Shawano to honor 3 athletes

The Shawano Community High School athletics hall of fame will welcome three new additions in a ceremony Saturday morning before the Hawks’ homecoming game against Marinette. Dave Kobs (1982), Joe Schnepf (1970) and Bill Soyck (1954) will be honored as this year’s hall of fame class. “When you look at this class and look at their accomplishments, they could have easily been in the first class,” Shawano Athletic Director Tim Mayer said. Soyck earned six varsity letters, playing two years of football, three years of basketball and three years of track and field, where he was as dominant a runner as one can be. His senior year he broke the school record and became a state champion in the mile. Kobs also earned six varsity letters, with two years of football, four years of basketball and four years of baseball. Helping the Hawks basketball team get to the state semifinals in 1982, Kobs was deadly with long-range shots and led the team at the free-throw line. Kobs also made his mark in football his senior year, leading the Bay Conference in receptions, with 17, yards, with 461 yards, and touchdowns, with seven. Schnepf earned seven varsity letters while playing cross-country, basketball and track for three years each. Schnepf was the Mid-Eastern Conference champion three years in a row from 1968 to 1970 and still holds the school two-mile record time of 9 minutes, 42.80 seconds. The candidates are selected by a hall of fame committee, which draws from a candidate pool of 300 nominees. “Out of those 300, I know like 99 percent of them belong in the hall of fame,” Mayer said. “Once we go through every candidate we narrow it down to the ones we think are most deserving to make it into the hall of fame for the next year.” Mayer said the committee usually picks candidates for the next two years so they can be informed and make arrangements to make it back to Shawano. “The best thing about the panel is we try to get people from all the different eras,” Mayer said. The hall of fame induction ceremony will be held in the SCHS commons during the FFA tailgate party prior to the homecoming football game at 1 p.m. The inductees will be introduced before the game and all of the hall of famers will be recognized during the game.