Class of 2024: athletes, builders and team

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The Yorkton Lions Club and the Yorkton Sports Hall of Fame (YSHF) will present six Yorkton Lions Support for Sports Awards at the 30th anniversary Class of 2024 inductions on Saturday, Sep. 7.

This is the second year for the Yorkton Lions Awards, which recognize individuals, businesses and organizations for their contributions to local amateur sports.

This year’s recipients are:

• Chad McDowell: Chad was introduced to coaching basketball in 1996 by Tony Hayden while in grade 9 at C.J. Houston Junior High School, and 29 years later, coaching Yorkton basketball teams remains to be a big part of his life.
• Jay Boyd: Jay was a sportscaster in Kapuskasing ON, Flin Flon, Dauphin and then Yorkton, where he did hockey play-by-play, covered all sports in the community, and produced and hosted a 30-minute sports show on Yorkton television which won a national award.
• Garrett Karcha: Garrett was recently recognized as the 2024 Saskatchewan High School Athletic Associations Service Award recipient for his dedication to high school sports in the east-central area. He has been the Athletic Director at Sacred Heart High School for the last 12 years and is also the school’s head football coach and track and field coach.
• Warren Burrell: Warren is a Grade 3 and 4 teacher at St Michael's in Yorkton who has dedicated countless hours to officiating minor sports in the region. He officiates and supervises hockey on-ice officials, spends spring and fall time refereeing minor football, and umpires minor and senior baseball – in total about 250 games a year.
• Michelle and Dion Pfeifer: These now-retired teachers continue to coach volleyball in Yorkton, having done so for many years at both the school and club levels. Dion has been inducted to the Saskatchewan Volleyball Hall of Fame as an athlete who played on two different teams.
• Don Pfeifer: Don was already inducted in the YSHF as a builder for his contributions to volleyball, but this award recognizes him for his work rejuvenating the YSHF starting in 2019, after the organization had been inactive for about six years. Covid interrupted those efforts, but in 2022 the Yorkton Sports Hall of Fame held its first inductions in eight years.

The evening will start at the Gallagher Centre with a buffet at 5 pm, followed by the program at 6:30 pm. Class of 2024 inductees are Michael Forster, Nicole Nagy, Lori Pollock, Ed Zawatsky and the 1998 Yorkton Expos Midget baseball team.

Yorkton has a rich sporting history, and the Yorkton Sports Hall of Fame and Museum strives to preserve our Home Town Heroes.

The Hall of Fame organization was inactive for several years, but in 2020 elected a new board of directors which worked with many of the original founders to revive the organization, seek new facilities and create a strong online presence. 

In September of 2022, it held the first Hall of Fame induction in eight years. It was also  provided with display space on the second floor of the Gallagher Centre, where all inductees are now recognized, and a collection of artifacts and memorabilia is displayed. The display area is open whenever the doors of the Gallagher Centre are open.

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The Sports Hall of Fame and Museum displays some of its artifacts at the Gallagher Centre in Yorkton, second floor (see map below).