PRESS RELEASE
A trio of Rapid City natives: Mitch Bridge of Long Beach, CA; Rich Lenker, Sioux Falls, and Jason Olson, Rapid City, will be inducted into the S.D. Tennis Hall of Fame on Saturday, July 19 as the Class of 2025. The 11 a.m. induction ceremony will once again be at the McKennan Park picnic shelter, near the tennis courts, in Sioux Falls. McKennan Park has been the induction site since 1991, the initial year of the S.D. Tennis Hall of Fame. A marker recognizing all inductees is featured near the courts.
The ceremony will be video recorded and displayed later on the website (sdtennishall.com). All tennis enthusiasts are invited to attend. The 2025 South Dakota Adult Open will be played July 18-20 at the new GreatLife Cares Foundation Tennis Complex at Tomar Park.
Bridge grew up in Rapid City playing junior tournaments before moving to California. There he played tennis for Burroughs High School in Ridgecrest while continuing his junior career. He played collegiately at Long Beach State in the late 1980’s before embarking on a brief professional career. Bridge initially began a tennis academy in Grand Junction, Colo., then returned in 1994 to Long Beach and started two more tennis academies. Today, he and his family have the leases to two tennis centers and have created a nonprofit organization to share the game of tennis with a new generation of players.
Lenker is being recognized for his lifetime of teaching tennis. After being born in Sioux Falls, his tennis life began in Burke, S.D. and was cultivated in Rapid City under the guidance of Randy Stolpe (HOF Class of 2005). Lenker played on the Rapid City Central tennis team in the mid-1970s in addition to playing regularly in various summer tournaments in the Northwestern Tennis Association. He played collegiately at Portland (Ore.) University before starting as a longtime teaching tennis professional in Portland. Lenker even worked as general manager for the Portland Panthers, a World Team Tennis franchise. He has taught at Arrowhead Country Club in Rapid City and today, can be found back in his birthplace of Sioux Falls, instructing at Huether Family Match Pointe.
Olson has nearly forty years of tennis service to the Rapid City Recreation Department, while coaching Stevens High School boys and girls tennis programs the past 28 years. A 1987 graduate of Stevens where he played on the tennis team and 1994 graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Olson is one of the key faces of tennis in South Dakota’s second-largest city. His Raiders have won a total of 10 state championships (three-boys and seven-girls) since he took the reins of the teams for the 1997-1998 school year.
The Sioux Park Tennis Facility in Rapid City will be receiving the S.D. Tennis Achievement Award for 2025. Championed by Dr. Lycia Thornburg, Olson, Liz Hamburg (HOF Class of 2022) and an army of city residents, the complex boasts 12 courts. Included is a feature court with shaded stadium seating, a first for S.D. The facility received the USTA Outstanding Facility Award in 2024 and has become the place to play and watch tennis in Rapid City.
