ADs Tingey, King saluted by state
Awards banquet Monday in Boise
Blaine County parents and students can be proud that two
longtime teachers in Carey and Hailey have been honored by a state
association for their work as athletic directors.
Carey School science teacher Blaine Tingey, Carey’s
athletic director for 33 years, has been named "A-4 Athletic Director
of the Year" by the Idaho Athletic Directors Association.
And Wood River Middle School Spanish and sports management
teacher Jim King has received the honor of "Idaho Middle School
Athletic Director of the Year," from the same group.
They received accolades Monday at an awards banquet during
the Idaho Athletic Directors Association four-day annual meeting in Boise.
Tingey is now in his 35th year of teaching. King has been
a teacher and coach in Idaho for 23 years. Here are details about these
outstanding teachers who have contributed much to their communities:
Blaine Tingey
Tingey is probably best known in Idaho for his work in
track and field.
He was instrumental in convincing the Idaho High School
Activities Association to split the A-3/A-4 division into two separate
classifications—A-3 and A-4—to make sure that A-4 schools like Carey
could fairly compete for state championships at state track in Boise.
The split started in 1993, and the Carey boys’ track
team had its best-ever run from 1994-97. The Panthers rode the strong legs
of sprinter Jordan Hennefer (nine gold medals in four state meets) to
three consecutive third-place state finishes and a second-place in 1997.
Tingey said he always appreciated that track is an
individual sport as well as a team effort, and that the young students
have to work quite a bit on their own to succeed.
Track has always offered a golden opportunity for athletes
to develop their speed and agility in order to improve performance in
sports like football and basketball, he said.
A 1961 Brigham Young University graduate, Tingey received
his teacher certification from Utah State University and taught in Utah
for two years before taking over for Ferris Lynn as Carey’s athletic
director in the 1968-69 school year.
When he first arrived, Tingey coached all the boy sports—football,
basketball and track at Carey. "When I first came I was the only
coach. So I went to the math teacher, Vern Jolley, and told him I was
going to need some help." said Tingey.
Jolly and Tingey worked beside each other for years
directing the highly-regarded Carey track program. Jolley’s Panther
girls won three State A-3 titles from 1990-92 and captured State A-4
championships in 1994 and 1996.
Tingey and his wife Barbara, a third-grade teacher at
Carey School, have four sons and eight grand-children. Their sons have
been highly-productive athletes at Carey.
Oldest son Brent is a Boise attorney. Brad is head
basketball coach and physics and chemistry teacher at Hillcrest High
School in Salt Lake City, Utah. Tim is city planner in Pocatello, and
Brian is a dental school student in Kansas City.
Jim King
Although his first high school coaching assignment at Wood
River was coaching the girls’ varsity basketball team for five winters,
King, 51, is best known for his tireless work trying to elevate Wood River’s
football program.
His belief that football fundamentals are learned at the
middle school level caused King to install an eighth-grade grid program at
Wood River Junior High after he first arrived in Hailey in 1985 as a
junior high social studies teacher.
Since 1985, he has coached the eighth-grade grid team. He
has also coached eighth-grade boys’ basketball and middle school track.
King has been WRMS athletic director for the last three
years. During his term, he has overseen the start-up of seventh-grade
football, basketball and volleyball at the Hailey school, and has directed
the privately-run Wood River Optimist Football League for boys ages 9-11.
The seventh-grade grid program has been so successful that
King will ask the Blaine County School Board to approve two squads—one
team playing a SCIC league slate, one team playing in the Optimist League—in
order to get the 40 kids in the program more playing time.
Meanwhile, the school’s soccer program for grades 6-8
has grown from two to six teams, again, to make sure kids have more
playing time.
King graduated from Wendell High School in 1967 and earned
his college degree (a Spanish major, history minor) from Utah State
University in 1978. He first taught in the Wendell School District.
He and his wife Susan, residents of Hailey, have six
children and two grand-children. Like Tingey, King is proud to have seen
his children play sports in Blaine County schools.
Oldest son Cody, a policeman, lives with his wife Rachael
and two children in West Bountiful, Utah. Zach, 21, finishes up his church
mission in Orlando, Fla. in mid-April.
The oldest of four King daughters, Sarah, will graduate
from Ricks College this spring. Jamie King and Jessica King are junior and
freshman players on the Wood River girls’ basketball team, and Kortnee
is a seventh-grade student in Hailey.
