CONTRIBUTOR
As a player, coach, organizer, promoter and guardian of history, Dick Beechner has never been far from Nebraska high school athletics. An ultra-active member of the Nebraska High School Sports Hall of Fame Foundation Board of Directors, he has served as president and executive director of the organization that has strived to keep alive the legacy of high school athletics. The son of Hall of Fame coach, Ralph Beechner, Dick began his involvement in athletics at Lincoln High School where he played football and basketball and was a conference golf champion. He returned to the school to coach, leading the Links to the state golf titles in 1957 and 1964. College football coaching positions followed – at Hiram Scott, Nebraska, Washington State and Missouri – before he took the position of athletics director at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. At UNK, he helped coordinate state high school golf and cross country meets as well as district basketball events.