PORT ANGELES ROUGHRIDERS HALL OF FAME: 12 individuals selected for the class of 2023

PORT ANGELES — There’s a little twist in the 2023 class of the Port Angeles Roughriders Hall of Fame as one of the founders and organizers of the Hall of Fame is being inducted himself.

Twelve former Roughrider athletes and coaches were selected to make up the class of 2023, including hall of fame committee president Bruce Skinner, who was instrumental in helping to turn the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona into a major New Year’s Day college bowl game.

The inductees will be honored at the fifth annual hall of fame dinner Aug. 26 at Civic Field. More than 700 people are expected to attend the event that will be held on a Saturday evening under a large tent on the football field. The event was originally held at the Vern Burton Center but moved to Civic Field during the pandemic to keep it outdoors. The move was so popular that it will remain at Civic Field for the foreseeable future.

Skinner said he always refused to be inducted into the hall of fame because he is president of the hall’s committee. So other members of the hall of fame committee worked amongst themselves to get Skinner selected, said committee member Bob Lovell.

“We went to every committee member about it and I went to [Skinner’s] wife Kathy. I’m his elder, he’s just going to have to put up with it. He deserves it,” Lovell said.

Three of the 2023 inductees — Alison Maxwell, Frank Prince III and Larry Beatty — excelled in track and field and cross country.

Five excelled in basketball — Kelley Berglund, Terry Clayton, Jon Madison, Mandy Wood and Dave Denny. Harry Leons played football for the Riders, while George Hill made his mark with a career in sports television and administration. Joni Jacobs was a high school and collegiate swimmer.

Skinner said teams for the 2023 class will be picked in a few weeks. Each class generally has at least two famous Port Angeles High School teams.

Larry Beatty

Track, 1982. He set a school record in the 300-meter hurdles and was fourth at state. He was named to the NWAACC Hall of Fame in 1994 and was a former NWAACC champion. He was named again as a coach in 2012.

He won two men’s state track titles as a coach at Clark College and became the most successful community college track and cross country coach in the state’s history at Spokane Community College, winning four women’s and six men’s cross-country titles in nine years. He won 12 women’s and 13 men’s track and field titles.

Kelley Berglund

Basketball, 1999. Berglund was the Olympic League MVP for both her junior and senior seasons and was named All-State her senior year. Following high school, she played two seasons at Washington State and then played her final two years at Seattle Pacific. At SPU, she averaged 14.7 points per game and 8.6 rebounds her senior year, and was a two-time, first team all-conference and All West Region honoree.

Terry Clayton

Basketball, 1957. An all-league performer his junior and senior years in high school, he led the Riders to the state Tournament for two seasons. He was the first Port Angeles High School graduate to be recruited by a Pac-8 school. After a year at Washington, he transferred to Western Washington, where he led the Vikings to their first appearance in the NAIA small college basketball tournament. He was named the Most Valuable Player for the 1993 National AAU Men’s Basketball Tournament.

Dave Denny

Basketball, 1964. He was the leading scorer for the Riders in 1963 and 1964 while leading the 1964 team to the Olympic League title. He was Second Team All League in 1963 and all-league in 1964. As a coach, he started a cross-country program at Montesano High School where his teams won five league championships, three district titles and the state title in 1974. He was named the Washington State Cross Country Coach of the Year in 1975.

He also coached 16 years at Mark Morris High, where his basketball teams played in 15 state tournaments and won three state titles. Denny is already in the Montesano Hall of Fame, the Mark Morris Hall of Fame and the Washington State Coaches Hall of Fame.

George Hill

Pep promoter, 1965. He served as the official statistician for Al Michaels and Brent Musburger and also worked for a who’s who in broadcasting, including Frank Gifford, Howard Cosell, Curt Gowdy, Jack Buck, Bob Costas, Jim McKay, Keith Jackson, Dan Dierdorf, Dan Fouts, Cris Collinsworth, Bill Rafferty and many others. He was the assistant sports information director at the University of Washington from 1972 to 1975, and then moved on to work for ABC, CBS, NBC and ESPN, in pro and college football, NBA and college basketball, Major League Baseball, boxing, World Cup Soccer, the Olympics, tennis and many other events.

Joni Jacobs

Swimming, 1996. She was a two-time NAIA national breaststroke champion at Central Washington University. In high school, she placed third in the state in the breaststroke and on the 200 medley relay team.

Harry Leons

Football, 1957. After graduating from Western Washington University, he received a tryout with the Detroit Lions, only one of two Port Angeles High School graduates to do so with an NFL team. He was arguably the best interior lineman to come out of Port Angeles, and was offered a scholarship to play at the University of Washington along with Sam Hurworth. He chose to attend Grays Harbor Community College and then Western Washington, where he was all-conference in football and baseball, and was the WWU Most Valuable Player.

Jon Madison

Basketball and baseball, 1997. He was the leading scorer and captain on the 1997 Roughriders team that finished seventh in the state. In his senior year he was the Olympic League Most Valuable Player and was named First Team All-State by the Seattle Times, Tacoma News-Tribune, and the Associated Press. He averaged 21 points and 7.5 rebounds per game. He is third on the Port Angeles boys all-time basketball scoring list, behind only brother James and Bernie Fryer. He was also a Riders baseball team that finished fourth in the state. He played basketball collegiately at the University of Anchorage-Alaska for four seasons.

Alison Maxwell

Track, cross country, 2011. She is currently a runner for Club Northwest and was just named as a Brooks High Performance athlete for 2023. She was the 2015 national indoor mile champion at Middlebury College in Vermont, and was named to the Capitol One Academic All-American team for Women’s Track & Field/Cross County by the College Sports Information Directors of America. In 2015, she also won the national championship at 5,000 meters.

Frank Prince III

Track and cross country, 2002. A graduate of the University of Puget Sound, Prince was an NCAA Division III All-American and academic All-American. He also was the NCAA Division III West Region cross-country champion, won three Northwest Conference championships in the 10,000 and 5,000 meters, and 11 First Team Northwest Conference placings in track and cross country. His Port Angeles High School cross-country team was undefeated in league all four years. He won the league championship four times, and the West Central District team title twice.

Bruce Skinner

Statistician, 1966. In high school, he was the statistician for Port Angeles High School football, basketball and track teams. After serving as the sports editor for the University of Washington Daily, he went on to a career in athletic administration, making stops at the NCAA (1970-71), Houston Rockets (1971), and the Fiesta Bowl (1973-1990), where he served as executive director. He then served as the Executive Director of the International Festivals and Events Association (1990-2001), and started races in Phoenix, Seattle, Portland, Ore., San Antonio and Nice, France for the Rock ‘n’ Roll running series. He was the chief marketing officer of the 2016 NCAA National Championship game (Alabama vs. Clemson), and was named as the CEO of the Washington Festivals and Events Association in 2017. He has served as the executive director of the Olympic Medical Center Foundation for 33 years. He also has been inducted into four other Hall of Fames – International Festivals and Events Association, the International Live Event Association, the Arizona Runners and the Collegiate Bowl Directors. He has also completed marathons on all seven continents.

Mandy Wood

Basketball, soccer, 2002. She was a two-sport star in both soccer and basketball where she made varsity all four years and team captain her last two. She was all-league her junior and senior year in both sports, and led the Riders to the state basketball tournament four times. In soccer, she led the team in scoring three out of her four years, scoring 61 career goals. At Seattle Pacific University, she was a GNAC all-league performer in basketball and made the Sweet 16 all four years, the Elite Eight twice, and the National Championship game her junior year. She finished her college career with 1,326 points and 384 assists, as well as 234 career 3pointers, still a Seattle Pacific record.