High School Sports

ASAA to add 11 Hall of Fame members

Five coaches, four athletes, one administrator and one sponsor headline this year's Hall of Fame class for the Alaska School Activities Association.

Leading the group are three selections from Homer who had a hand in that school's run of three straight state girls basketball championships from 1989 to 1991 — players Beth Ladd, and Jody Hensen Reding and coach Dave Cloud.

Cloud also coached boys basketball, track and football for the Mariners. Reding was an all-state guard who went on to play Division I basketball at Northern Arizona, and Ladd was a track and cross-country standout who swept the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 meters at the 1990 state track championships and repeated as champion in the 800 and 1,600 the next year.

Other athletes being honored are North Pole basketball player Brad Oleson and Dimond sprinter-turned-cop Dwyane Jones.

Oleson went from North Pole to UAF, where he became the Nanooks' all-time leading scorer. After college, he enjoyed a long and successful pro basketball career in Spain.

Jones won the 100, 220 and 440 at the 1980 state track meet for the Lynx. For 13 years he was a big presence at Dimond as one of the school's Anchorage Police Department's school resource officers.

Among the five coaches being honored are three from Anchorage — Bob Durado, Earle Walker and Phil Jordan.

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All coached at more than one school, but Durado is best known as a longtime football coach at East, Walker is best known as a longtime basketball coach at Dimond, and Jordan is best known as a longtime basketball coach at Service, although he won state titles at three Anchorage schools — Service, Bartlett and Lumen Christi.

The fifth coach selected is Juneau's George Houston, who spent more than three decades as the Crimson Bears basketball coach, including 14 seasons as head coach.

The remaining two selections are Teresa Johnson, a longtime Anchorage School District administrator who now works at ASAA, and Ravn Alaska, an ASAA sponsor that has provided more than $250,000 worth of in-kind travel since 2008.

The group will be inducted during a May 7 ceremony at the Lakefront Anchorage hotel.

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