by | Apr 16, 2025 |
A Summer Olympics champion and a Winter X Games champion are among the seven winners of the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame’s 2025 Directors’ Awards.
Kristen Faulkner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in cycling at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, received the Pride of Alaska award as the top female athlete of the year.
Dane Ferguson, a 2009 X Games gold medalist who went on to provide safe riding and jumping options for young Alaska snowmachiners, received the Joe Floyd Award for lasting and significant contribution to Alaska through sports.
Faulkner, a 32-year-old from Homer, was among four people honored with Pride of Alaska awards as the year’s top athletes. The others:
- David Norris of Fairbanks (adult male), who smashed the Mount Marathon men’s record.
- Jack Leveque of Anchorage (youth boy), whose stellar cross-country ski season included a gold-medal sweep in his age group at the U.S. Junior National Championships.
- Layla Hays of Wasilla (youth girl), a 6-foot-5 force for Wasilla’s state runner-up basketball team and state champion volleyball team.
Other Directors’ Awards went to Anchorage triathlete Rebecca McKee and Homer football player Jackson Snaric, who each received the Trajan Langdon Award for leadership, sportsmanship and inspiration.
McKee is a top-level coach and age-group powerhouse who faced a difficult recovery after a complete hysterectomy. Six months after surgery, at age 52, she won her age group and placed seventh among all women in last summer’s Ironman Hawaii 70.3-mile triathlon.
Snaric is a Homer High junior is the Division III Defensive Player of the Year who plays without the use of his left arm and hand because of a birth defect.
Winners were selected from a large pool of nominees that came from coaches, athletes, school administrators and other members of the public, as well as from members of the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame selection panel and reporters for the Alaska Sports Report.
Those nominations were narrowed down to 60 — 10-to-11 in each of the four Pride of Alaska categories and 5-to-6 in each of the Joe Floyd and Trajan Langdon categories. A vote by the Hall of Fame’s nine-member Board of Directors plus Hall of Fame executive director Harlow Robinson determined three finalists and the winner in each category, as well as the seven winners.
Recipients will be honored June 5 at the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame’s annual induction ceremony. Highlighting the Anchorage Museum event will be the enshrinement of the Class of 2025 — two individuals and two moments.
The individuals are NHL hockey player Brandon Dubinsky of Anchorage and Olympic rugby medalist Alev Kelter of Eagle River. The moments are Anchorage’s selection as the U.S. Olympic Committee’s bid city for the 1992 and 1994 Winter Olympics and Mario Chalmer’s game-saving 3-point buzzer-beater for Kansas at the end of regulation in the championship game of the 2008 NCAA Tournament. Chalmers and his teammates won the title in overtime.
The inaugural class of the Hall of Fame was inducted in 2007. Directors’ Awards were established in 2012, with three youth categories added in 2018. The first Pride of Alaska youth winners — cross-country skier Gus Schumacher and basketball player Alissa Pili — went on to win two Pride of Alaska awards as adults.
Over the years, three Olympic gold-medalists have garnered Pride of Alaska awards — Faulkner this year, Seward swimmer Lydia Jacoby in 2022 and Anchorage cross-country skier Kikkan Randall in 2018.
Two Paralympic champions have also earned Directors’ Awards — Joe Floyd winner Doug Keil of Anchorage in 2024, and Pride of Alaska men’s winner Andrew Kurka of Anchorage in 2018.
Kristen Faulkner, Pride of Alaska (women)
The bar has always been high when it comes to the prestigious Directors’ Awards, and no one set the bar higher this year than Faulkner, the only Alaskan to win two Olympic gold medals.
Born and raised in Homer, she’s a Harvard graduate who left a career in finance as an investment associate in 2021 to pursue cycling full-time.
She quickly found success, and in the months leading up to the Paris Olympics she won a stage in the Grand Tour of Spain and won the road race and placed second in the time trial at the 2024 U.S. national championships.
In the Olympic road race, Faulkner broke away from the lead pack with less than three miles left in the 98-mile race. The attack surprised the race’s medal contenders, and none of them gave chase until it was too late. Faulkner rode solo past the Eiffel Tower on her way to the finish line and America’s first gold medal in the event in 40 years.
Two days later, she was racing again — this time on the velodrome track — as a member of the four-woman team pursuit squad. The Americans claimed gold, making Faulkner the first American woman to win gold in two disciplines — road racing and track racing — at the same Olympics.
