BILLINGS — For the first time, the Montana AAU is opening up voting for the Little Sullivan Award to the general public. The Montana AAU made the announcement in an email to The Billings Gazette and on Friday. Previously AAU card members and members of the media were allowed to vote for the Little Sullivan, which is patterned after the national AAU Sullivan Award. The Montana AAU has presented the Little Sullivan since 1955 to outstanding athletes from Montana "based on additional qualities of leadership, character and sportsmanship," according to the organization. In recent times the male and female finalists are college level or advanced standout amateur athletes. "We are going to try and start getting the word out there a little more and make the award a little more recognizable," said longtime Little Sullivan chairman Mike Ward of Glendive. Hamilton was a senior cross country and track and field athlete from Bozeman for Montana State. Bad Bear was a senior for the MSU women’s
basketball team, who went to high school at Billings Senior. The website to visit to vote for this year's Montana AAU Little Sullivan Award is: . The deadline to vote is April 25. Once at the website, voters will be asked to enter their email and name and then to vote for one male and one female nominee. The Montana AAU announced the eight finalists (four men and four women) for the Little Sullivan Award on Feb. 28. The men's finalists, along with their hometowns and current schools and sports, are NaKoda Currier (formerly Siegel), Colstrip, Montana State-Northern wrestling; KC Buday, Great Falls, Providence wrestling; Brody Grebe, Melstone, Montana State
Football and Ivan Roe, Manhattan, Olympic
shooting. The women's finalists are Shayla Montague, Billings, Montana State Billings basketball;
Sydney Little Light, Crow Agency, Eastern Kentucky track and field; Katharine Berkoff, Missoula, North Carolina State swimming and Jamie Pickens, Helena, Carroll College basketball. Little Sullivan Award finalists who have not communicated with Ward are asked to call him at 406-941-1050 or email him at . This year's Little Sullivan Banquet is May 4 at the DoubleTree in downtown Billings. Festivities will begin with a meet and greet at 5:30 p.m. Open mingling will occur from 6-7 p.m. and dinner begins at 7 p.m. The banquet will be held in Ballroom A on the third floor. The guest speaker for the Little Sullivan banquet is Sidney High School wrestling coach Guy Melby. Members of the public who want to attend the banquet can purchase tickets through April 26 by emailing . Dinner tickets are $35.