Alumni Spotlights
April 2009
McCook Alumni changing the world…
Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Artist
Chris Brown 94,TigerDemonCub@aol.com of Mission, TX, teaches Art I, Art II, and portraiture/figure drawing and is a baseball and strength coach in a high school in South Texas. Chris has been chosen as the official artist for Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. He will be doing a portrait of every person who is inducted into their hall of fame. This years class will have eight people going in which includes NFL running back Marshall Faulk. He is looking forward to working on the portraits and also getting to meet the people at the ceremony in June. Chris played baseball in college at Cowley County and Northwestern State University, where he was honored as the first ever First Team All-American in school history at Cowley. He then played on two Southland Conference Championship teams and set the school record for strikeouts in a single season (which still stands after ten years) at Northwestern State. Chris was drafted by the Chicago Cubs and played for two years before signing with an Independent Pro team for five more seasons. In 2001 an Edinburg, TX team moved him to Texas. He played six years professionally all together. He retired after the 2003 season, and was a pitching coach for two more seasons with the Edinburgteam. His website is www.artleby.biz/christopherbrown.
Nebraska Aviation Hall of Fame
Kugler 75, a McCook businessman and balloon pilot, was inducted into the Nebraska Aviation Hall of Fame during the banquet of the Nebraska Aviation Symposium, January 29th in Kearney. John has competed in the International Coupe Gordon Bennett Gas balloon race and many national and local ballooning meets. Hes taught numerous people from around the USto fly hot air and gas balloons. Most notable of his students was the late Steve Fossett, who went on to set numerous aviation world records, including the first solo round-the-world balloon flight. Kugler Co. is a McCook-based regional farm fertilizer manufacturer, which led to Kuglers assistance in pioneering the use of anhydrous ammonia as a lifting gas for gas balloons. Kugler, his brother Mike 78, and their late father Russ started flying hot air balloons locally in the late 1970s. Gary Sines 68, of Jefferson City, MO, the son of Kugler Oil Company employee John Sines, suggested to Russ that hot air ballooning could be an exciting pursuit for his adventurous sons and the rest is history. The pioneering Kuglers led in making it a colorful spectacular sport that we know today, and John, rated as a Commercial Balloon Pilot and Instructor, has made his mark in the sport the world around.