Members of the Month

November 2024 ~ There are glory days and then there are glorious days, and Lisa Owen (Madison, 1983) has plenty of experience with both.

They’re running out of halls of fame to enshrine Robert Key (Marshall, 1984) in. First there was the PIL’s, which in 2015 inducted Key for high school sports achievements that included 10 letters in football, basketball and baseball, three 1st Team and three 2nd Team All-PIL selections and a Male Student Athlete of the Year Award.

It’s possible. It’s a big world, so chances are it’s even likely there’s someone wandering around in it with the initials TNT who’s a low-energy, low-achieving, shrinking violet type. But this much is certain – it ain’t Taryn Nichole Tarver (Benson, 1993).

As he jogged around all three bases and then crossed home plate, the last of four Senators to do so, Tom Wise (Madison, 1970) had to be thinking he’d made a pretty dang good impression on the rest of his team, especially coach Dick McClain.

Kayla Smith (Benson, 2009) never really had a fighting chance. Sure, nobody swept her off her feet after she took her first steps and hauled her off to Toddler Track Academy. But take a quick look at some of her family lineage and judge for yourself:

It’s not that Ron Wold (Jackson, 1981) minds talking about his accomplishments as a three-sport high school athlete. To be sure, he’s plenty proud of the many achievements that in 2015 earned him a spot in the PIL Hall of Fame.

From the looks of Mary Officer Christianson’s (Madison, 1973) bio on the PIL Hall of Fame website one might surmise that whoever wrote it thought they were being charged by the word. If not that, could it be possible Christianson was in a witness protection program at the time of her induction in 2003?

It’s his senior season at the University of Oregon in 1967, and Ted Amato (Cleveland, 1963) has spent the first two innings of a game against No. 2-ranked USC in study mode as the top of the Ducks’ order faced the Trojans’ hard-throwing ace...

It’s a chilly winter morning in Oregon, December 1944, and members of the Wiitala family are just getting their day started when there’s a knock on the door of their new living quarters.

Over the last 56 years, Jan Watt (Merit Award) has spent so much time at Cleveland High School it’s a wonder she didn’t start having her mail delivered there long ago.

Not that he needs anyone putting words in his mouth, but if you were to ask Jack Dunn how long he coached baseball in Portland there’s a good chance his response would go something like, “Let me see. When was Pleistocene Man’s sophomore year?”

Had she known her high school and college accomplishments would obligate her to occasional future public speaking, Marcia Miles Gates (Roosevelt, 1982) may have thought twice before making so much noise on the court and in the classroom.