South Stormont Sports Hall of Fame

AS A BUILDER, Sharon has served the community in many ways and has played key roles in a variety of athletic organizations including the Cornwall Girls Minor Hockey Association, Ontario Senior Games Executive, Cornwall Township Recreation Committee, Cornwall Recreation Committee, Benson Centre Design Committee, and for several years was an active executive member with the South Stormont Sports Hall of Fame. 

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Throughout her 35 years of teaching local elementary students, she was able to impart her passion and skills as their eager and supportive coach. She led both boys’ and girls’ school teams of hockey, floor hockey, soccer, cross-country, and softball to varying levels of success while ensuring that her players had fun and respected each other and their opponents along the way.

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The Ontario 55+ Summer and Winter Games are held every alternating 2 years. The activities are designed to attract men and women 55+ to promote a healthy, active lifestyle, while encouraging fellowship and friendly competition. It has been a great motivator for Sharon to keep active and enjoy life in her later years.

 

AS AN ATHLETE, Sharon has always been a team player. While growing up on a dairy farm she learned the meaning of hard work and contributing to a group effort. Sharon transferred this understanding of teamwork into her passion for playing sports. She remembers playing as a teenager in the Cornwall Girls Softball League from 1957 onwards.

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Upon retirement in 1996, she wished to become more personally active again and so she joined the Cornwall Multisport Club. With the club she participated in many 5km and fun runs, and social gatherings throughout the years. Most memorable was a team prediction run where her 3 teammates won a 10km race within 10 seconds of their prediction.

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Sharon has always loved skating and when the Senior Games initiated their Prediction Skating event of 3km she quickly joined in the competition. The event involves predicting the amount of time that it will take to skate 3km on two consecutive days. The skater with the closest time to their prediction is the winner. This sounds like a simple calculation, however, with varying rink sizes it takes some guessing, luck, and a lot of practice. Through dedication and enthusiasm, Sharon skated her way to the Provincial Games in Collingwood in the year 2000. Many medals followed in the years to come, with a gold in Haliburton, gold in Brockville, gold in Huntsville, bronze in Midland, and silver in Haliburton.

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When slo-pitch was added to the list of events in Ontario, Sharon and her long-time friend Viola McRae worked hard to round up veteran players from the area and took a team to London. After much blood, sweat, tears, laughter, and sore muscles, they came home with the bronze medal. To this day, local players are still fielding a team and attending Senior Games’ competitions.

At the local level of the Senior Games, Sharon has entered qualifiers for bowling, bocce, prediction walking, prediction biking, prediction skating, shuffleboard, billiards, and slo-pitch over the years and has won gold, silver, and bronze medals.

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These past summers since Sharon has moved to Martintown, she has played indoor pickleball and lots of Bocce, even coming in second for women in last summer’s season.