Bloomington Kennedy High School added 2 names to its Hall of Fame during halftime of a Friday home football game. It's one of the few times a halftime crowd stays in the bleachers for something other than the band. Before the ceremony, Erin (Weldon) Launspach and Erik Lind had dinner with family and friends at a reception behind the north end zone at Kennedy Stadium. Then they walked out to be introduced to the fans.
Bloomington Public Schools Superintendent Eric Melbye joined the honorees on the field, along with Eagles head coach Kedrick Williams and football captains Joshua Amadi, Xavier Boyd and Ethan Besch.
Launspach, a 2001 graduate, was a rare 3-sport athlete. She earned 10 varsity letters across soccer, basketball and track and field, and she won Kennedy's Athena Award as a senior. In soccer she collected nearly every honor available: team MVP, all-conference, all-metro, all-state, all-Midwest, Class AA all-state first team and honorable mention high school All-America.
She went on to play at Iowa State. She ranked 9th in program history in career games played with 72 and 7th in starts with 68, and her 7 career assists ranked 3rd at the time. She was named co-MVP with teammate Joanna Haig. She also anchored a defense that allowed 25 goals in a season, the fewest in program history. After college she played for the Chicago Cobras of the USL W-League, then moved into human resources leadership with Sam's Club in the Denver area.
Lind, a 1994 graduate, was already among the state's best as a junior captain. That year he made all-conference and placed 2nd in the 200-yard freestyle and 4th in the 100 freestyle at the state meet. As a senior captain he won state titles in both events, earned All-America honors and was named Minnesota Swimmer of the Year. His program records of 1:41.4 in the 200 free and 46.4 in the 100 free are posted at the Oak Grove Middle School pool.
He swam at the University of Minnesota and then at North Dakota, where he earned 7 NCAA Division II All-American honors. His résumé since then reads like it belongs to more than 1 person: 4 marathons, an Ironman triathlon, 22 years in the U.S. Air Force with 6 combat deployments, and more than 12,000 flight hours as a commercial pilot. He is a lieutenant colonel in the North Dakota Air National Guard and lives in Fargo with his wife, Nichole, and their 3 children.
