MSU to honor four with Golden Award, one with Young Alumni Achievement Award

MINOT, N.D. – The Minot State University Alumni Association is pleased to announce it has selected four individuals for the 2025 Golden Award and one individual for the 2025 Young Alumni Achievement Award.

The honorees include Gregg Blikre ’77, Randy Hedberg ’77, Lisa Johnson ’95/’00, and Don Selk ’72. The Young Alumni Achievement Award winner is Joe Davis ’13.

The MSU Alumni Association will honor the 2025 class at its annual awards dinner on Thursday, Sept. 11, at 6 p.m. in the Minot State Student Center Conference Center.

"We are thrilled to honor this year's recipients of the Golden Award and Young Alumni Achievement Award," said Courtenay Brekhus, MSU’s director of alumni engagement. "Their remarkable achievements and commitment to excellence embody the spirit of our alumni community. We celebrate their successes and look forward to their continued impact."

GREGG BLIKRE
Blikre was born and raised in Williston, graduating from Williston High School in 1967. He is a Vietnam veteran, having served in the U. S. Navy as an electronics technician from 1968 to 1972.

As a student at Minot State, he served as president of the Minot State Collegiate Veterans and the North Dakota State Collegiate Veterans Association and was also a member of Minot State’s Student Senate. Studying history and English literature, because he liked those subjects, Blikre graduated in 1977 with a Bachelor of Arts in History.

He then moved to Gillette, Wyoming, where he established a career in business with a perspective that enabled him to connect with clients and customers, thanks to the excellent liberal arts education he received at Minot State.

While a student at Minot State, Blikre was given opportunities to participate in service to the broader community, and that became a springboard to a life of service. He has been a softball coach, a Sunday school teacher, president of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Gillette Jaycees, Energy Rotary Club, and Heritage Village Water and Sewer District, among others.  

He also served as a member and chairman of the Campbell County Land Board, was elected twice to the Campbell County School Board, and served as president of the Wyoming School Boards Association.

Blikre served three terms in the Wyoming House of Representatives, holding committee assignments in judiciary, revenue, corporations, and appropriations, along with other committee assignments. He was House chairman of the Select Committee on School Facilities and a member of the Education Committee of the States and the Energy Council. He is also a graduate of the Council of State Governments Western Legislative Academy. Currently, he serves as the chairman of the Wyoming Community College Commission and is a member of the Wyoming Sesquicentennial Planning Task Force – WYO250.

He is married to Jackie (Jost) Blikre, from Burlington.  Their daughter, Kelly, lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, Lucas Howell, and their son, Jack Blikre Howell.

RANDY HEDBERG
Hedberg grew up in Parshall, where he spent most of his time avoiding farming, which led to his determined and disciplined nature as well as his success as an athlete.

His high school sports career included four years as a quarterback, pitcher, trickster, and forward on the basketball team. He chose Minot State University because it offered the opportunity to play more than one sport, and it was close to home.  At MSU, Hedberg was the starting quarterback every year, setting a school record for passing, 5,737 yards and 49 touchdowns. He also started in basketball as a forward, pitched for four years, and threw javelin. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in physical education and mathematics education.

Hedberg was drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the seventh round of the NFL Draft, and he played for the Buccaneers for two years, including six starts.  He also spent time with the Oakland Raiders and the Green Bay Packers.

He returned to MSU for his first coaching experience. Hedberg coached football for 10 years, the last eight as head coach, and he won a conference title in 1985. He served as an assistant basketball coach from 1980 to 1984 before being named head basketball coach in 1985. Finally, he served as the head baseball coach from 1985 to 1988. In 1987, Hedberg obtained his master’s degree in physical education and recreation from the University of North Dakota.    

Leaving North Dakota, Hedberg then went to Central Missouri State where he served as associate head coach/offensive coordinator (OC)/quarterback’s (QB) coach from 1990-95. He returned to North Dakota, where he served as OC/QB/wide receiver coach for three years at the University of North Dakota before moving to St. Cloud State University, where he was the head coach from 1999-2007. There he developed a team that won one of only two conference championships in school history. Hedberg went on to Southern Illinois University from 2008-2013, where he served as the OC/QB coach, winning two conference titles and developing his first two professional quarterbacks. 

Finally, in 2014, Hedberg was able to return to his home state to finish his career at North Dakota State University as AHC/QB. He was part of seven national titles and coached four consecutive quarterbacks who were drafted in the NFL draft: Carson Wentz (second overall pick), Easton Stick (fifth round), Trey Lance (third overall pick), and Cam Miller (sixth round). 

He was inducted into the MSU Athletics Hall of Fame in 1985, named one of North Dakota’s 50 greatest sports figures of the 20th century, and named the American Football Association FCS assistant coach of the year in 2022.

