Great Bend resident Randy Wetzel has been inducted into the Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2025. The retired Great Bend High School administrator now serves on the Great Bend USD 428 Board of Education.

The following information was posted on the Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame website:

A longtime administrator at Great Bend High School, Randy Wetzel worked as an NCAA Division I baseball umpire for 35 years. Wetzel umpired Missouri Valley Conference and Big 12 baseball. He officiated basketball in the KCAC and Jayhawk Conferences and football in the MIAA, RMAC, KCAC and Jayhawk Conferences.

Wetzel umpired the 2011 College World Series, during which he met former President George W. Bush who threw the ceremonial first pitch.

Wetzel attended Great Bend High School, Barton Community College and received degrees from St. Mary of the Plains College and Kansas State University. Upon graduation, Wetzel coached basketball at Ell-Saline High School in Brookville, winning a state championship in his three years. He then spent three years at Russell High School, followed by three years as an assistant coach for the Seward County Community College men’s basketball team. Wetzel then served as an assistant for the University of Texas-Pan American (now University of Texas Rio Grande Valley).

When he returned to Great Bend is when he got into officiating. Wetzel worked more than 120 Big 8/Big 12 tournament games before retiring in 2014. In 2018, he was elected to the Kansas Collegiate Officials Hall of Fame. He retired from education in 2021.