Kidder County Principal/AD Ryan Larson, CMAA, recipient of NIAAA Distinguished Service Award

NDHSAA NEWS RELEASE - THURSDAY, JANUARY 4

ORLANDO – Ryan Larson, CMAA, Activities Director and Principal at Kidder County School in Steele, was among a group of 11 athletic administrators named recipients of the 2023 Bruce D. Whitehead Distinguished Service Award given by the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA).

Larson was honored December 19 in Orlando, Florida, during the awards banquet at the 54th annual National Athletic Directors Conference (NADC) conducted jointly by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) and the NIAAA.

The Bruce D. Whitehead Distinguished Service Award is presented annually to individuals from within the NIAAA membership in recognition of their length of service, special accomplishments, and contributions to interscholastic athletics at the local, state and national levels. Nominations are submitted by state athletic directors associations, screened by the NIAAA Awards Committee and selected by the NIAAA Board of Directors.

An engaged athletic administrator in several aspects, Larson has shown in the seven years of his career that he is a dedicated professional. Larson joined the NIAAA membership in 2015 and has since attended the National Athletic Directors Conference (NADC) four times and acted as a state delegate in 2018. Furthermore, since 2020, Larson has been a member of the NIAAA Awards Committee.

For his CMAA project in 2023, Larson covered the topic of “NIAAA Fundraising at a Local Level.”

In addition, Larson has been a donor to several NIAAA National Initiative and Assistance Network (NIAN) projects and has been published in the “Interscholastic Athletic Administration” (IAA) magazine.

As a North Dakota Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NDIAAA) board member, Larson is their current president. Previously he was their vice president and second vice president. In 2020 he joined NDIAAA’s state faculty and in 2022 accepted the position of their social media/technology coordinator.

At NDIAAA conferences and workshops, Larson has been a regular attendee for both and has presented at the NDIAAA fall workshop. In his local community, Larson served as the North Dakota District 6 president in 2019 and acted as the District 6 chair from 2016 to 2022. He is a youth league coach for several sports in his town as well as a volunteer firefighter.

Larson is a former school teacher and since 2013 he has been an elementary school principal. He is also a local certified official. Larson was recently honored with the North Dakota District 6 Athletic Director of the Year Award in 2019, 2020, and 2022.

Previous NIAAA Bruce D. Whitehead Distinguished Service Award winners from North Dakota include: Harold Pedersen, Fargo (1982); Dr. Robert Tudor, Bismarck (1982); Dick Karlgaard, Bismarck (1985); Robert King, Valley City (1993); Dr. Terry Hjelmstad, CMAA, Minot (2001); Dick Schindler, Bismarck (2001); Ed Lockwood, CAA, Fargo (2003); Darryl Anderson, CAA, Mandan (2007); Todd Olson, CMAA, Fargo (2013); Lorell Jungling, CMAA, Mandan (2018); Dr. Mark Rerick, CMAA, Grand Forks (2019); Jason Wiberg (2022).