When Beth Bue-Maher and Mandy Arndtson-Higginbotham became friends at the age of four, they couldn’t have possibly imagined where the sport of basketball would take them.

The duo played together at Austin High School where they were both career 1,000 point career scorers and they went on to play against each other as rivals in college. Bue-Maher played for North Dakota State University and Arndtson Higginbotham played for the University of North Dakota.

Now Bue-Maher, who graduated from AHS in 1998, and Arndtson-Higginbotham, who graduated from AHS in 1997, are headed into the AHS athletic Hall of Fame together during a Packer girls basketball game Friday.

“It means a lot. Sharing it with a friend I’ve had my whole life is special,” said Arndtson-Higginbotham, who now lives in Arizona. “We played a lot of basketball together and [Beth is] an awesome person. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

The two have kept in contact over the years, despite living very far apart.

Bue-Maher, who teaches a college class for Valley City State University at NDSU, said she loved playing basketball, but now she looks forward to days that only involve her work schedule.

“When the alarm goes off in the morning I’m thankful I don’t have to go lift weights or do sprint training,” she said. “I just go to work instead.”

Arndt-Higginbotham has an arm injury that doesn’t allow her to play much basketball anymore, but she has taken up coaching her daughter’s team that is composed of four and five year olds.

“It feels to strange to be coaching kids at such a young age,” she said. “But it’s fun to be around the sport.”

Arndt-Higginbotham is a Regional Director with Athletes in Action, which is a christian sports ministry that works with college athletes.

The Packers had some good girls basketball teams in the late 1990s, but they were never able to get to state, because they always ran into Rochester Mayo.

“We were one of the top teams in the Big Nine, but we would always run into Mayo, which had the Miller twins,” Bue-Maher said.

The Herald will run stories on all six Austin High School Hall of Fame inductees this week. AHS will hold its induction Friday during the Packers’ girls basketball game against Rochester Century.