Before the Olympics began last summer in London, Ramon Miller made one thing clear. He was the captain of his ship. “This year, I’m doing everything on my own,” Miller said in a July 29 article in The Dickinson Press. “I’m sailing my own ship, so if anything goes wrong, I’m to blame. I’m the captain of everything right now.”
Miller went to London hoping to make an impact and lead his 1,600-meter relay team to the medal stand.
He returned a gold-medal winning national hero.
Jamie Kuntz says he just wants to be a college football player. However, a decision he made on Sept. 1 not only derailed those plans, it made the 2012 Dickinson High School graduate the center of national debate and scrutiny that has forever changed his life. Over a span of two weeks in September, Kuntz went from a no-name freshman linebacker at North Dakota State College of Science to the subject of a national news story after he was removed from the team for lying to his coaches about an incident at a game, which led to him coming out as a homosexual in the national media.
Kuntz’s saga is The Dickinson Press’ No. 2 sports story of the year.
Perhaps no person in southwest North Dakota sports exhibited more courage than Jennifer Hartman did in the fall of 2012. The 22-year-old former Dickinson State volleyball standout was put in a position she had never expected less than a year after she completed her final season playing for the Blue Hawks.
On Sept. 18, the day of a road match against Jamestown College, Hartman was named DSU’s interim head volleyball coach following the resignation of second-year head coach Maura Bronte.
“I was surprised,” said Hartman, who is still a student and was in her first season as an assistant coach. “That’s the best word. I went into a little bit of a shock state.”
Continue reading “Courageous coach: 22-year-old Hartman exceled in interim position for Blue Hawks”
Of the millions of bus trips taken every year by schools around the country for extracurricular activities, few were as scary as the one the Hettinger-Scranton boys basketball team took on Jan. 13. That afternoon, on their way to play a basketball game against Dickinson Trinity, the team’s chartered bus went off the road when it hit an ice patch attempting to negotiate a curve widely regarded as dangerous along the border of Slope and Hettinger counties three west of New England. Icy road conditions, which were ruled the reason for the accident, caused the bus to go off the road.
After it went off the road and into the ditch the bus came upon an adjacent north-south gravel road, which had a steep incline. The bus hit it hard and launched into the air, rolling onto the driver’s side, which slowed it down to an eventual stop.
Continue reading “Night Hawks avoid tragedy, soldier on despite injuries to key players”
Tyler Plummer was one of those people who was easy to like.
“He was someone who it didn’t matter if you knew him for a little bit of time or a lot of time, he made an impact and people just loved him,” said Annika Plummer, his wife.
Plummer continues to make an impact in people’s lives, almost a year after his untimely death.
The Dickinson State graduate and passionate supporter of the Blue Hawk wrestling team died on Jan. 25 at age 33. The Baker, Mont., native had battled cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disease, since he was diagnosed with a heart infection as a 19-year-old DSU freshman.
In addition to being an avid wrestling fan and a cowboy whose claim to fame was his role as a stunt horse rider in the North Dakota-filmed movie “Wooly Boys,” Plummer was also an organ donor.
After his death, Plummer’s corneas were donated to the Lions Eye Bank of North Dakota. Today, there are two people whom Plummer’s family does not know who can see again because of his gift.
Dustin Monke 