Edmonds-Woodway to induct first Hall of Fame class

Angie McGuire just felt like something was missing.

The Edmonds-Woodway athletic director, who grew up in Edmonds and was a member of the first Edmonds-Woodway High School graduating class, walked through the halls at her school and realized there was no real connection to the storied past of Edmonds athletics.

So, along with some help from the community, McGuire set out to fix the problem. A few years later McGuire is getting set to honor the first-ever class into the Edmonds-Woodway High School Athletic Hall of Fame at a ceremony at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Great Hall at Edmonds-Woodway High School.

“When they merged (Edmonds and Woodway high schools), in the 90-91 school year, neither school had an athletic hall of fame at that time,” McGuire said. “And I’m aware of this because I was a senior that year. The real move was to focus on moving forward. The focus was moving forward as Edmonds-Woodway — as a united school. Which was great. As the years have gone by, we’ve really missed having a lot of the history that was attached to Edmonds High School and Woodway High School. It’s something we’ve always been aware of. It’s something myself and a lot of other individuals have been talking about for about four years.

“This is the 25th year of Edmonds-Woodway High School so it seemed like a really great opportunity to really go back and recognize individuals that have come through all three schools.”

Edmonds High School opened in 1909. Woodway High School, which began in 1967, closed in 1990 when the two schools merged to form Edmonds-Woodway High School.

The EWHS Hall of Fame inductees span all three schools. The inaugural class includes: coaches Tom Campbell, Bryce Cook, Bruce Evans, Mike Hess, Mike Pittis, Rich Rowe, Art Snoey, Fred Shull and Dale Parker; athletes Karen Bryant, Deanna Carr, Mike Rankin and Karl Van Calcar; and the 1949 Edmonds football team and 1984 Woodway girls basketball team, which won a state championship.

“Really the big goal for us is to invite people back into the high school and bring that history back into the school,” McGuire said. “The hall of fame plaques will line the entry to the gym in hallway. I think that will just be such an amazing thing to this school, to have those individuals up with their pictures.”

The EWHS Hall of Fame’s roots begin in 2009, when then-athletic director Julie Stroncek — who is now the Edmonds School District athletic director — honored Pittis, a longtime volleyball coach at Edmonds and later Edmonds-Woodway High School, at a volleyball game in 2009.

“That kind of got the ball rolling,” McGuire said. “Then we were at the point where we really needed to establish some criteria and really do this and have an athletic hall of fame. … We just have a lot of ground to cover, going back and looking at the history of these schools.”

McGuire and the selection group spent time researching what other schools had done to set up a hall of fame, including reaching out to Stanwood and Cascade to see how they had set their respective honors up.

Once the group had its criteria, it asked the community for nominations. Several of those, including the 1949 football team, were initially unknown to McGuire and the selection committee.

“I was not aware of the greatness of the (1949) Edmonds High School football team,” McGuire said. “They were nominated by a member of the team that still lives in Edmonds. As we started looking into it, they were pretty remarkable.”

One member of the 1949 team is flying up from Arizona for the ceremony. All of the honorees will also be recognized at halftime of the Edmonds-Woodway football game against Shorewood on Friday night.

“The biggest thing when you put something like this together is you just want people to show up,” McGuire said. “The coolest thing about it has been the response to the community. People who are being inducted are flying in from out of town. Different alumni who played for these coaches that just want to be a part of it are coming. (The ceremony) isn’t just an event for Edmonds-Woodway High School — it’s an event for our community. To welcome these people back and to have the opportunity to have them and honor them is just really special and we’re really excited.”

Several of the coaches being inducted have already been honored in various coaching and county sports hall of fames. But it was important to McGuire for them to be known in the community where they made such a lasting impact.

“I felt very strongly that we should already have this,” McGuire said. “This is a starting point for us. Our committee is super excited about our first group of inductees. This is really about this community. And it’s here. It should be housed here. This is a place to honor these accomplishments.”