Heiken family exudes Raider spirit
If any family epitomizes what it means to be a Raider alum, the Heiken family more than fits that description. For Bobby ’97, Sarah ’00 and their daughter Gabby ’26, the hashtag #RaiderFamily, is the culture they live by.
Sarah grew up in Woodland, California and by age eight, her family went on annual vacations to southern Oregon, camping at Emigrant Lake and watching Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) plays in downtown Ashland. On a college visitation trip in high school, prior to a visit to Oregon State University in Corvallis, her mom suggested Sarah visit SOU. They got a great tour which she loved and she was also attracted to the music-business degree that SOU offered.
On campus, Sarah got involved with being a stage manager, a representative for the music department, was a Raider cheerleader for three years, played an instrument in the Raider Band for a year and she sang the national anthem for home football and basketball games and even got to sing it for the Harlem Globetrotters game when they came to SOU. Sarah did an internship winter term of 2000 with the Britt Festival Marketing Office. “Alice and Stu Turner in the music department and Tom Hitzelberger in the business department were outstanding professors who were all extremely helpful because they had all had prior experience in their fields that they brought to the classrooms, which was very practical for all of us,” said Sarah
Bobby grew up in Mt. Shasta and spent two years attending College of the Siskiyous (COS) in nearby Weed. He took advantage of a reciprocal agreement with Siskiyou County, earned 30 credits at COS and he was able to attend SOU as an in-state student. He was able to volunteer, earned credit and did work study within the athletic department in the sports information field and was the sports editor for the Siskiyou, SOU’s weekly newspaper, which had a staff of over a dozen students back in the day. “Good people like Athletic Director (AD) Monty Cartwright, Sports Information Director (SID) Rich Rosenthal and head trainer Phil Pipfer took me in and mentored me and helped me with my interest in sports information and I had already completed all of my core courses at COS so I was able to be much more involved on campus,” said Bobby. “Tom Pyle and Terrie Claflin were both influential instructors in the journalism program. They all had real life experiences that they brought to campus and their students.”
After graduation in 1997 with his degree in journalism, Bobby worked for the SOU Athletic Department, the Ashland Daily Tidings and ESPN radio then both he and Sarah both went to Colorado in 2002 where Bobby accepted a position as the SID at NCAA D-II Western Colorado University in Gunnison then was the Assistant AD there for six years. Sarah also worked at the Ashland Daily Tidings in advertising sales and in Gunnison entered the home titles and escrow sector.
They returned to Ashland when Bobby took the SID position at SOU. Their daughter Gabby ’26 was born in 2004. Sarah became the Director of Human Resources and Payroll at Coming Attractions Theatres founded by SOU 2010 President’s Medal awardee John Schweiger, a longtime supporter of SOU Athletics, which employs 300 people operating first run movie theatres in Oregon, California, Washington and Alaska. She is also a volunteer for the Rogue Valley Chapter and Oregon State Council of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and recently was voted to become the President of the SOU Alumni Association, having served as a volunteer board member since 2013.
In 2009, Matt Sayre MS ‘02 was hired as the AD at SOU and asked Bobby to become the Associate AD, where he took over all fundraising efforts and external operations for the Athletic Department, including running one of the most successful collegiate athletics golf tourneys in the country, the Lithia & Driveway Golf Shootout. In his 14 years at SOU in charge of the Lithia & Driveway Golf Shootout, the event has brought in nearly $7 million to SOU Athletics, making it the highest collegiate fundraising golf tournament in the country. The 2025 version of the tournament brought in over $790,000 which goes straight to student-athlete scholarships. Heiken was also instrumental in signing corporate partnership deals to secure the video board and sound system at Raider Stadium and install the new field turf summer of 2025 at the stadium.
Gabby has been a Cascade Collegiate Conference and an NAIA scholar-athlete for two years and has NAIA National Championship rings as a member of the SOU Softball team in 2023 and 2025. She is an elementary education major, with a health/physical education minor with a sports management certificate and has a 3.84 GPA. Her thoughts on the SOU experience: “My parents from a young age have given me opportunities to be around college athletics. Being able to go to the same school that they both went to is a very unique experience. They care so much about all of the sports here on campus and are big supporters of SOU athletics. I’m very grateful to have been a part of the Raider family since I was born because of their love for SOU.
On the SOU experience:
Bobby:
“It’s really cool seeing Gabby grow. Even though we see her often she has been living on her
own since she graduated from Ashland HS. This place really supports female student-athletes and she is part of a record setting program. Our athletic department had a 3.3 cumulative GPA this past year and also had a record setting year on the fields and courts – that’s what makes this place special. We have lots of alums working in this department and they know the SOU culture and expectations and it helps breed success. The Rogue Valley is a great place to raise kids so even our young coaches love to stay here.”
Sarah:
“We all have passion for SOU and the community we live in. It helps to make life enjoyable living and working here. It has to be easier for our alums who coach here to be able to recruit and communicate with potential student-athletes because they are alums. We hire many student-athletes as interns at Coming Attractions. We love them because they have good people skills, they understand time management and they know how to be a teammate for an organization.”
Learn more: SOU Athletics and Coming Attractions Theatres
