Award Honorees

As an example of what a fine athlete Missy Peterson Fowler was during her years at Minnetonka High School, consider this: After playing volleyball for three years, she decided to switch fall sports and go out the tennis team in her senior year instead.

Not only did she make varsity, but she played third singles on a pretty good team. It was on the basketball court, however, where the four-sport athlete excelled most of all, as Peterson

Fowler was a three-year starter and sharp-shooting guard, a member of the career 1,000-point club, and an all-state selection her senior year.

"I did shoot a lot of three pointers – maybe too many," she says with a chuckle. "But I think I did alright because my coaches never told me I was shooting too much."

Rounding out Peterson Fowler's full plate of athletic endeavors was softball, where she was the starting varsity shortstop and batted fifth in the lineup.

When it came time to decide on college, Peterson Fowler eschewed a few basketball scholarship offers from Midwestern schools, including Division I programs, and decided to try out as a walk-on at the College of Charleston, in South Carolina.

Though she wasn't initially offered a scholarship, the coaches quickly saw her talent. "I wanted to do something different, go somewhere different," recalls Peterson Fowler. "And it worked out pretty well, as I made the team my freshman year and was awarded a basketball scholarship all four years."

Things indeed worked out well, as Peterson Fowler scored 1,314 points in her four-year career, making her the fourth leading women's scorer in College of Charleston history. Her 33 points against Campbell University remains tied for the school's single-game record.

In looking back on her basketball playing days at MHS, Peterson Fowler remembers one key moment that, in a way, perhaps propelled her and her basketball teammates to work harder than ever. "In my sophomore year, we played a horrible game in our first round of the section tournament and lost badly," says Peterson Fowler, who is now a teacher in South Carolina and, with her husband, has three children. "Our coach at the time, Mary Hedstrom, told us she was proud of our season but that we should make sure to never feel that badly again."

"We all played AAU basketball together and worked harder than ever after that and, while we never made it to state, we did have good teams."