Kelly Hogue-Zielke

Chances are, the woman generally considered the greatest female athlete in the history of Oregon high school sports doesn’t recall being scored on almost 50 years ago by a fearless, pint-sized point guard from Marshall High School. But Kelly Hogue Zielke remembers it like it was yesterday.

That play is near the top of the many memories Zielke compiled as a three-sport Minutemaid athlete and 1978 Marshall graduate. And while it was only one play and one basket in a non-league game, on that play the five-foot-tall Zielke got the better of St. Mary’s all-everything star Anna Marie Lopez. And you don’t just deposit something like that in your memory bank without occasionally withdrawing it and brushing the dust off.

“I don’t even know how I did it,” Zielke recalls from her home in Stanfield, where she has lived since landing her first post-college teaching job.

Actually, she does know how she did it; she’s just not sure how she did it against a talent like Lopez. “When I went up, I had the ball in my left hand, then flipped it to my right and scored,” Zielke says. “I just remember thinking, Wow, that was pretty cool. Anna is the name in Oregon women’s sports for the last half century.”

Zielke already had a pretty good name for herself even before she got to Marshall. She grew up a self-admitted tom boy playing sports with her older brother, Kenny, and, more often than not, other boys in the neighborhood around Glenwood Park in S.E. Portland,

“I was always active and competitive, and because there were a lot more boys than girls in our neighborhood, I was playing against boys a lot,” she recalls. “I think that was very helpful. It gave me the mentality that you have to be kind of tough in sports.”

While Zielke was in middle school playing whatever sports she could, with an emphasis on basketball, big brother was “talking her up” enough at Marshall that by the time she got there, “A lot of people already knew who I was,” she says.

Grateful for Great Coaches

Zielke went straight to work, starting with JV volleyball, not because she loved the sport but as a way to get in shape for the sport she was passionate about -- basketball. That winter she made the Minutemaid varsity hoops team as a freshman in the first year the sport was sanctioned by the OSAA.

“From the get-go, our coaches, Ken Trapp and John Hughes (both fellow PIL Hall of Famers) were awesome,” Zielke says. “I can’t say enough about them.”

Zielke and her teammates were pretty awesome, too. Those included another fellow Hall of Famer in Brenda Skinner, whom Zielke befriended early. “From that point on through the next three years, she and I played basketball whenever we could,” Zielke says. “Whenever we had spare time, we made a point of finding a place to play. We did whatever we could to get better. Brenda was an awesome athlete. She helped me grow a lot as a player.”

With Skinner and Zielke leading the winning (and becoming three-time All-PIL honorees in the process), the Minutemaids enjoyed great success on the hardwood. Unfortunately, there was a team across town enjoying just a little more. Marshall never won the PIL or made it to state during Zielke’s tenure, primarily because it was competing against powerhouse Wilson at a time when only one PIL team made it to state.

In 1975, Zielke’s freshman year and the first year girls basketball was played in the PIL, the Trojans won the first of three straight league titles on their way to the “unofficial” state championship. They’d finish second the next year in the first official title tilt, then win the state crown in 1977, while Zielke and her teammates were relegated to watching from the bleachers.

“I truly believe we were one of the top four teams in the state even though we didn’t get to go,” Zielke says. “Brenda and I would go watch the games and lament that we weren’t there. But what are you going tdo?”

Maybe take solace in the fact you helped give rise to a legacy at your school? “I bet we won 75 to 80 percent of our games over four years,” she says. “And two years after I graduated, Marshall won two state titles in a row (1980 and 1981). It’s neat to think that I was part of something that was very successful.”

Looking back on the experience, Zielke says she is forever grateful for everything she learned from her coaches and now friends, Trapp and Hughes.

“I think what they and basketball instilled in me was a real fighting spirit to work hard and push hard,” she says. “They allowed us to grow even when we made mistakes. They wouldn’t just pull us; they kept us in the game and let us shake it off. Because of my height, I actually became a smarter player. I had some skills, but I knew the game was more than just shooting the ball and hoping it went in. I understood strategy, and I think that helped me become not only a better competitor but gave me insight into the flow of the game and how I could use certain things to my advantage. That really helped later on when I became a coach in Stanfield.”

Having a Good Time in Golf

Besides playing basketball and volleyball at Marshall, Zielke also earned four letters as a member of the golf team. In fact, it was the only sport in which she made it to state – despite never having seriously swung a club before joining the team.

“I hadn’t golfed before; it was just something I thought would be fun to do,” she says. “I enjoyed playing softball, but Marshall didn’t have a team until my senior year, and by then my loyalty was with the golf team. At times volleyball and basketball became so intense, but in golf we just took things as they came. And in my junior year, we made it to state. We placed 15^th out of 16 teams, but we still made it. It was one of the most enjoyable sports I participated in with a group of girls who were just great to be around.”

After Marshall, Zielke played basketball and softball at Oregon College of Education before transferring to Willamette and playing another year of hoops. But, she says, her athletic experience wasn’t as rewarding as it had been at Marshall.

“I still enjoyed sports a lot, but it was different in college,” she says. “You come out of high school where you’ve had some success and been acknowledged by your peers and coaches and the league, and then you get to college and you’re just a little fishy in a big pond. I participated, but I spent a lot of time watching and learning. But I would not trade the experience because it has helped me a lot in my adult life.”

Zielke has spent all of her adult life in Stanfield, where her parents, Ray and Pat, had family and had moved after her dad retired. After earning her degree from Willamette and her teaching credentials from Eastern Oregon, she got her first job teaching grade school P.E. and middle school math in Stanfield.

Conquering Challenges

From then until her retirement in 2019, Zielke held several teaching and coaching jobs, with breaks in between to raise with her husband, Scott, three children, Samantha, Herschel and Catherine.

The couple, who recently celebrated their 43^rdanniversary, have experienced more than their share of challenges over the years, including taking care of all four of their parents in their final years and Kelly facing her own diagnosis of stage 3 kidney cancer in 2023. Through it all, she has leaned on her unwavering faith.

“Over the last 35 years, God has been an important part of my life,” Zielke says. “So, when that diagnosed came, I was not fearful. He got me through it and I’m now three years cancer-free. I’m so appreciative to God and so grateful that he faithfully provides.”

Shortly before she had surgery to remove her diseased kidney, Zielke got a call from Ken Trapp. She’d only told a few people about her diagnosis, but her brother felt her old coach should know.

Zielke remembers answering the phone and Trapp immediately asking, “Hogue, is there something you should tell me?”

“What are you supposed to do with that? You just can’t put into words how meaningful that was,” she says.

Trapp later visited Zielke while she was recuperating in Gresham, bringing John Hughes with him. And in 2009 he was in attendance when she was inducted into the PIL Hall of Fame, an honor she calls “truly humbling. To be honored as a top athlete in a very competitive conference was really wonderful,” she says.

It was another highlight, she adds, in a life she wouldn’t change for anything.

“I’ve had challenges like everyone has had challenges, but I’ve had a great life,” she says. “I have a husband who is supportive, I’m strong in my faith. I am really good with the path I’ve travelled and very happy in the place I’m at today.”

Do you know Kelly Hogue Zielke? If you’d like to reconnect, she can be reached at [email protected]

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