David Norris, Pride of Alaska (men)
Norris ran to a jaw-dropping record at Mount Marathon, the arduous, adventurous mountain race whose 1915 origin makes it one of the oldest footraces in the country and whose champions are celebrated like Olympic heroes.
Norris, who grew up in Fairbanks and now lives in Colorado, won last year’s 5-kilometer race — consisting primarily of an ascent and descent of Seward’s 3,022-foot Mount Marathon peak — in 40 minutes, 37 seconds. The time sliced 49 seconds off his 2016 record run of 41:26.
The performance sparked unprecedented thoughts of a sub-40-minute time — an incredible prospect for a race rooted in a bar bet between a couple of sourdoughs who debated whether it was possible to go up and down the mountain in less than an hour.
More than a century later, a one-hour finish is still considered admirable. A sub-50:00 time is significant. And now, thanks to Norris, the once-implausible 40-minute barrier is increasingly plausible.
Jack Leveque, Pride of Alaska (boys)
Leveque, a Service High sophomore who trains with the Alaska Winter Stars, was nearly unbeatable during the 2024-25 cross-country ski season.
The 15-year-old ruled his age-group at Junior Nationals, winning three individual gold medals and grabbing a fourth gold in the mixed relay. He ruled Alaska high school skiing too, winning both individual races at the state championships to cruise to Skimeister honors.
At the World Junior Championships, Leveque was the fastest 15-year-old in the 10-kilometer freestyle, placing 22nd in a field of 102 that represented the world’s premier skiers in the 15-20 age range. And at the U.S. National Championships, he was the surprise winner of the U20 national championship 10K classic for skiers 20 and younger.
Layla Hays, Pride of Alaska (girls)
A dominating post player, Hays averaged 15 points a game and presented a defensive challenge for every opponent that faced Wasilla during the Warriors’ 25-3 basketball season.
Hays played in the state championship game in all four of her years at Wasilla, winning it all as a junior in 2024. The Warriors lost this year’s title game to Colony, 44-41, despite a double-double from Hays.
On her way to first-team all-state honors, Hays delivered a handful of huge games, including a 33-point, 14-rebound, 5-assist, 2-steal and 1-block night in an 87-66 regular-season win over Service. Her talents earned her a full-ride scholarship to the University of Iowa, the college where Caitlin Clark became a star.
Hays was No. 71 on ESPN’s top 100 national Class of 2025 player rankings.
She also starred in volleyball. During her senior season, the all-state middle hitter guided the Warriors to a 45-4-2 record and a second straight state championship.
Dane Ferguson, Joe Floyd Award
After winning a gold medal at the 2009 Winter X Games in Colorado, Ferguson came back to Alaska and put his celebrity to good work. He started the Alaska State Sno-X Lions Club with a goal of creating safe places for kids to hone their snowmaching skills.
“I’m not trying to keep the hospitals in business. I’d rather keep the snowmachine shops in business,” he said a few years later in a Slednecks YouTube video about the club.
Hardcore and trailblazing, Ferguson inspired riders with groundbreaking tricks — his X Games victory came in the Snowmobile Next Trick category for a backward flip with a twist that he called a Twist Off.
He was a mentor to young riders, and through his work with the Lions Club he helped host competitions and built tracks around the state for sno-cross training and racing.
Ferguson died at age 44 in December, prompting a tribute on social media from Paul Thacker, an Alaska snow machiner who won a silver medal at the 2016 Winter X Games. “Zero fear and for better or worse wore his emotions on his sleeve. He would help anyone, anytime and invested so much time in the youth movement in the community,” Thacker wrote.
Rebecca McKee, Trajan Langdon Award (adult)
McKee, a top age-group Ironman and Half Ironman triathlete, endured a challenge recovery, both physically and emotionally, after undergoing a full hysterectomy that removed her uterus cervix and ovaries in December 2023.
The first few months of her recovery were complicated by a range of hormonal imbalances and a low-level prolapse. But once she was back, she was back in full form.
Six months after surgery, she won the 50-54 age group and finished seventh among all women at the Ironman Hawaii 70.3 triathlon — 750 meters of ocean swimming, 56 miles of biking and 13.1 miles of running. She placed 94th overall in a field of 1,100 men and women.
McKee has been going strong ever since; she recently won her age group and placed fourth among women and 31st overall in a field of more than 700 finishers at the Hawaii Lavaman triathlon.
Along the way, as the story of her setback and recovery has been told, she has heard from a number of women who have also struggled through the aftermath of hysterectomies or menopause. “It was astounding to me how many women needed help (and) to talk about this stuff,” she said.
