Five former athletes to join 2022 Greene County High School Hall of fame

By Brandon Hurley
Managing Editor
News@beeherald.com

The next wave of greatness is upon us.
Greene County High School recently revealed the second class set to enter the Greene County Athletics Hall of Fame.
The five member class includes athletes who secured a national champion, eight individual state titles, a team state title and several All-American honors among a slew of other state and school records.
From basketball and wrestling to track and field, this year’s class is sure to provoke an onslaught of tremendous memories, dating as far back as the 1960s.

The Class of 2022 includes:

• Pam Slock Sanders, Class of 1961 Basketball (East Greene)
Pam Slock is one of the best shooters in the history of Greene County.
The Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union hall-of-famer led the state of Iowa in scoring by averaging 51.2 points per game during the 1960-1961 season, boasting a career average of 33.7 points per game.  
Slock was such a lethal shooter as an East Greene Hawk that her patented set shot became known as the “Slock shot.” She’d cock the ball behind her head with two hands, flipping it sky-ward over the out-stretched arms of defenders. She tallied an East Greene record 2,873 points in her career, 1,000 points more than any other Hawk.
The Hawks recorded an impressive 39-4 win-loss mark over her final two years, falling short of the school’s first state tournament in the 1961 district final. Slock averaged 75 points per game in her three career games against Rippey, including a career-high 78 points, in which she reached that mark twice. Slock’s 51.2 points per game average during the 1960-1961 season was a single-season Iowa High School record until it was broken six years later.

• Rosemary Holden-Hoyt, Class of 1975 track & field (Scranton)
Rosemary Holden-Hoyt is easily the most decorated track and field star in the history of Greene County.
She won several state titles and a national title as a member of he Scranton High School program in the 1970s. Holden captured five total state titles from 1972-1975, including four individual championships. She won the 880-yard state title three straight years, highlighted by a national championship in 1974, the only such female in state history to accomplish such a feat. Her 1973 state meet was perhaps most impressive, securing three titles, which included the 880-yard run, the mile and as the anchor of the distance medley relay. At the conclusion of her career in 1975, only six other girls had won as many state championships as she had. Holden was twice named a national high school All-American.
She ran the second-fastest mile in state history at that point, later running track at Iowa State University.

• Erik Strawn, Class of 1982 wrestling (Jefferson)
Erik Strawn was Jefferson’s second-ever state wrestling champion. The 1982 graduate shattered Jefferson’s all-time wins mark, highlighted by the 1982 state championship at 126 pounds, securing an undefeated record of 32-0.
Strawn tallied 109 total wins, becoming the first Jefferson wrestling to cross the century mark, with just 13 losses and a single tie. He qualified for the state tournament three straight years, which included a runner-up finish as a junior at the 1981 state tournament, losing 4-3 in the title match. His junior year was quite spectacular in itself, setting a school-record with 21 pins.
Strawn was nearly untouchable during the 1982 state wrestling tournament, romping through the field and out-scoring his opponents 51-6, winning each match by at least nine points.
Strawn later signed to wrestle at Utah State University.

• Kris Curnyn-Hagedorn, Class of 1994 track & field (Jefferson-Scranton)
Kris Curnyn is Jefferson-Scranton’s greatest thrower. The 1994 graduate won three discus state championships, becoming the epitome of dominance. She won 37 out of the 45 discus events she entered in her career, including the 1993 Drake Relays discus title. Curnyn was instrumental in helping the J-S Rams secure the 1994 team state title, the first and only girls’ title in school history.
Curnyn still holds the school record in the discus, a mark of 146 feet, five inches she set in 1994. She helped the Rams win four straight Raccoon River Conference titles.
Curnyn later threw for the Iowa State University track and field team, earning All-American honors in the hammer throw in 1998.  She finished ninth in the nation in 1997 in the indoor 20-pound weight throw and was ninth in the 1998 outdoor hammer throw.
Curnyn holds the third best discus throw in Iowa State history with a toss of 174-10 at the 1997 Big 12 Championships. She also secured the 8th best indoor weight throw in school history at 61-05 and is also sixth best all-time in the indoor shot put with a throw of 50-04.5 at the 1998 Big 12 Championships.  
The 1994 Jefferson-Scranton girls’ team was one of the initial members of the inaugural Greene County hall of fame class.

• Adam Jones, Class of 1998 Basketball (Jefferson-Scranton)
Adam Jones is Jefferson-Scranton’s all-time leading scorer in basketball, having compiled 1,538 points in his four year career. The 1998 graduate averaged nearly 25 points per game his senior year, earning first team, all-state recognition. He was also named second team, all-state following his junior year. Jones later went on to star for Buena Vista University, earning 2002 Iowa Conference Most Valuable Player honors after averaging 19.3 points per game and leading the Beavers to a conference title, which eventually led to a first team Division III All-American honor.
Jones is now in his sixth year as head coach of the Dallas Center-Grimes girls’ basketball coach.

A community reception honoring the newest Greene County inductees will be held from 6-6:645 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 13 at the high school with a short program at 6:45 in the high school auditorium.
The inductees will then be recognized the following evening, Jan. 14 in between the girls’ and boys’ varsity basketball games against Roland-Story. The induction will take place at
approximately 7:15 p.m. immediately following the girls game.
The Greene County High School athletics hall of fame was created in 2019, with the first class inducted in January of 2020.
No induction was held last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year’s class joins the likes of the 1994 Jefferson-Scranton girls’ track and field team, football coach Bill Kibby, track and field and football star Brent MacLagan, as well as Jefferson-Scranton six-on-six basketball stars, Kristi Kinne and Trisha Waugh, who were all inducted in 2020.