The Class of 2026 inductees span 70 years of Tiger athletics: from Jerry Pitts, a four-sport letterman in 1955, to Mya Spencer, a 2019 state wrestling champion.

Jerry Pitts, Class of 1955

The oldest inductee almost slipped through the Hall of Fame cracks. Eisen, who nominated Pitts, said he ran into friend Ross Bair at a football game last fall. When Eisen mentioned his involvement with the Hall of Fame committee, Bair had a blunt response.

"He said, 'Man, if you don't have Jerry Pitts in there, you shouldn't even have a Hall of Fame,'" Eisen recalled.

Subsequent research backed up Bair's assertion.

Pitts lettered in four sports: baseball, basketball, football, and track and earned EHS "Most Outstanding Athlete" honors from 1951 to 1955. He set a school pole vault record in 1953 and went on to play baseball at Eastern Washington State College (now Eastern Washington University).

At 87, lifelong Ephrata resident Pitts kept his remarks brief but heartfelt during Saturday's ceremony.

"I could have never imagined being nominated into the Ephrata Hall of Fame, especially after over 70 years," he said. "This honor represents more than wins or records. It represents memories, friendships, and lessons that last a lifetime."

Watch Jerry Pitts' speech here, recorded by the EHS TigerVision program.

Don King — Coaching Legend

Don King spent nearly three decades shaping Ephrata athletics. As varsity girls basketball coach for 16 seasons, he compiled a 287-116 record with a 71% winning percentage. His teams made eight state tournament appearances and brought home six state trophies, including a second-place finish. He was named North Central Washington female Coach of the Year four times and developed 23 all-league players, six all-state players, and two All-Americans.

King also led the 1990 EHS girls track team to league, district and state championships; the subsequent ‘91 squad went on to finish second at state. He then earned Central Washington Athletic Conference Coach of the Year honors for track in 1998.

King hadn't stepped foot in the EHS commons for 25 years. The memories hit hard.

"I've probably been at a couple dozen awards. Football awards, basketball awards, track awards with parents and kids in this room," King told the audience. "Boy, it was hard for me not to get emotional sitting here and thinking about that."

King criticized modern trends in youth sports like transfers, NIL deals, and what he said is a separation of coaching from teaching.

"Some of the best teachers I ever had in my life were coaches," he said. "I don't understand this philosophy going around now: ‘We don't hire coaches, we hire teachers.’ I don't understand the philosophy of paying high school kids to play ball. Kids transferring because they don't like the coach, or they get more money."

He credited former EHS athletic director Jim Livengood for initially recruiting him into coaching girls basketball. Livengood's sales pitch, said King, was simple: "You're a gentleman. You're good with women, you're good with your wife, you're a good family guy. You'd be such a positive impact on the girls program."

"How do you say no when someone approaches you like that?" King said.

He ended with a personal story. At 18, having moved 13 times as a kid, he sat in his parents' garage — which doubled as his bedroom — setting up an “electric football game” and wondered what to do with his life.

"I thought, 'Whatever I am, I want to make one thing happen. I want to move to a place, raise a family, where my kids aren't moved 12, 13 times.'"

He found that place in Ephrata. Watch Don King's acceptance speech here.

Mya Spencer (Gray) — Class of 2019

Mya Spencer (Gray) doesn’t like to talk much. But in her Hall of Fame acceptance speech, she shared stories about her family, crediting them with much of her athletic success. Her dad coached her in wrestling; her mom coached her in soccer.

“Family is where it all starts,” Spencer said.

Her older sister Chloe pioneered girls wrestling at EHS, fighting for access to training rooms where coaches initially told her girls didn't belong. 

"She doesn't get a ton of recognition because she didn't have a banner up or anything," Spencer said. "But she was really the one who got girls wrestling started."

Spencer built on that foundation. She won the 2019 state wrestling championship with a 48-0 record, finished her career 145-18 with three state medals, and earned two-time District 6 Wrestler of the Year honors.

In soccer, she scored 82 career goals — third highest in school history — and made first team all-league twice. She holds EHS track records in the 200 meters, 400 meters, and 4x200 meter relay. She played soccer at Columbia Basin Community College, where she earned Defensive Player of the Year honors.

Her parents were very involved. In addition to coaching, they filmed every match, every game, every race. After each competition, they'd go home and watch film together.

"They'd pick out any little thing I needed to work on," Spencer said. "So I got really good at figuring out what I needed to fix in order to succeed."

Watch Spencer's speech here.

Amy Jo Silva (Bush) and Travis King — Accepted by Don King

Don King also accepted awards on behalf of two inductees who couldn't attend: Amy Jo Silva, now Bush, from the Class of 1991, and his son Travis King, Class of 1993.

Silva stood 6'3" and played basketball, volleyball, and track at EHS. King remembered recruiting her as an eighth-grader at Ephrata Middle School.

"I told Amy Jo, do you realize that with your height and a little bit of work and practice, you could get a free ride to college?" King recalled. "She looked at me like she didn't know what I was talking about."

She figured it out. Silva became what King called "probably the hardest worker in the history of the girls program." She trained summers with the Spokane Stars, an elite AAU summer program, and transformed her game.

"Her junior and senior year, she just blossomed," King said. "It was kind of like the ugly duckling! From awkward to a pretty swan. She was kind of like a ballet dancer, her moves were just really beautiful for a girl at 6-foot-3."

