Starting in 2001 and in the intervening 25 years, Dorinda (Russell) Carpenter has served with distinction as girls gymnastics head coach at Puyallup High School. 

Her Vikings teams won four consecutive South Puget Sound League championships from 2007-10, with the 2008 team placing second in state and the 2007 and 2009 squads finishing in third. The 2007-09 teams all captured West Central District titles. 

Carpenter has coached three other PHS teams to top seven state finishes, most recently the 2019 Vikings who placed seventh and the 2020 squad that placed fifth.  

The top individual performer during Carpenter’s 25-year tenure at PHS was recent graduate Rylee Anderson, who won back-to-back state championships in the all-around and the balance beam, in addition to state titles in the vault, the floor exercise and the uneven bars. Other state event winners under Carpenter’s tutelage have been Katie Bubnich in the balance beam in 2009 and Kari McCarthy in the vault and balance beam in 2023. 

Carpenter was honored by her peers as the Washington State Girls Gymnastics Association Coach of the Year in 2009. 

Her early coaching experience came as an assistant coach at Ferrucci Junior High School in 1989 and with Puget Sound School of Gymnastics, where she learned the sport under Tacoma-Pierce County (YEAR??) Hall of Fame inductee Brad Loan. 

Carpenter coached at Ballou Junior High School in 1997 and 1998 and also judged high school gymnastics for two years. Following a move to Utah, she taught at a private club, and she has also started and coached tumbling classes at various recreation centers. 

Her own start in gymnastics came at age 6, and soon she placed third in the all-around at the state Class 3 (age 7/8) level. Following was first place finishes in all-around at both the Class 2 and Class 1 levels. She eventually qualified as an elite gymnast at age 11. 

Club competition afforded Dorinda the opportunity to showcase her skills at national and team championships throughout the United States and Canada, and eventually earned her one of 15 spots for top gymnasts aged 13-and-under on the USAIGC National Junior Elite team. The team met twice a year in Ohio for intense training and skills development. 

She competed in club gymnastics at the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs with teammate and TPC Hall of Fame member Yumi Mordre. Across the hall from Dorinda in the housing complex was eventual Olympic gold medalist Mary Lou Retton. “There was a group of us that, because of qualifying at a young age, we were called ‘baby elites’,” Dorinda says. 

At the time, she came up one place short of qualifying for the U.S. Championships while dealing with back issues. That led to an eventual diagnosis of Scheuermann’s Disease, a skeletal disorder that causes lower and mid-level back and neck pain, effectively ending her national-level involvement. 

Dorinda competed in gymnastics during her eighth and ninth grade years at Kalles Junior High School, and then at Rogers High School under Coach Bob Wendt. She was twice the South Puget Sound League all-around champion while also placing fourth in the all-around at the state championship. 

“Because of my back injury I was limited, so I would often help my coaches and that was the impetus to continue coaching beyond high school,” she said. 

She also competed in track & field in the hurdles at Rogers High School, from where she graduated in 1988. Carpenter’s track background has led her to assistant track & field coaching roles at Frontier Junior High and also at Graham Kapowsin High School.