Selection Panel

Beth Bragg

Panel Chair

Sports Editor, Anchorage Daily News. Sports reporter, sports editor for Alaska Dispatch News and Anchorage Daily News 1986-present. Winner of multiple awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors, the Northwest Society for Professional Journalists and Alaska Press Club. Covered four Winter Olympics.

Bruce Cech

TV broadcaster of local sports in interior Alaska for over 35 years. Bruce has called over 1,000 games for Alaska Nanooks Division 1 Hockey since 1987. He has also covered Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race, Great Alaska Shoot Out and Top of World Classic basketball tourneys, Alaska Gold Kings hockey and Fairbanks Ice Dogs hockey. UAF men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball, World Eskimo Indian Olympics. High school football, basketball and baseball, arena football and youth sports. Bruce is also a baseball umpire and avid bowler. Inducted into the Fairbanks Hockey Hall of Fame.

Lew Freedman

Author of more than 100 books on Alaska and sports. Sports reporter, sports columnist and sports editor for Anchorage Daily News for 17 years. Winner of more than 300 journalism awards, including multiple honors from the Alaska Press Club, the Northwest Society for Professional Journalists, the Associated Press Sports Editors, the U.S. Basketball Writers and the Best Sports Stories series. Enshrined in the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame in 2018. Currently columnist, sports columnist and outdoors writer for the Cody Enterprise in Cody Wyoming.

Mike Janecek

Longtime sports administrator, organizer and running coach in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. Michael’s varied interests have nurtured a career involving education, politics, technology, sports, and Alaska’s wilderness. Michael’s passion for sports was seeded playing hockey and baseball with his neighborhood friends in Spenard, AK.

Kathleen Navarre

Kathleen Navarre is an Associate Director at Alaska School Activities Association. She coached basketball, volleyball, flag football and track over the past 20 years at Kodiak High School and Dimond High School and has guided multiple teams to State Championships. She’s the former Athletic Director at Kodiak High School and longtime head coach for Dimond Flag Football and Girls Track and Field. She has been an event director for numerous local and statewide high school sporting events. Kathleen was born and raised in Kenai, Alaska

Keith Perkins

Keith Perkins is a life-long Sitkan and a 3+ decades high school sports official across the sports of basketball, baseball, softball, and volleyball in Region V and at state tournaments. He also recruits and trains sports officials in Southeast Alaska. When he is not on the court or field, he is behind a public-address mic helping create a fun atmosphere for the student athletes. In his “spare time,” he works for USDA Rural Development covering Southeast Alaska.

Jordan Rodenberger

Jordan Rodenberger is the Sports Director at Alaska’s News Source in Anchorage. He was born and raised in Fairbanks where his love for sports flourished. After graduating with a Broadcast Journalism degree from the University of Alaska Anchorage, he returned to his hometown to report on the players, teams and activities of Interior Alaska at KTVF.

Klas Stolpe

Born in Petersburg in the year of Alaskan statehood, Stolpe has spent most of his life around sports. A standout high school athlete, he attended college on an athletic scholarship. Later, he traded a living as a commercial fisherman for journalism.  Over a long career primarily in Southeast, Alaska, Stolpe has covered sports and other news for The Associated Press, magazines and various Alaska newspapers and radio. He’s received over 120 media awards (including Alaska Press Club and National Press Club) as a reporter, photographer and columnist. Has run over 50 ultra-distance races and is the only person to run the entire 110-mile Klondike Road Relay solo (twice). Runs his birthday age in miles every Dec. 24 since age 55 but will now switch to kilometers if running or bike the miles.

Doyle Woody

Spent 34 years as a sports reporter and columnist at the Anchorage Daily News, where he served as the principal hockey writer covering UAA, the Alaska Aces and all levels of the game. Won ECHL Outstanding Media Award four times and remains only multiple winner of that honor. Briefly a below-average quarterback at Bartlett High. Never finished dead last at Crow Pass Crossing backcountry marathon, but occasionally flirted with that distinction.