Hedberg has had a positive impact on hundreds of athletes, coaches, and workers in the field of college football. He is particularly proud of his small-town, small-state players, like himself, who he recruited and mentored to excel. Like them, he prides himself in being a small-town boy who worked hard and earned his success.

LISA JOHNSON
Johnson graduated from Powers Lake High School in 1987 and soon after entered the United States Air Force and served at Minot Air Force Base as a dental laboratory technician.

She began taking courses from Minot State University on base before completing her tour of duty in 1991. Within months of her arrival on campus, the MSU student records office contacted Johnson and asked if she was interested in a position as a student worker. She worked in the records office for three years while completing an associate's degree and a bachelor’s degree in marketing. Later, she completed a master’s degree in management.

That was the humble beginning of a 30-plus year career in higher education, serving as registrar and director of admissions at MSU, and more recently serving as the vice chancellor for academic and student affairs for the North Dakota University System (NDUS), advocating for and supporting the system’s 45,000 students.

As vice chancellor, Johnson works with the state’s 11 public colleges and universities that comprise the NDUS. She develops academic policies, provides testimony before the North Dakota legislature, coordinates implementation of new initiatives, and provides support to the ND State Board of Higher Education. The ND Student Association presented her with the Student Advocate Award in 2018 for her support of student initiatives and legislative priorities.

Johnson serves on several state, regional, and national academic advisory committees and is a member of the Bismarck Historical Society, Bismarck Arts and Galleries Association, the Capital Gallery, and the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation. 

In her spare time, she and her good friend Jim Christianson take to the sky, enjoying flying throughout western North Dakota in search of a good breakfast and photographing the ever-changing rural landscape below.

Johnson has one daughter, Emily Roen, who lives in the Minot area with her husband, Garret, and her first granddaughter, Harper.

DON SELK
Selk was born and raised in Minot. He graduated from Minot State University in 1972 with a bachelor's degree in earth science, with concentrations in mathematics, physics, and geography. When Selk was a sophomore and junior, he was lab assistant for the geology and historical geology classes. 
 
He started graduate studies in geophysics at the University of Utah in the fall of 1972 and received a research assistantship to update and maintain the university’s gravity database covering the state of Utah. He was also a lab and teaching assistant for the graduate-level gravity and magnetics classes. Selk graduated in 1976 with a Master of Science in Geophysics. 
 
After graduation, Selk started employment with Chevron as an oil exploration geophysicist in Houston, working with seismic data acquisition, processing, and interpretation. Some of the technologies that were used in Chevron’s oil exploration efforts included computer mapping, 3D computer modeling, and data visualization of the Earth’s subsurface. 
 
In 1979, he was at Chevron’s headquarters in San Francisco as supervisor of a seismic crew exploring for oil in California. In 1980, Selk moved to Khartoum as the consulting geophysicist of four seismic crews exploring for oil in the Sudan. During the 1990s, he was in New Orleans working on large databases that combined seismic, well logs, and stratigraphic information that were used to create 3D computer models of the Earth’s subsurface that aided Chevron’s shallow water oil production and deep-water exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
Selk was with Chevron for 27 years and had assignments in Houston; Denver; San Francisco; New Orleans; Calgary, Alberta; and Khartoum, Sudan. 
 
Lectures by DeWayne Martin in geology and Charles Hoffman in biology were very inspiring and were major factors in Selk pursuing a career in the sciences. The mathematics and science classes at Minot State proved to be most valuable in graduate school and in his career. 
 
Selk retired in 2003. He enjoys travel and spends time between Deadwood, South Dakota; Phoenix; and Minot. 

JOE DAVIS
Davis is an award-winning spoken word artist and bestselling author who uses poetry to power possibility.

He is the founder and director of Finding Your Freedom Practice, an artist collective teaching holistic health and wellness practices through spoken word, writing, music, theater, film, and dance.

Davis holds a Master of Arts degree in theology of the arts and heads a multimedia production company, a soul funk band, and a racial justice education program. His work has been featured on BET, MPR, CNN, VH1, and the Twin Cities CW.  

Based in Minneapolis, he tours internationally to join schools, faith spaces, nonprofits, businesses, and correctional facilities to practice envisioning and embodying a world of collective liberation and human flourishing.  

The Golden Awards are the highest award bestowed by the Minot State University Alumni Association. Selections are based on outstanding service to the University, alumni association, or their community, and distinguished leadership in the recipient’s career or community. The Young Alumni Achievement Award recipient is between the ages of 21 and 39.

More information on each award winner and dinner tickets will be released later in the fall semester. For more information on the Golden Awards, visit the Alumni Association at MinotStateU.edu/alumni.