Silva earned USA Sports Magazine All-American honors in 1990, finished as EHS's second all-time leading scorer with 1,285 points, and still holds school records for career free throws attempts and makes. During the Tigers' 1991 season, she averaged 22 points a game, led the team to a 23-2 record and fifth-place state finish, and earned tournament MVP honors.

She played at UCLA before transferring to Gonzaga to be closer to her ailing mother. After college, she traveled to more than 30 countries across six continents before settling into coaching in Hanford, California, a small school that King said "had never won anything." She changed that, winning a state title and earning California Division 5 Coach of the Year in 2018. She recently retired to spend time with her three grandchildren.

Travis King took a different path to the same destination. At 5'10" on a good day, he lacked Amy Jo’s height. But he had something else.

"His first toy was a ball," Don King said. "What was his first word? Ball!'"

The work ethic came early. As a water boy for his father’s high school team, Travis entertained crowds at halftime with free throw shooting. In eighth grade, Marty O'Brien's conditioning program helped him set an Ephrata Middle School record for sit ups.

"What he lacked in athletic ability, he made up in hard work," Don King said.

Travis became a four-time, first team all-conference selection, three-time first team all-state honoree, state MVP, Mr. Basketball Washington State, and received USA Today and McDonald's All-American honorable mention recognition.

Travis broke the Washington state scoring record in the 1993 state championship game, finishing his career with 2,292 points. His record stood for three years until Cascade's Ryan Hansen surpassed him in 1996. King remains the Ephrata boys basketball career points leader.

After high school, he played at Walla Walla Community College, then walked on at Eastern Washington University. 

"There'd be giant guys, 6-foot-5 and bigger, and who'd come out of the crowd with the ball? It'd be Travis, the shortest guy on the court," King said. "He'd break up full-court presses, push fast breaks like he'd been taught by Marty [O’Brien]. "He proved his point," Don King said. "You can be small, but if you're a hard worker, size won't hold you back."

Travis went on to coach as an assistant at EWU and then St. Mary's College, where he helped lead the Lady Gaels through the 2001 NCAA tournament before losing to Pat Summitt's Tennessee squad.

Watch King's acceptance on behalf of Amy Jo Silva (Bush) and Travis King here.

1993 Boys Basketball State Champions

Eric Davis spoke on behalf of the team that brought Ephrata its first boys basketball state title. The 1993 Tigers finished 26-1, went 20-0 in the regular season, averaged 88 points per game, and scored 100 points or more five times. They beat Blaine, East Valley (Yakima), Colfax, and Port Townsend at state. Travis King was named tournament MVP.

Davis credited the winning culture of 1980s and '90s Ephrata athletics, including academic achievement. Six times in a seven-year stretch, Davis noted, EHS finished first in the WIAA Scholastic Cup for Class A schools.

"Growing up, all we ever saw was success and winning," Davis said. "That environment molded us, shaped us, and ultimately became the expectation."

He thanked coaches Dave Johnson, Gary Archer, and the late Marty O'Brien.

Johnson, an assistant to the ’93 team, is better known as the winningest baseball coach in Washington state history, a four-time Hall of Famer with 687 wins and eight state championships. Davis quipped that Johnson "was probably a better teacher than he was a coach, and more importantly, a better human being."

Davis remembered Archer preaching one simple philosophy that helped lead to a 20-0 season: "Shoot 'til you make it."

And O'Brien, who passed away before he could attend his own EHS Hall of Fame induction, loomed large and memorable over the program. Davis called O'Brien "a true pioneer of the game" who ran a Loyola Marymount-style offense before anyone else in the area. His teams traveled throughout Washington, Oregon, and Idaho during summers, playing 50 to 60 games, uncommon at the time. His mantra for the ’93 team: "Big time is where you're at."

Coach Archer shared two stories. First, late in the regular season, with the team rolling through opponents, O'Brien worried they were losing focus heading into districts. He needed a diversion, said Archer. One day, he pulled into the parking lot and caught players throwing snowballs on their way to the old gym. He saw his opportunity and turned it into a weeklong crisis.

"This is a privilege to play for this team! How can you throw snowballs and break the biggest rule in the school? This is ridiculous. There is no way we can overlook this," Archer recalled. O’Brien threatened suspensions and practices turned brutal for the rest of the week.

It was all a cover. "He just said, 'We need this. We need to refocus. I need something to cause some chaos," said Archer. "And that's the way Coach would work."

Second, there was a hotel in Fife that was reluctant to host Ephrata's stay at the state tournament in the nearby Tacoma Dome after another school trashed the place the previous year.

O'Brien, said Archer, "worked his magic"and talked them into it. The night of the championship game, the entire hotel staff went to watch. They later wrote the school board a letter praising "such fine young men."

"Besides being great players," Archer said, "They're great people."

Coach Johnson, known for lengthy speeches, kept it brief. His son Bryan, now EHS athletic director, had warned him not to take the mic. But he walked to the microphone with one question.

"I know all of you are thinking the same thing: Who did we lose to?"

"Chelan," the '93 players answered from the stage.

"I thought we were undefeated. We lost to Chelan," Johnson said. "How many people were thinking, 'Who was the one loss to?' OK? It was Chelan. Thank you!" And promptly walked off the stage. Watch the moment here.

Team members: Travis King, Denver Morford, Brent Bair, Nathan Downs, Jared Stucky, Bryan Adams, Josh Sainsbury, Craig Cherf, Greg Chamberlain, Eric Davis, and Michael Barbre. Coaching staff: Marty O'Brien (head coach), Gary Archer, and Dave Johnson.