The Montana High School Association is proud to announce its sixteenth list of inductees to the MHSA Athletes' Hall of Fame. The Montana High School Association Athletes' Hall of Fame is sponsored by Wendy's.
The class of 2020 has seven inductees including Jeff Ellis, Tyler Emmert, Josh Huestis, Jeff Larson, Marj (Connors) Markle, Duane Olson, and Gary Peck.
The MHSA Athletes' Hall of Fame consists of two nomination categories: "Modern Era" and "Old Timer." The Old Timer category is for nominees who have graduated at least fifty years prior to the induction year. All of this year's inductees are from the Modern Era category, except Duane Olson and Gary Peck.
Duane Olson - Big Sandy High School (1967)
Duane was an outstanding wrestler and football player at Big Sandy High School from 1964-67. He was co‐captain of the football team, earned All-Conference Honors both his junior and senior years and awarded the Most Valuable Football Player award his senior year. Duane was a natural athlete in football and track, but wrestling was where he found his niche. While wrestling at Big Sandy High School, Duane was a 3-time Montana State Wrestling Champion at 145 lbs. and went undefeated his sophomore, junior, and senior seasons (1965-67). At this time there were no school size classifications for individual matches. He wrestled opponents from AA-A-B & C schools. His three state championship matches were against wrestlers from Billings, Missoula, and Great Falls. Duane was awarded the Outstanding Wrestler of the State Tournament his senior year while leading his team to a Class BC state championship and an overall 5th place team finish. After graduation, Duane attended
Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa on a full-ride wrestling scholarship for two years. Duane wrestled in the Big 8 Conference tournament and placed 4th. He also placed 2nd in the Great Plains tournament in Nebraska. In 1969 Duane wrestled in the NCAA National Wrestling Tournament where his team took home the NCAA National Championship Title. While at Iowa State University, his wrestling partner and teammate was Olympic Gold Medalist, Dan Gables.
Duane lost his life on February 22, 1976, during a house fire in Syracuse, Kansas where he was working at the time.
