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LOUISIANA — Lori Lyons — a Norco resident, digital media teacher at Riverside Academy, and longtime sportswriter who spent decades chronicling the River Parishes’ athletes — was among a star-studded 12-member group recently inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.

Louisiana Public Broadcasting is celebrating each of these iconic sports figures in a new two-hour special, “LOUISIANA SPORTS HALL OF FAME: 2023 CELEBRATION,” which premiered live on August 15. Encore showings will air on Thursday, August 17 at 9:30 p.m. CST and Sunday, August 20 at 5 p.m. CST. After the night of the broadcast premiere, the program will be available for on demand streaming for members with LPB PASSPORT – an extended membership benefit.

This LPB sports special, produced in partnership with the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, features highlights from the July induction ceremony and many of the festivities surrounding it. Also included are the induction interviews and profile stories on each of the honorees, plus a look at the newly added memorabilia to the Sports Hall of Fame Museum in Natchitoches. “As Louisiana’s storytellers, audiences are used to seeing LPB programs featuring our state’s people, history, and culture,” says Clarence “C.C” Copeland, LPB President and CEO. “A walk through the Sports Hall of Fame Museum will show you that our state’s contributions to the world of sports is another story worth telling! We are excited to expand our sports programming efforts and what better opportunity than this.”

Along with Lori Lyons, two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning, four-time WNBA All-Star Alana Beard and College World Series champion baseball coach Paul Mainieri, the LSHOF Class of 2023 also includes New Orleans native Ron Washington, who managed the Texas Rangers to a pair of World Series appearances and helped the Atlanta Braves win the world’s championship; two-time LSU track and field USA Olympian and world champion Walter Davis; and Slidell native, Tulane great and Chicago Bears two-time Pro Bowl running back Matt Forte. Also inducted were All-American LSU pitcher Paul Byrd, a 14-year Major League Baseball veteran who made the 1999 All-Star Game; Shreveport native Wendell Davis, who shattered LSU football receiving records before heading to the NFL; multiple national champion and world class weightlifter Walter Imahara, a UL-Lafayette legend; retired Baton Rouge-Parkview Baptist baseball coach M.L. Woodruff, whose teams claimed 11 state championships; and Lafayette writer and editor Bruce Brown, another highly decorated figure in Louisiana’s sports journalism field.