Jackson Snaric, Trajan Langdon Award (youth)
Snaric was born with Poland Syndrome, a birth defect that impacted muscle growth on the left side of his upper body. The Homer High junior wears a cast-wrap on his under-developed arm and hand when he plays football.
Snaric is a cornerback, and late in the Division III state championship game he used his torso and his right hand to make a game-saving interception, a play that helped propel Homer to a 16-0 victory over Kenai Central.
He made other big plays throughout the season, including a fumble recovery of more than 90 yards for a touchdown against West Valley. He was named the Division III defensive player of the year and was a first-team defensive back selection.
“I want to prove that I can be just as good — or better — than everyone else even with the disability,” Snaric told Alaska’s News Source. “And I think I can prove that pretty well.”
2025 Directors’ Awards
Pride of Alaska athlete of the year
Men
David Norris
Other finalists: Iditarod champion Jessie Holmes, Olympic basketball player JT Thor
Past winners
2024: Gus Schumacher
2023: Jeremy Swayman
2022: Scott Patterson
2021: Dallas Seavey
2020: Gus Schumacher
2019: Keegan Messing
2018: Andrew Kurka
2017: David Norris
2016: Dallas Seavey and Soldotna football team (co-winners)
2015: Erik Flora
2014: Trevor Dunbar and Eric Strabel (co-winners)
2013: Mario Chalmers
2012: Alaska Aces hockey teamWomen
Kristen Faulkner
Other finalists: Olympic rugby medalist Alev Kelter, NCAA and U.S. Nationals ski champion Kendall Kramer
Past winners
2024: Alissa Pili
2023: Alissa Pili
2022: Clair DeGeorge
2021: Rosie Brennan
2020: Ruthy Hebard
2019: Caroline Kurgat
2018: Kikkan Randall and Roxie Wright (co-winners)
2017: Morgan Hooe
2016: UAA women’s basketball team and Allie Ostrander (co-winners)
2015: Allie Ostrander
2014: Kikkan Randall
2013: Nunaka girls softball team
2012: UAA women’s basketball teamBoys
Jack Leveque
Other finalists: Dimond football player Cayden Pili, Grace Christian runner Robbie Annett
Past winners
2024: PJ Foy
2023: Finnigan Donley
2022: Obed Vargas
2021: Tristian Merchant
2020: Hayden Lieb/Aeyden Concepcion (co-winners)
2019: Jersey Truesdell
2018: Gus SchumacherGirls
Layla Hays
Other finalists: Colony wrestler Amelia Fawcett; Sitka runner Clare Mullin
Past winners
2024: Emily Robinson
2023: Sayvia Sellers
2022: Lydia Jacoby
2021: Lydia Jacoby
2020: Hailey Williams
2019: Kendall Kramer
2018: Alissa PiliJoe Floyd Award
(for significant and lasting contribution to Alaska through sports)
Dane Ferguson
Other finalists: Mount Edgecumbe basketball coach Archie Moore, Girdwood ski official Lin Hinderman
Past winners
2024: Doug Keil
2023: Kathleen Navarre
2022: Beth Bragg
2021: Richard Knowles
2020: Cristy Hickel
2019: Brush Christiansen
2018: Jim Mahaffey
2017: Mao Tosi
2016: Dennis Sorenson
2015: Mike Friess
2014: Dick Mize
2013: Don Dennis
2012: Steve Nerland and Don WinchesterTrajan Langdon Award
(for leadership, sportsmanship and inspiration)
Adult
Rebecca McKee
Other finalists: Mount Marathon age-group runner Maureen McCrea, NHL veteran Nate Thompson
Past winners
2024: Tyson Gilbert
2023: Vanessa Aniteye
2022: Hannah Halverson
2021: Billy Strickland
2020: Israel Hale
2019: Andy Beardsely and Larsen Klingel
2018: DaJonee Hale
2017: Damen Bell-Holter
2016: Laci Effenberger
2015: Aliy Zirkle
2014: Marko Cheseto
2013: Paul Tandy
2012: Chugiak High School football teamYouth
Jackson Snaric, Homer
Other finalists: Nome basketball player Finn Gregg, Wrangell wrestler Della Churchill
Past winners
2024: Petersburg boys basketball team
2023: Geremu Daggett and Colton Merriner, Grace Christian
2022: Jeremy Lane, Point Lay
2021: West Anchorage Legion baseball team
2020: Houston High football team
2019: South High boys basketball team
2018: Brenner Furlong, Soldotna