Frankfort’s Karen Leinaar – one of the most active and influential administrators over the century-long history of the MHSAA – will receive deserved national recognition Tuesday with her induction into the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA) Hall of Fame during the closing banquet of the 54^th National Athletic Directors Conference in Orlando.

Leinaar is in her fifth school year as executive director of the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (MIAAA) – the state’s professional organization for school sports administrators – and served as an athletic administrator at five schools over four decades through this spring. She also served 22 years on the MHSAA’s Representative Council and from 2009-13 on the Board of Directors for the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).

She first served as athletic director at Delton Kellogg for nearly 17 years, from March 1982 through October 1998. She spent three years at Gaylord, then 8½ at Benzie Central before taking over at Bear Lake in November 2010 and spending the next decade organizing athletic programs for students in grades 5-12 before retiring in January 2021. She returned to serve as interim AD at Frankfort for the 2022-23 school year.

Leinaar has been honored several times for her contributions, most recently with the MHSAA’s Charles E. Forsythe Award for a lifetime of contributions to school sports. She also received the MHSAA’s Women In Sports Leadership Award in 1998, a Citation from the NFHS in 2000, was named MIAAA Athletic Director of the Year in 2001 and received an MHSAA’s Allen W. Bush Award in 2014.

A multiple-sport standout while attending Delton Kellogg High School, Leinaar graduated in 1977 and then earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education, health and recreation, with a minor in driver education, from Michigan State University in 1982. She completed a master’s in athletic administration from Western Michigan University in 1994.

The NADC banquet begins at 6 p.m. Tuesday and will be streamed live on the NFHS Network at no cost. Click to watch.

PHOTOS Frankfort’s Karen Leinaar accepts the 2023 Charles E. Forsythe Award from Grand Haven superintendent and MHSAA Representative Council president Scott Grimes during the Division 1 Boys Basketball Final in March.