Before the third class of the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame was announced on Monday, one of the inductees had already been toasting a classmate in a hall of fame of his own.

Dave Johnston, the renowned 6-foot-7 climber and part of a team of mountaineers who made the first winter ascent of Mount McKinley, has a little sports shrine on his Talkeetna property -- part outhouse, part library, actually.

Go there and you'll see the famous photo of Olympic runner Mary Decker Slaney tripping over Zola Budd during the 1984 Summer Games. Turn another way and there's a picture of Romanian Nadia Comaneci, the first Olympic gymnast to score a perfect 10, soaring through the air like an albatross. And plenty more.

Among them is a photo of former Bartlett High middle distance runner Doug Herron exalting after he ran the fastest 800 meters in the country by a prep runner in 1985.

"I'd love to show him that picture in person," Johnston said on Monday. "What a spectacular thing. That kid was so swift.

"I pick (photos) that are kind of graceful. He may be the only Alaskan."

After Monday's announcement of the third class of the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame, Herron and Johnston are forever linked, both creators of two of Alaska's most memorable sports moments, both entering the hall the same year.

Five individuals, ranging from prominent Olympians to a nearly forgotten Southeast basketball star, will be inducted. And one ongoing event, the World Eskimo Indian Olympics, was voted in too.

"There was a great debate," hall of fame president Harlow Robinson said at the induction announcement, "and we're very, very pleased with the results. It is a group remarkable for its resume and for its diversity."

The five who will enter the hall during a February ceremony:

• H.A. "Red" Boucher, founder of the Alaska Goldpanners in Fairbanks. In the 1960s, Boucher helped put together the Alaska Baseball League, which continues to bring top college players to the state each summer. Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver was among the many future major leaguers to play for Boucher's Goldpanners.

• Nina Kemppel, the West High graduate who won 18 national championships in nordic skiing, more than any other Alaskan. Kemppel raced in four Olympics for the United States, but she was just as dominant off her skis, winning a record nine Mount Marathon championships, including eight in a row.

• Wally Leask, an extraordinary basketball player from Metlakatla, was probably Alaska's first big-time player. Known as the "dribbling dervish", Leask captained the University of Washington basketball team to a 25-5 record as a senior in 1943 -- decades before more well-known Alaskans such as Trajan Langdon and Carlos Boozer slipped on Duke jerseys. Leask's team lost in what is now known as the NCAA Elite Eight, but the Alaskan missed the tournament to fulfill his duty as a U.S. Army fighter pilot in World War II. Leask had offers to play professionally for the Harlem Globetrotters and Minneapolis Lakers upon his return from the war, but he opted for a higher paying job and focused on raising a family instead. He died in 2004 at the age of 84.

• Hilary Lindh, the Olympic downhill skier and silver medalist from Juneau. Lindh was 14 years old when she joined the U.S. Ski Team. Two years later, she became the first American to win a World Junior Championships downhill title. Her silver medal in the downhill at Albertville, France, in 1992 was the pinnacle moment of her skiing career, but her resume also includes a downhill gold medal at the World Championships in Italy five years later. Lindh earned three World Cup victories, five podiums and 27 top-10 finishes during her storied 11-year World Cup career. "I feel pretty far removed from that time," she said Monday from her home in British Columbia. "The Olympics were pretty early in my career. For my own personal values, the world championship was a bigger accomplishment. I was a lot more conscious of what I was doing. I knew a lot more about myself and what my challenges were."

• Colonel Norman Vaughan, polar explorer and longtime adventurer. Vaughan left Harvard University to join Admiral Richard Byrd's first expedition to the South Pole from 1928-1932. During the trip, Byrd named a mountain after Vaughan and in 1994, at the age of 88, Vaughan returned to climb the 10,302-foot peak. Vaughan competed in the 1932 Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, in a sprint dog racing exhibition. At age 68 he moved to Alaska to "start a new life." Vaughan went on to race in 13 Iditarod races, finishing four of them. Vaughan died in 2005 at age 100.

An online public vote counted for one ballot in the selection process, and each of the eight members of the selection panel had a ballot as well. For the third consecutive year, the public participation grew -- from 500 the first year to 1,100 the second to 1,500 this year.

"Word is getting out," Robinson said.

And that means more nominees are coming in -- including some not known to every member of the selection panel.

That was the case with Leask, the son of a Haida mother and Tsimshian father who grew up in Metlakatla, which for decades was the state's basketball hotbed. But Gil Truitt, who graduated from Sitka's Mt. Edgecumbe High School in 1948 and grew up idolizing Leask, lobbied the selection committee with a packet of information.

"It's one of the happiest days of my life," said Truitt on Monday after the announcement. "It's been a long time since I felt this good about anything."

Truitt recalled listening to University of Washington games on the radio in his youth, marveling at Leask's exploits.

"He was one of the finest dribblers and passers in his day," Truitt said. "He'd be a star today. Wally was a hero and legend in Sitka -- a household name.''

So is Kemppel, particularly in Southcentral, where she dominated aerobic sports from her teens into her 30s.

While the hall of fame doesn't specifically reward longevity, Kemppel's long reign as the best woman cross-country skier in America and the queen of Mount Marathon for eight consecutive races is remarkable.

Her favorite?

"I'd have to say skiing in Lillehammer (Norway) in the 1994 Olympics. I had trained with the Norwegian athletes, and skiing in front of that many fans is pretty inspiring. The energy an athlete felt there was amazing, like running into the stadium before the Super Bowl."

Today Kemppel lives and works in Portland, Ore., as a consultant who helps companies aiming to go green become kinder to the environment.

"The last time I was home I walked through the display (at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport)," said Kemppel, now 38. "There were so many people I looked up to as a young child. Geez, and now I'm among them."