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Garry Allison

Bell Memorial - Inducted 1979

Garry Allison's media emphasis has always been on amateur sport. He ran a weekly series in the Lethbridge Herald entitled 'Memorable Moments in Sports' dealing with highlights of amateur careers in a wide variety of sports. His articles generally focused on the young athlete or the senior citizen. He was interested in the grass roots participant. In 1977, for his coverage of high school sport in Southern Alberta, he received the media award from the Canadian Federation of Schools Athletic Association. The Canadian Cutting Horse Association Trophy was presented to him in 1974 for his coverage of rodeo. Garry Allison's writing for his columns and feature articles was accurate and illuminating as a result of his personal attendance at the events he covered. The amateur athletes of Southern Alberta are fortunate to have the media support provided by Garry Allison.

After Induction

Garry was employed with the Lethbridge Herald for more than 43 years. He retired in 2002. Throughout the years, he took on various jobs for the Herald and was its Sports Editor, City Editor and District Editor. He started in 1957 to 1974 as a printer with the newspaper. It was during this time that he covered rodeo, boxing and other sports for both the Herald and the Ad-Viser. In 1974, he moved into the Herald's sports department full time. He continued to cover rodeo until he retired - including amateur, native, college, high school and professional. He attended the first 10 Canadian Finals Rodeos, numerous Calgary Stampedes and rodeos in the United States. From 1970 to 2001, he was a regular at the Southern Alberta Southern Games.

 

Garry's contributions included giving equal treatment to women's sports with the men's. He established a phone-in system for reporting high school sports scores to media outlets and was instrumental in creating a provincial ranking for high school basketball.

 

In 2003 he became the Outdoors Editor and writer of the weekly historic feature, The Way We Were. He wrote articles for magazines and his first book, 100 years of History: The Lethbridge and District Exhibition was published in 1999. Other books followed: The People of the Mines (April 2005); The Prairie Boys, the story of southern Alberta War veterans (September 2006); Reg Kesler: Cowboy; Sporting Legends of the South (2014); and, Southern Hoofprints - a History of Horse Racing in southern Alberta (2015). He also completed a collection of biographies for the Lethbridge Exhibition covering 108 years about the presidents, general managers and members of the Hall of Fame.

 

Garry also coached high school girls basketball for 10 years - nine at Coalhurst and one at Winston Churchill. He coached senior girls soccer for eight years and won a city championship with his Coalhurst team. Garry was a the Rocky Mountain Turf Chuckwagon committee member for four years and then in 2006 became its chairman. He was inducted into the Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame in 2003, and the Lethbridge Chapter of Ducks Unlimited Canada' Hall of Fame in 2005.

 

Honours:

2003 - Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame (May)

2005 - Lethbridge Chapter of Ducks Unlimited Canada' Hall of Fame

Awards:

  • Canadian Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association's Jimmy Brown award (for coverage in Canada)
  • Thomson Newspaper national and regional award for outstanding editorial achievement
  • Ducks Unlimited Canada - for his coverage on the national and local level.
  • Chinook Tourism award - for his coverage
  • Lethbridge Fish and Game Association Award
  • Alberta Fish and Game Association Award
  • Trout Unlimited Canada's Lethbridge chapter 
  • 2000 Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal

 

Non sporting awards and recognitions.

 

He is a member of the Headdress Society of the Kainai Nation on the Blood Reserve and received the Blackfoot name of Eagle Wing from Peigan Elders during a naming ceremony at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Interpretive Centre in 1996. In 2000, he was honoured by the National Aboriginal Day program at Fort Whoop-UP.

  • General Stewart Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion
  • Korea War Veterans Association
  • Great Canadian Plains Railway Society
  • Town of Coalhurst
  • 1984 - Parent of the Year Coalhurst High School
  • 2003 - Honorary Whoop-Up Days Parade Marshall

He was a member of the 702 Wing, the Lethbridge Historical Society, and the Royal Canadian Legion - General Stewart Branch.

 

Garry Allison passed away January 20, 2019 (Sunday)

Born: December 10, 1941 in Lethbridge