Cathy Cranston, a member of the Fergus Falls High School Class of 1976, the Bicentennial year, recalls the spring of 1972 when coach Carolyn Schmidt introduced girls' gymnastics to 8th graders. 

“That next fall she opened tryouts to us 9th graders,” Cranston said. “I made the gymnastics team and continued to compete and letter for 9th, 10th, and 11th grades.”

Cathy recalls going to the Minnesota state gymnastics tournament one year during senior high.

She was a hockey cheerleader for 10th, 11th, and 12th grades but did not compete in gymnastics her senior year.

“I can remember my reasoning for this was that I was also playing girls hockey (which at that time was not school sponsored) and I felt that cheerleading would be less demanding than gymnastics and that would give me more time for hockey.”  

Cranston played girls hockey for the O'Meara Shamrocks for three years and was captain for all three years. This was the first high school age girl's hockey team in Fergus Falls. 

One of the team photos in the new community ice arena is a photograph of the younger team, Kilowatts. They were in the 13-15 age group.

“At that time, it was a club sport and sponsored by the Fergus Falls Hockey Association,” she said. “We were not able to earn high school letters for girl's hockey at that time.”

Cranston and others hope to one day see the photo of the O'Meara"s Shamrock team displayed at the ice arena.

In the fall she played golf for Nick Noack for 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. 

She also swam the breaststroke on the girls swimming team and was on the diving team. 

A sport not sponsored by the school was synchronized swimming, coached by Inga Nelson.  Cranston swam with that program the three years of her high school career.

“After Inga retired I took over for her and coached that program for several years,” she said.

            She earned 10 varsity letters but says the sports accomplishment that makes her most proud is that she started the figure skating program in Fergus Falls back in 1975. 

Cranston was a junior in high school and skating with the Fargo Figure Skating club on weekends and during the summer months. Her father, Gary Cranston, also opened the ice arena early on school mornings.

“I practiced alone from 6 to 7 a.m. and then my father would drop me off at school. At this time, the Hockey Association was hiring an instructor from Fargo to come and give figure skating lessons weekly during the hockey season.  I was also taking these group lessons with other girls from Fergus Falls.”

At the start of her junior year of high school the Fergus Falls Hockey Association president approached Cranston and asked if she would take over the teaching of the weekly skating lessons.

Apparantly the instructor from Fargo was unable to continue the lessons.

“Having no teaching experience, I was hesitant but said yes and began giving weekly lessons to three different skill levels of children in Fergus Falls.  It was a successful year and the classes filled quickly.”

The next year several hockey players signed up for the skating lessons.  A few years down the road she found herself with many hockey players in her skating classes. She searched and found a power skating instructor in Roseau, Nancy Burggraf, who taught her how to transition from a figure skating instructor to a power skating instructor. 

“So, from this point on, I worked with hockey players in Fergus Falls to increase their speed and strength while skating.”  

Cranston taught figure skating in Fergus Falls for about 13 years before the Fergus Falls Figure Skating Club, as we know today, was born about 1988.

“Before that I would bring my skaters to Fargo and they competed through the Fargo Club.  After the Fergus Falls Figure Skating Club was official and registered with the USFSA I stepped down and a full-time pro was hired to run the Fergus Falls Figure Skating Club.” 

She continued to teach power skating until leaving Fergus Falls in 1994.  Overall, she has taught figure skating and/or power skating in four states for the past 46 years. She continues to teach even today. Last summer she ran a power skating clinic for the Blaze AAA U10 girls team.

Cranston has lived in Somerset, Wisconsin, for 24 years and had taught power skating most of that time.  She also runs a "Learn to Skate" program each fall. This fall will be her 24th season. 

Currently she operates the Somerset Youth Hockey Skating Skills programs for all their skaters under 8 and works on-ice with the Somerset High School team once per week. 

“To sum up my involvement with sports I would like to make note that I feel most of my impact has come from the coaching side of things. I don't even remember a single award from my high school days. The reward has come from teaching children to love working hard and watching players get off the ice with their hair dripping wet and jerseys soaked.”

Another great pleasure of sports has been the closeness she felt while coaching with her late father (Gary Cranston), daughter (Abby Cranston-Dalzell), her husband (Ryan Dalzell) and having had the pleasure of coaching and teaching all three of her grandchildren how to skate. 

Her favorite moment in recent times was last winter when her 8-year-old granddaughter stepped off the ice dripping with sweat and asked, "NaNa did I work hard enough?"  

This summer Cathy spent time with her mother, Gail Cranston, at Otter Tail Lake. Her mom reminded Cathy that between 1988 and 1994 she coached the Fergus Falls girls varsity tennis (head coach) and boys varsity swimming (assistant).