OGDEN, Utah - Over the course of 25 years of women's athletics, there have been a number of milestones. There are records, and those records gets broken.

If a conference is fortunate enough, it produces NCAA champions. The first athletes to accomplish those feats always hold a special spot in the history of a conference.

The Big Sky enjoyed three landmark moments indoor and outdoor track and field, producing NCAA champions in 1988, 1989 and 1996, and those "firsts" rank fourth on the Big Sky's list of "25 Greatest Female Moments."

A first in the league came during the 1988 outdoor season. That is when Amber Welty went in the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championship and won the high jump, marking the first Big Sky women's athlete to win an NCAA championship.

"I remember running around the track in Eugene, Ore., and I was in gray sweats," Welty said. "And there were all these other people with fancy outfits. I had someone that came up to me and said, 'If you would went to UCLA or University of Texas we could use those points.' And I thought well so can ISU."

Welty scored 10 points for ISU as she won the high jump. That was her only NCAA title and the first for an ISU athlete. She won at a height of 6 feet, 3 1/2 inches. The second-place jump was 6-1 1/4.

"I never thought I could win this meet," said Welty after winning in Eugene. "I thought coming in that I would have a chance of getting second or third. I wanted 6-4 3/4 bad but 6-3 1/2 is a PR (personal best) so I am excited. When I was warming up, I felt great, and I knew I was going to go at least 6-2 1/4. I was surprised no one else was up there."

Welty was ranked seventh on the list of the Big Sky's "Greatest Women's Athletes."

Another first for the Big Sky came the following indoor track and field season. This time it came from a high jumper from Weber State Paula John. John and Welty competed against each other, and John always seemed to finish second to Welty. Well not at the 1989 NCAA Championship.

John finished second at the conference championship and then went to capture the NCAA Championship. She went in to Indianapolis, Ind., to compete at her first and only NCAA Championship.

"For me it wasn't that big of a deal to get second place because I had never really won a big meet," said John. "That was pretty common for me."

No one expected John win the NCAA Championship. She was competing against the 1987 champion Lisa Bernhagen of Stanford and the 1988 champion Angie Bradburn of Texas. Also jumping at the NCAA was Welty, who just beat John a few weeks earlier.

The best jump of the meet was 6-0. Usually at the national meet that mark wouldn't have won a national championship. But that season it did. John won the meet because she didn't have any misses before the 6-0 mark. Bernhagen was second and Bradburn was third. Welty finished eighth at the meet.

"I think the bigger shock was to win the nationals because there were several girls that had jumped much higher than I had," said John.

John became the Big Sky's first indoor NCAA champion. John was named the Big Sky's eighth greatest women's athlete. 

Another first for the Big Sky didn't come until the 1996 season. It came from a discus thrower in Anna Soderberg. Soderberg, from Sweden, came to the United States to compete at Northern Arizona. The discus thrower said she went to NAU because there were other Swedish athletes on the team, and also because the throws coach was from Sweden.

Soderberg competed at NAU from 1993-97. She is a six-time All-American and 12-time Big Sky Conference Champion, including four titles indoors (Shot Put: 1994, 1996, 1997; Weight Throw 1996) and eight outdoors (Shot Put: 1994, 1996, 1997; Discus: 1993-1997; Hammer: 1997).

"I was headstrong, tenacious and almost relentless in training," said Soderberg about why she was so successful in the Big Sky. "I loved to train, training and competing was my No. 1 priority."

In 1996 the discus thrower won her only NCAA Championship. She won with a throw of 195-3 and became the Big Sky's first throwing champion.

"I remember being ranked third going into the meet, and being in good shape," said Soderberg about winning. "Somehow I beat my personal best and it was far enough to win. I remember being very excited about it and also my teammates and coaches being very happy."

But Soderberg wasn't done after that season.

She came back in 1997 and won the discus, hammer and shot put at the Big Sky Championships outdoor.

She went on to compete at the NCAA Championship in all three events. Soderberg remains the only Big Sky athlete to compete in three events at the NCAA Championship.

She finished third in the discus, seventh in the shot put and 10th in the hammer.

"Since discus was my best event I focused most on doing well in the discus," said Soderberg about competing in three events. "I think the shot put and the hammer was not until after the discus competition, which made it easier to first focus on the discus."

After that season, Soderberg moved back to Gothenburg, Sweden. She kept throwing and competing on the professional level until 2010. She represented Sweden six times in the World Championships, three times in the Olympics, many other world events in the discus.

In 2007, she went back to school and became a registered nurse. She is currently working in a hospital in Växjö, Sweden, as a nurse anesthetist.