Alumni Tracker: Thelen headed back home

Roger Thelen

1983 Oscar Lubke Award winner Roger Thelen, who later went on to a stellar track and cross country career at Moorhead State University is headed back to Minnesota. Thelen and his family (wife Kerry and five children) have been living in a remote area in the Amazon jungles of Brazil for the better part of 14 years where he has worked as a teacher in a missionary boarding school.

The Thelens will be returning to the Farmington area in June where they hope to begin working with another ministry, preferably one involving college-age individuals. One possibility is Athletes in Action.

2004 FHS male co-Athlete of the Year Rueben (RJ) Rappe has left his position as men's diving coach at Binghamton University (New York) to enroll in a physical therapy program at Springfield College in Massachusetts. Rappe was an all-Atlantic 10 Conference diver at the University of Massachusetts...Rappe's high school coach (and father), Gregg Rappe, is still active in the diving world, officiating high school and collegiate meets and occasionally helping out with NCAA-sponsored activities.

2005 Tiger grad Nate Rowan, who worked last season as a broadcast intern with the Minnesota Twins, has taken another internship for the upcoming season, this one in Norfolk, Virginia, with the Class AAA affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles. Rowan also worked in the media relations department of the Arizona Fall League last year and hopes this year's internship coupled with last year's experiences will take him a step closer toward his goal of landing a job as a baseball play-by-play announcer.

Former Tiger basketball player Jake Sand returned to his alma mater recently as the ninth grade boys' basketball coach for New Prague...Grant Erickson, the son of former Tiger girls basketball standout Jill Horstman (1986) and ex-Tiger boys basketball coach Randy Erickson, is averaging 14.9 points per game state-rated Lakeville North this season as that team's starting point guard...

Former Tiger girls' basketball coach Jim Schreffler is back as a top assistant coach for the Lakeville North state-ranked girls hoops team...Veteran FHS football and softball coach Gary Burr will be on the sidelines at Tiger Gym next Thursday night coaching the Hastings girls junior varsity team when it takes on the Tigers in a non-conference game...Tiger grad Ryan Pietsch is an assistant girls' hockey coach at Northfield this winter.

Kaitlin Mincke

Former Tiger track standout Kaitlin Mincke finished seventh in a field of 39 runners for the University of Minnesota in the one-mile run at the Jack Johnson Minnesota Classic held at the U of M earlier this month....

Logan Hussung

At the same meet, ex-Tiger Logan Hussung, a redshirt sophomore for the Gophers, took fourth in the men's shot put and FHS and Minnesota State, Moorhead grad Michael Bendix placed second in the high jump...Michael Amofah, a state-meet jumper for the Tigers now performing for St. Cloud State University, was sixth in the long jump at another indoor meet at the U of M earlier in the month.

Three former Tiger head coaches will be working as assistant boys golf coaches at area schools this spring. Terry Holmes will help son Jon Holmes with the Tiger program while Gerry Greupner and Greg Gamache will be coaching at Rosemount and Apple Valley respectively.

Curt Franke (1977), a three-sport Tiger athlete and the son of long-time FHS athletic director Wendell Franke, died unexpectedly at the age of 53 this past week.