One Aliy, one Allie and two coaches will be among those honored in March by the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame.
Musher Aliy Zirkle of Two Rivers, runner Allie Ostrander of Kenai, ski coach Erik Flora of Alaska Pacific University and track and cross-country coach Michael Friess of UAA will receive Directors' Awards at the March 5 induction ceremony at the Anchorage Museum.
"In looking at the winners and all the other outstanding nominees that were considered, it's apparent just how high the bar is set in the Alaskan sports world," Harlow Robinson, the Hall of Fame's executive director, said when announcing this year's recipients.
Ostrander and Flora will receive the Pride of Alaska Awards for consistent excellence in athletic competition.
Ostrander is a high school senior who had an epic 2014.
First she shattered long-standing records in the 1,600 and 3,200 meters at the state track championships. Then she became the first girl to beat all of the boys and win the junior race at Seward's Mount Marathon. In the fall, she claimed her third straight state title in cross country and followed that up by winning the Nike national championship race.
Flora, 41, is the head coach of APU's nordic program, where he turns out champion after champion, Olympian after Olympian.
At the 2014 Winter Olympics, four members of the U.S. Ski Team came from APU, including three-time World Cup sprint champion Kikkan Randall. Last spring, he became the first nordic ski coach to be named the U.S. Olympic Committee's coach of the year.
Zirkle, 45, will be awarded the Trajan Langdon Award for leadership, sportsmanship and inspiration.
Few have shown more sportsmanship than Zirkle, who has finished second in the last three Iditarods. Each time she has been within striking distance of becoming the first woman since 1990 to win the 1,000-mile sled-dog race, and each time she has shown extraordinary class and good humor after coming up short.
Last year, she lost by three minutes to Dallas Seavey, who grabbed the lead from Zirkle at Safety, 22 miles from the finish. Zirkle reached Safety in first place but settled into the checkpoint to wait out a storm that bumped four-time champion Jeff King -- the previous day's leader -- out of the race.
"It was really, really bad out there, and it was the safest thing for me to do, to get my act together, " Zirkle said in the post-race press conference. "So what's a gal to do? I had a cup of coffee, and then Dallas went through, and I had to follow him."
Friess, a Dimond High graduate who is in his 25th season at UAA, will receive the Joe Floyd Award for significant and lasting contribution to Alaska through sports.
There was only a men's cross country team when Friess came to UAA. Now there's a women's cross country team and men's and women's track teams.
His coaching resume includes 18 conference championships, 14 of them in cross country, and six West Region championships. Individually, his athletes have won five national titles and produced 84 Division II All-America performances. Though UAA has become a national power largely because of Friess' recruitment of runners from Kenya, numerous Alaska athletes find success as Seawolves too.
Friess, Flora, Zirkle and Ostrander will receive their awards at the same ceremony that will induct the Class of 2015 into the Hall of Fame. That class includes trail runner Nancy Pease, nordic trail builder Dick Mize, basketball player John Brown, the Iron Dog snowmachine race and Michaela Hutchison's 2006 state wrestling victory, the first in the nation won by a girl while competing against boys.
The Directors' Awards are chosen by the Hall's board of directors. Hall of Fame inductees are selected by a nine-member committee and a vote by the public. Winners of Directors' Awards are not Hall of Fame members, although their names appear on plaques that are part of the Hall of Fame display at the Anchorage airport.
"The Directors' Awards give our organization the opportunity to shine a light on some of Alaska's sports figures who are making history right now," Robinson said. "It's a nice bookend to the inductee enshrinements."