PORT ANGELES — Tickets are now available for the inaugural Port Angeles High School Hall of Fame dinner set for April 21.
People interested in attending are urged to hurry in buying tickets because they are expected to sell fast. Organizer Bruce Skinner said 600 people are expected for the event, which will be held at the Vern Burton Community Center.
“It’s shaping up to be the largest fundraising dinner in Port Angeles history in term of attendees,” Skinner said. He said 72 tables have been ordered, compared to 54 tables for the Festival of Trees event during the holidays.
“We’ve sold over 50 tables to sponsors already,” Skinner said.
Proceeds from the event will benefit Port Angeles High School athletics.
To get tickets, call 360-417-7144.
A total of 17 Port Angeles High School athletes and coaches were picked for the inaugural Hall of Fame class. All of them are still living, though some were high school athletes as far back as the early 1950s.
The inaugural class includes:
• Kelli Antolock, golf, 1980 graduate. A national high school champion, she went on to become an All-American golfer at Brigham Young University.
• Tyna Barinaga, badminton, 1964 graduate. She was the winningest U.S. junior badminton player in history and was inducted into the U.S. Badminton Hall of Fame in 2003.
• Michael Briggs, football, 1960 graduate. He went to become an All-Pacific Coast Conference tackle at the University of Washington.
• Scooter Chapman, 1952 graduate. Chapman has announced more than 2,000 Port Angeles High School games on KONP and has been involved with PAHS athletics for 67 years.
• Mike Clayton, basketball, 1966 graduate. Clayton was the leading scorer on the 1966 Roughriders team that finished second in the state tournament. He was an all-state selection and went on to become the all-time leading scorer at Western Washington.
• Sherri Felton, track and basketball, 1977 graduate. She was all-state in basketball and high jumped 5 feet, 11 inches during her senior year, the best in the nation. She went on to be the first woman to jump 6-0 at the University of Washington and held the Huskies’ single-game scoring record of 36 points for decades until it was broken by Kelsey Plum.
Bernie Fryer, 1968 graduate. He was all-state and All-American in both football and basketball, leading the state in basketball scoring his senior year at 30.3 points a game. He went on to become an All-Western Athletic Conference selection at BYU, averaging 19.2 points a game and was drafted by the Phoenix Suns. In addition to being the only Port Angeles grad to play in the NBA, he went on to referee over 1,800 regular-season and postseason games in the NBA.
Ken Fuhrer, basketball, 1952 graduate. He was the leading scorer on a Port Angeles basketball team ranked No. 1 in the state for six weeks. The Riders went 19-1 in the regular season, with the only loss to the University of Washington freshman team. He went on to play for Seattle University, which went to the NCAA Tournament all four years he was there.
Penny Graves, track badminton, basketball, 1984 graduate. She was a basketball star, three-time 800-meter champion in track and won three national junior badminton titles. She went on to become a two-time Pac-10 cross-country athlete of the year in 1986 and 1989. She was inducted in the University of Oregon Hall of Fame both as a member of the 1987 national champion cross-country team and as an individual.
Scott Jones, football, 1984 graduate. A three-sport athlete at Port Angeles, he went on to play 22 games in the NFL. He was a tight end and offensive tackle at the University of Washington and a member of the 1984 team that went 11-2 and finished second in the nation.
Jim Michalczik, football, 1984 graduate. He was all-league in both football and basketball and went to star as an offensive lineman at Washington State. He went on to become a college and NFL coach, spending time at Miami, Montana State, Oregon State, California, Arizona and the Oakland Raiders. Currently, he is the associate head coach for Oregon State.
Leigh Morgan, basketball and tennis, 1986 graduate. She was a three-sport star at Port Angeles and was named the Most Valuable Player in the 1986 state basketball tournament, leading the Riders to a second-place finish. In tennis, she played on the girls’ 1986 state championship team and finished second in the state tournament doubles. She went on to play basketball at Duke and was named one of the top 25 players in the first 20 years of the Duke program.
Jeff Ridgway, baseball, 1999 graduate. Ridgway was an all-state pitcher and helped lead the Riders to a fourth-place finish in state in 1997. He was drafted by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1999 and pitched for Tampa Bay and Atlanta.
Art Sandison, track, 1966 graduate. Sandison was the 1965 state champion in the 880-yard run and still holds the state record at 800 meters for college. At Washington State, he ran the second-fastest 800-meter time in U.S. track history. He was inducted into he Washington State Hall of Fame in 2012.
Lee Sinnes, basketball, 1966 graduate. Sinnes was the second-leading scorer for the 1966 Port Angeles team that finished second in the state. He was named to the all-state team and went on to lead Pacific Lutheran in scoring for three seasons. He was named an NAIA All-American his senior year. He was named to the PLU Athletic Hall of Fame in 2002 and was a high school coach for 40 years. His 1997 Port Angeles team finished seventh in the state and he was named by the Seattle Times as Coach of the Year.
Joel Thomas, football and wrestling, 1993 graduate. He was a four-sport athlete, starting on a football team that went 9-2 his senior year and finished second in the state in wrestling in 1993. He went on to become the all-time leading rusher at the University of Idaho. He was a charter member of the Vandals Hall of Fame in 2008. He has also coached at Purdue, Idaho, Washington and Arkansas and is current the running backs coach for the New Orleans Saints.
Henry Wyborney, track, 1958 graduate. Wyborney set a state high jump record with a leap of 6-8 3/16 in 1957, which was tops in the nation that year. He won the state title again in 1958 and went on to compete at Washington State, where he set the WSU high jump record of 6-11 in 1960.
