• Carrie Morrison, class of 1975. Morrison won numerous state and international doubles titles between 1970 and 1975 and went on to lead Arizona State to two NCAA team championships. She later became an accomplished marathoner, just missing qualifying for the U.S. Olympic team.
• Greg Thomas, class of 1979. Thomas holds the state record in the decathlon high jump at 6-10 and is the only Port Angeles grad to jump 7 feet (at Washington State in 1984). He also holds school records in the 110 hurdles, the high jump and decathlon.
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Sports Editor Pierre LaBossiere can be contacted at 360-417-3525 or plabossiere@peninsuladailynews.com.
Future Port Angeles High School Athletic Hall of Famers Jack Elway, third from left, back row, and Bob Klock, fourth from left, back row, on the baseball team at Hoquiam High School in the 1940s. The pair will be posthumously inducted into the Port Angeles High School Athletic Hall of Fame on Saturday.
