Glacier High has had a lot of success on the field of play, and its alumni has found success, whether its Ryan Edwards as a part of the Gonzaga Bulldogs run to the NCAA national championship game or Troy Fraley as a first team all-American in the steeplechase at the outdoor track and field championships. With summer in full swing and the kids out of school, I spoke to Mark Dennehy, the activities director at Glacier High, to reflect on the 2016-17 activities season.

Nach on Sports: What is it like to Glacier Athletes have success at the next level when Troy Fraley is the first all-American for Gonzaga in track and field?

Mark Dennehy: You know it’s great to see, Troy was always a great kid, a hard nosed kid. He was kind of quiet, but a hard, hard-nosed kid when he ran cross country and track. You know he ran against some of the best in the country and he was battling every week. It’s great to see him in the limelight with steeplechase.

NOS: What are your favorite stories from 2016-17 school year?

MD: I think the biggest and best story is obviously the boys basketball team and Coach Harkins and his crew bringing Glacier it’s first state basketball championship and the first one to Kalispell in 29 years. We are very proud of that and very proud of the kids, a great group of competitors, and great group of kids. They beat some basketball teams I think most people around the state said and thought they had no business beating.

NOS: What’s the process of finishing the school year?

MD: You know it really never ends. Right now, we’re working on tidying up schedules, getting the bus schedule ready, poster and picture schedules all put together. We are working on facility improvements. We have (Class) AA meetings coming up in one of the areas. We’re going to work to see what the Class AA conferences are going to look like when we bring in the additional Bozeman school and when we bring in Belgrade. We will have sixteen teams at the Class AA level and what’s that going to look for every specific sport. Then there is about 30 to 40 emails everyday I’m getting hit with in the summer. Usually, those emails correspond with a lot of work.

NOS: When do you start working on the next year?

MD: Well we have already started that process. We had a physical night a couple weeks ago. We took in about 120 physicals and their paperwork our trainer Melody Strauss she does a great job with all of that. We just start right over and just keep rolling.

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Anthony Nachreiner is the host of The Nach on Sports Show, Northwest Montana’s only sports talk show, which airs every weekday from 3-5 p.m. on 600 AM KGEZ and 96.5 FM.

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