| Ann Roniger | |
| Birth Name: | Martha Ann Roniger |
| Birth Date: | February 13, 1943 |
| Birth Place: | Manhattan, Kansas, US |
| Death Date: | June 9, 2019 |
| Death Place: | Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, US |
| Other Names: | Ann Roniger Hussong (after 1962) |
| Occupation: | Educator |
| Known For: | Penthathlete |
Ann Roniger (February 13, 1943 – June 9, 2019), later Ann Roniger Hussong, was an American athlete, a high jumper and pentathlete.
Martha Ann Roniger was born in Manhattan, Kansas, the daughter of Pascal Allen Roniger and Martha Sharer Roniger. She was a member of 4-H. Her high school in Elmdale, Kansas had no track team, so her father and brother built some practice equipment on the farm, and Roniger trained in nearby Emporia.[1] [2] Ann Roniger attended Colorado State University in Fort Collins for one year, then transferred to the University of Hawaiʻi, on a full athletic scholarship.[3] [4]
In 1956, Roniger broke the national standing broad jump record, and tied the National Junior Olympic record for the 50-year dash. From 1957 to 1959, as a teenager in Elmdale, Kansas, Roniger was three-time Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) women's pentathlon national champion.[5] [6] Her 1957 win was considered especially notable, because she "had never competed previously in the shotput, hurdles, or high jump", three of the component events.[7] [8] She was featured in Sports Illustrated for her accomplishment.[9] In 1958,[10] she won three events, set two Ozark regional records,[11] and finished with the highest total points across the five pentathlon events. In 1959 she was included in the All-America Women's Track and Field Team.[12]
She continued competing as an athlete in college at Colorado State University, where she was a member of the school's first women's track and field team, along with sprinter Lillian Greene-Chamberlain, high jumper Ann Marie Flynn, and Rose Melanchuk.[13] She aspired to a place on the American team for the 1960 Summer Olympics,[14] [15] but failed to qualify.[16] In 1961 she transferred to the University of Hawaii, where she continued as a track athlete. In 1962, she set a state women's high jump record at Hawaii's Cooke Field.[17]
In adulthood, Hussong was a health science teacher at a Kansas high school for 25 years. When she retired to Oklahoma, she became a professional organizer.
Ann Roniger married Bill Hussong in 1962. They had three children, William, Shawn, and Stephanie. She died in 2019, aged 76 years, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.