The two 2015 inductees into the Great Bend High School Hall of Fame will be recognized at a luncheon and special reception on Friday, Feb. 26. Honored will be longtime GBHS teacher and tennis coach Shannon Schartz and high-powered attorney Ty Cobb.
The luncheon will begin at 11:45 p.m. Feb. 26 at the Club at StoneRidge in Great Bend. The public reception will be at the high school’s Jack Kilby Commons following the Hays High School basketball games.
This marks the eighth year for the Hall of fame. Past inductees include globetrotting JanSport founder Skip Yowell and microchip inventor Jack Kilby. After nominations are made, a committee made up of administrators, teachers, school board members and local residents makes the final determination.
Nominees must be students, teachers or community members who have made a significant contribution to this community, country or career field.

Ty Cobb
Ty Cobb is a long-time leader at Hogan Lovells, an international law firm with more than 2,500 lawyers, 12 offices in the U.S. and 36 offices in 26 other countries around the world.
Cobb is widely recognized as one of the premier white collar, securities and Exchange Commission enforcement, global bribery and corruption and Congressional investigations lawyers in the world. This year, SuperLawyers profiled Cobb in an extensive article, emphasizing: “He is the big gun on whom powerful people rely.”
“Ty Cobb gets results the old-fashioned way,” said Robert Weber, former general counsel for IBM. “He gets his fingernails dirty doing the hard work, he is relentless and he deeply cares about his client. Plus, he’s afraid of nothing.”
As Chambers and Partners recently observed, “Ty Cobb is said to be ‘tremendously responsive.’ He maintains an active white-collar practice and earns plaudits from clients for his ‘phenomenal trial lawyer instinct.’”
Who’s Who Legal Litigation 2015 recognized Cobb’s work, noting: “Ty Cobb is lauded for his ... work in the white-collar and investigations arena and is known for his ‘excellent standard of client service.’”
The firm was recently informed that Cobb is the Washington, D.C., based white-collar crime lawyer who will be honored in London in February with the coveted and international “Client’s Choice Award” from Lexology, which works with the Fortune 500, the FT Global 500 and other sophisticated consumers of legal services.
Cobb, a former high-ranking federal prosecutor and Justice Department official, is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and is annually profiled in Best Lawyers in America, Who’s Who in the World, International Who’s Who of Business Crime Lawyers, and SuperLawyers. In 2015, he was again recognized by Lawdragon Magazine as one of the 500 Leading Lawyers in America.
Also, in 2015, SuperLawyers honored him as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in Washington, D.C.
The firm was just advised that Cobb will be recognized among the Top 100 again in 2016.
In 2011, Cobb was inducted into the Ethisphere Hall of Fame, which at that time had only 10 members and which recognizes attorneys who have made lasting contributions to the advancement of corporate ethics and compliance.
As a result of his extensive corporate governance and crisis management experience, Cobb is frequently sought as an advocate for and adviser to public companies, special committees of boards of directors, audit committees, and senior executives in “bet-the-company” cases.
His clients run the gamut from large corporations and their executives around the world to elected and appointed officials and members of the Saudi Royal family. In the course of his career, Cobb’s wide ranging enforcement, bribery and corruption practice has taken him to more than 33 countries and 44 states. Because of the high profile and potential consequences of many of his representations, he has appeared on “Meet the Press,” “Face the Nation,” CNN and FOX in the service of his clients.

Shannon Schartz
Induction of longtime tennis coach Shannon Schartz into the GBHS Hall of Fame is proof that nice guys don’t finish last.
If friends, colleagues, students and athletes of longtime teacher and coach Schartz could say a single thing about him, they would say he is nice. They would also say that he is generous with his time and talents.
From a beginning tennis player in 1968 to being inducted into the National High School Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2012, Schartz has had a long career playing and teaching tennis. His coaching philosophy has always been simple. He wants each of his players to enjoy the game as much as he does and to play to the best of their own ability.
For 37 girls’ seasons and 22 boys’ seasons, he had a no-cut policy with the idea that tennis should be fun and enjoyed for a lifetime. Likewise, his player expectations were designed to last a lifetime: Be on time, give 100 percent, show consideration for others and have a positive attitude.
With a 3,146-1,906 girls’ win-loss record, Schartz amassed 86 varsity titles, 14 league team titles, three regional titles and one state championship (which he did with the help of his oldest daughter). His girls have made it to state during 33 of 37 seasons, including 19 singles players (who finished 10 times in the top 10 places) and 34 doubles teams (who finished in the top 10 spots 21 times).
Schartz has earned nearly a dozen coaching honors including 1988 5A Girls Tennis Coach of the Year, 1989 Tennis Coach Silver Award by Scholastic Coach Magazine, 1998 Overall Girls Tennis Coach of the Year, 1999 Section 5 Girls Tennis Coach of the Year, 2003 Outstanding Clinician Award, 2003 5A Tennis Coach of the Year; WAC Girls Tennis Coach of the Year 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2013 WAC Girls Tennis Coach of the Year honors; and 2012 and 2013 WAC Boys Tennis Coach of the Year.
Additionally, Schartz taught for 36 years, 34 as a middle school social studies teacher for Great Bend USD 428. He also coached basketball at varying levels for 22 years.
In 2012 Schartz was inducted into the National High School Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame, the first such honor bestowed on a Kansas tennis coach.
Schartz has given free tennis lessons to hundreds of children for at least the past 46 years. Some of them have found their way onto the tennis team, but many others learned to enjoy tennis as a lifelong sport and still are playing.
Now retired from coaching, Schartz has more time to actually play the sport he loves and can be seen out on the tennis courts three days a week.