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Out of the office
By Chris Strunk
Last Updated: February 19, 2015

Congrats to former VC pitcher

Congratulations are in order this week.

Mike Drumright, Valley Center High School graduate and one of the best baseball pitchers in Hornet history, will be inducted into the Pizza Hut Shocker Sports Hall of Fame this weekend.

Drumright, you may recall, graduated from Valley Center High School in 1992. He played at Wichita State until 1995, when he was a first-round pick for the Detroit Tigers.

Drumright played professionally for more than eight years, retiring in 2003.

Drumright's high school career was eclipsed by his performance at WSU.

Drumright was Missouri Valley Conference Pitcher of the Year in 1995 and was first-team all-Valley in 1994 and 1995. He was a member of three regular-season conference championship teams, three NCAA tournament teams and one Missouri Valley Conference tournament championship team.

Drumright holds the WSU record for strikeouts in a game (17 in 1994). He threw a no-hitter against Creighton and had two shutouts. He had the 11th most career strikeouts by a Shocker.

Drumright will be honored at a banquet Feb. 21 and the induction ceremony will take place during halftime of the Feb. 22 men's basketball game.

Drumright is just one part of the strong ties between Valley Center High School and Wichita State's baseball program.

Others Hornets who played at WSU: Spike Anderson (catcher 1991-94), Greg Drumright (pitcher 1996-99), Casey Walkup (infielder 1997-2001), Ben Wilson (catcher 2002), Kyle Banick (pitcher 2001-04), Tymber Lee (pitcher 1998-2000) and Jared Simon (pitcher 2004-07).

Others with ties to Valley Center who played for WSU: VCHS teacher Matt Klusener (pitcher 1991-94), Valley Center resident John Adams (outfielder 1995-97) and former Valley Center resident Nate Robertson (pitcher 1997-99).

Drumright will be inducted along with Shannon Armstrong (track and field, 2002-05) and Kelly Broussard (volleyball, 2004-08).

Valley Center is still well-represented at Wichita State University.

At a recent men's basketball game, the school honored student-athletes who were doing well academically. I think they were on the dean's list or something.

I saw Ashlyn Driskill (volleyball), Hannah Shelton (volleyball) and Megan Williams (track and field).

If you go to the games, you'll also notice Sean Matson (VCHS 2014) and Wyatt Vieux (VCHS 2013) in the Shocker Sound pep band, which sounds awesome, by the way.

†††

Another congratulations this week goes to Mark Detter, who was named city administrator for the City of Andover. He'll start in early March.

Detter worked for a financial company that helped the Valley Center Recreation Commission plan for facility expansions a couple of years ago.

I met Detter when he worked for the City of Newton many years ago.

Detter also was city administrator in Rose Hill and was current Valley Center City Administrator Joel Pile's mentor while Pile was community development director at Rose Hill.

When Detter left for another job in Butler County, Pile became city administrator for Rose Hill.

"He's one of the smartest guys I know," Pile said of Detter.

Detter also got praise from Andover's long-time mayor Ben Lawrence, who was a childhood friend of mine (again, many, many years ago).

Chris Strunk is publisher of The Ark Valley News. Reach him at 755-0821, news@arkvalleynews.com or on Facebook.




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