Best part of Hall is chance to come home

Gina Shannon Stoughton took a good long look around the track Friday night and couldn’t help but smile.“It’s nice to come home,” the newly inducted New Hampton Athletic Hall of Fame member said. “There are so many good memories here, and this was a great place to grow up.”It was that kind of night at New Hampton, where three of the four inductees came home to receive their Hall of Fame plaques.Stoughton now lives in Colorado Springs, Colo., Sue Haugen Bravard lives in the Des Moines area while Dan Boos returned home from the Twin Cities.The fourth inductee — former New Hampton High School Principal John Andersen — still lives in the city.Stoughton received her award on the track where she and her teammates had so much success and although it’s been almost 20 years since she last competed as a Chickasaw, the memories are fresh.“To be part of those teams,” she said, “is an experience I’ll never forget. We did have a lot of success, but we were really close, too. The fun we had at meets ... you just don’t forget that.”Boos echoed Stoughton’s thoughts when he was asked about his wrestling teammates from the 1970s.“There’s not too many of us left in New Hampton,” he said, “but we’ll always have that bond. We are Chickasaws and pretty proud of it, too.”The four newest inductees bring the number of Hall of Fame inductees to 107.