PRESS RELEASE

SIOUX FALLS, SD — Tickets for the annual Induction Banquet for the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame are now on sale. The event is scheduled for Sunday, September 22, 2024, at the Convention Center in Sioux Falls (the old Sioux Falls Arena).

Nineteen new members will be inducted, and the event is open to the public. Tickets are $55 for adults and $35 for students 12 and under. To purchase your advance tickets, go to the association website http://www.sdshof.com/ and click on PURCHASE TICKETS. All major credit cards are accepted.
If you have problems with ticketing, call/text Jim Dorman at (605) 940-1262.

The inductees being honored this year include former Brookings basketball star Amy Mickelson; Wounded Knee jockey Fred Ecoffey, whose horses won almost $12 million; former college football coaches Wayne Haensel (South Dakota State, died in 2012) and Jim Heinitz (Augustana); Dakota Wesleyan legends Scott Morgan and Tim Smith; West River all-time greats Kim Templeton and Kelvin Torve; and one of South Dakota’s best prep/college athletes in history, Armour’s Jeff Tiefenthaler.

A pair of the state’s best college women/prep girls’ basketball coaches will be inducted in former South
Dakota coach Chad Lavin and Dawn Seiler of Aberdeen. Also inducted will be the man who helped reshape Sioux Falls athletics into a powerhouse, Mark Meile, and one of the state’s early women’s track & field stars in Tyndall graduate Sally Plihal and one of the state’s best prep/college women’s basketball players in Sioux Falls Lincoln graduate Melissa Olson.

Sports historian George Kiner of Volga will be inducted, as will boxing legend Bill Burns, tennis legend Don Barnes of Sioux Falls, and well-respected official Milo Wepking (who died in 2004). Finally, 1937 Rapid City Central and Iowa Hawkeyes basketball star Rudolph Soderquist (who died in 1980) will be inducted.

With these 19 inductees, the hall will have enshrined 372 women and men from every sport and corner of
the state. The South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame was established in 1968 by the South Dakota Sportswriters Association. A group of volunteers from across the state manages it.

A social hour and media interviews start at 4:30 PM CDT, then dinner at 6:00 PM, and the induction ceremony at 7:00 PM. For questions about the banquet or sponsorship of the Hall of Fame, contact Scott
Fiedler at (605) 940-5564.