Northern Officials Association
Lake County, Illinois

Keith Ryan Award Overview

A banquet in his memory is held every year in memory of the late Keith Ryan, a popular sportscaster who spent nearly a quarter century promoting local sports in Lake County. Proceeds will be applied toward two $1,000 scholarships for CLC students – one for a student pursuing a career in print or broadcast communications and the other for a sophomore student athlete. Since the scholarship banquet’s inception, more than $60,000 has been raised as part of the Keith Ryan Award for journalism students and student-athletes. In addition, a total of 131 individuals have been inducted into the two halls of fame (Lake County High School Sports Hall of Fame & Waukegan Sports Hall of Fame) including the following from the NOA.

Keith Ryan Award

 

Year

Recipient

2003

Lee Mieure

2004

Tom Kinkelaar

2005

Bill Swanson

2006

Fred Swanson

2007

Dick Kessler

2008

Bob Brown

2009

Tom Baba

2010

Jim Bernardi

2011

Peter King

2012

Don Swanson

2013

Jerry Grunska

2014

None Awarded

2015

None Awarded

2016

Mike Geske

2017

Jerry Blum

2018

Darnell Jones

2019

Mark Thompson

2020

John Widmayer

2021

None Awarded

2022

George Lewerenz

2023

Mike Babicz
2024  Ron Lorenzo

 

Hall of Fame Topics