Greater Rossland community sport heroes to be honoured next week

Rossland's Ryan Kuhn inspires a crowd--photo by Vince Boothe

Three Rosslanders—Fred Bushell, Barry Zanier, and Ryan Kuhn—are among ten "community sport heroes" from our region who will be honoured by Sport BC and Teck at a public award ceremony at 6 p.m. on Feb. 22 at the Best Western Columbia River in Trail.

Trail is the first stop for this year's round of Community Sport Hero awards, presented by Teck to honour outstanding sport volunteers in BC. The public are invited to attend and help celebrate these coaches, officials, mentors, administrators, and others who have "dedicated themselves to grow and develop amateur sport at the community level," according to Sport BC, a non-profit sport federation of more than 60 provincial sport organizations.

“Sport is crucial to the development of strong, healthy communities, and community volunteers, like the ten scheduled to be honoured, are essential to that success,” said Sport BC Event Manager Carey Summerfelt. “These awards are a rare and meaningful opportunity to acknowledge individuals who have made a significant and continued contribution to sport within their community.”

Fred Bushell has been a volunteer cross-country ski coach at Black Jack Ski Club for nearly two decades. The nominator wrote that he spends many hours each week skiing with kids and travelling to races, helping kids develop a "lifelong love of skiing" and inspiring them to "try their hardest."

"This is a total surprise," said Bushell, who wasn't even aware he'd been nominated until we phoned him for his reaction. "It's a wonderful program at Black Jack, I've enjoyed the whole time. A lot of kids have come through the program. I see them out skiing as adults, that's pretty rewarding."

"It's been a pleasure to work with Dave Wood, our head coach and former coach of the National Ski Team," he added. "It's really picked up the program."

Ryan Kuhn is a well-known and active member of Rossland's extreme sport community, and is particularly well-known as a pro mountain biker. He's organized the Rossland Bike Fest—a.k.a. Rubberhead, a multi-day biking festival—and coaches young mountain bikers, but also volunteers nearly 50 days each year towards trail building, helping to expand our famed local network of trails.

Brian Zanier, now a teacher at MacLean Elementary, has been a leader in community sports programming in Trail and Rossland for 27 years. He has taught at many schools and has always been a coach with the schools' sports teams, but he has also coached hockey from house league to rep, and now with the Trail Smoke Eaters. He's currently working on a hockey program for RSS.

Rossland's hockey kids will also know Ken Koshey who has dedicated more than 40 winters to coaching hockey players in the West Kootenays. He is currently the coach of the Rossland-Trail Atom Wings hockey team. His nominator writes, "He demonstrates the best qualities of a mentor as he is always positive, patient and encouraging towards to the kids."

Other heroes include Clifford Tyson (curling), Kathryn Johnston (figure skating), Nicole Lord (Special Olympics), Tom Gawryletz (hockey), Ray Nelson (rugby), and Keith Smyth (BC Games).

Each hero was nominated by members of their community before Feb. 3. Nominees had to be individuals from the local community who contributed voluntarily to sports for at least eight years through coaching, officiating, administration, or running special events.

The nomination form also required a 150 word summary of the nominee's contribution and impact on the local sports scene. It was not a requirement, however, to have the nominees permission to be nominated, so there were likely surprises in the mix!

In addition to their award, the heroes will receive a gift from the Community Sport Heroes Awards’ official apparel provider, FIRSTAR Sports Inc.