A pair of alumni were inducted into the 2025 class of the Kingfisher High School Hall of Fame.

Chris Simon and Brian Walter were introduced Saturday as the hall’s newest members during the commencement ceremonies held at the KHS APB.

Following are the introductions of each, which were read by graduating seniors Natalie Garrett and Emiley Watkins:

Chris Simon

Chris Simon is a 1986 KHS graduate married to Michele. They have two sons, Kole and Kase.

Chris started taking pictures when his oldest son started playing soccer at 4 years old. He bought his first camera, a 35 millimeter film camera, off of eBay for $50 for that reason.

Chris spent a small fortune developing the film and always getting duplicate pictures to give to other team parents. He soon bought his first digital camera when his sons started playing baseball.

He developed his love of sports and action photography watching and taking pictures of his boys and all their activities. That turned into taking action shots of all their friends and teammates and then into taking pictures at most of the Kingfisher County schools when his kids graduated.

Many cameras and several thousands of dollars later, he finds himself still with a love of high school sports and getting great shots of all the athletes.

He is a self-taught pho- tographer, although his good friend Russell Stitt has been a source of knowledge and help with camera settings and editing.

Chris credits Russell for pushing him to be a better photographer. Chris also appreciates Michael Swisher for publishing his pictures in the Kingfisher Times & Free Press.

He loves watching and taking pictures of local high school athletes and finds it hard to watch a sporting event without a camera in hand.

Brian Walter

As a Kingfisher native, Brian Walter graduated from KHS in 1980.

His father’s sudden death in 1973 marked the beginning of what would become a defining goal in his life to re-establish the family business in Kingfisher.

After KHS graduation, he completed a bachelor’s degree at Oklahoma State University in Construction Management.

Inspired by his late father, he was intent on establishing himself as a leader. Prior to returning to Kingfisher, some of his leadership roles were president of the Delta Chi Fraternity at OSU, president of the Employee Relations Board at T.D. Industries in Dallas and president of Willow Creek Homeowners Association in Oklahoma City.

But his dream was to return to Kingfisher. In 1995 that dream became a reality when he opened Walter Building Center in downtown Kingfisher.

For Brian, he couldn’t simply be in business; he had to be in business in Kingfisher and it had to be in downtown.

In Kingfisher, he has played various leadership roles including founding the Kingfisher Tree Board, cofounding Kingfisher Trails, serving as Rotary Club president, serving as a board member of the Kingfisher Federated Church and founding the nonprofit organization Unity Above Self in America, which has national goals.

He would want everyone to know that he merely has tried to live into Matthew 20: 26-28 where Jesus tells us that we are to model Him and to seek to serve, not to be served.

His hope is that he has done a decent job of living into that verse, has honored his father and mother and has hopefully inspired his own children to a life of service to God and the common good.

He considers his greatest contribution to the community of Kingfisher, the community he loves so deeply, to be the fact that he convinced the love of his life, Elizabeth Marshall Walter, to give up her own hometown of Tulsa and fully embrace Kingfisher.

She has taught passionately now in the Kingfisher Public School system for 25plus years and continues to teach and provide key leadership for the Camp Goddard program for our fifth grade Kingfisher students.

Together they raised their three boys – Robert, Will and Sam – who each participated and excelled in academics and athletics in the Kingfisher school system.

He would tell you that the accomplishments of his children and the service of his wife in Kingfisher schools were surely among his greatest achievements and proudest contributions to the Kingfi sher community.