Former Claremont Star Named To Hall Of Fame

The South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame will be inducting 23 sports legends on Sunday, Sept. 14, at the Sioux Falls Convention Center.
    The 2025 class includes Claremont’s Donovan Gibbs (deceased) who helped the Honkers set the national record for consecutive wins in six-man football; Adam Vinatieri, perhaps the greatest kicker in NFL history; along with world record holders, champion coaches, women athlete pioneers, a pro cowboy, and South Dakota’s most well-known sled dog racer.
    Other inductees are: Jo (Haase) Auch, Tom Casey, Jessi Combs (deceased), Cathy Coyle, Vern Halter, Ryan Jansa, brothers Edgar and Hobart Lone Hill (both deceased), Guy Mackner, Bill Marquardt, Kim Nelson, Candi Nielsen, Tom Reeves, John Sanders, John Stiegelmeier, Jim Tays, Mark Tetzlaff, Dennis Tiefenthaler, Buck Timmins (deceased), Lemoine Trout (deceased), and Jim Uttecht.
    The induction ceremony is open to the public.  Tickets may be purchased at 
https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/sdshof-induction-banquet--2025.
    With the 23 new inductees, the hall will have enshrined 395 women and men from every part of the state representing more than 30 sports. The South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame was established in 1968 by the South Dakota Sportswriters Association. A group of unpaid volunteers from across the state now manages it.
    Gibbs (1931-2010), a 1949 Claremont graduate, led Claremont to three straight unbeaten seasons to begin its national-record 61-game win streak for six-man football. In 1948 Claremont set another national record by scoring 608 points in a 10-game season and Gibbs likely set a national individual scoring record but game stats from all games were not available to determine that. He also starred in basketball and track.
    In 1949, he led the Honkers to an unbeaten regular season in basketball and he set the state record in the high hurdles and almost singlehandedly won the state track title for Claremont. Baseball may have been his best sport. In 1949, Claremont lost to Sioux Falls in the state Legion finals and Gibbs threw three no-hitters that year.
    Gibbs went to USD on a football scholarship but a severely broken leg in spring drills ended his football career. After recovering from the injury, he signed with the New York Yankees. In 1952 at Class D McAlester in the Sooner State League he was 17-8 and hit .277 as an outfielder in between his pitching starts. The next year he played briefly for Class C Joplin but an injury ended his career. He later played semi-pro baseball in Marshall, Minn., and also played SD amateur baseball before retiring in the early 1960s.