Local participants took home their share of medals at the District 1A Senior Games here last week.
The 70-strong contingent earned a total of 21 medals (seven gold, eight silver, and six bronze) during the three-day event.
“This was our most successful senior games we’ve had here,” said convener Nick Wihnan, who organized 174 seniors from Kenora, Dryden, and Fort Frances/Rainy River District into 14 events.
“Everything went well. Everyone was satisfied,” he added.
Wihnan noted there were several close calls in gold-medal matches, mainly in floor and table shuffleboard, which drew large—and surprisingly loud—crowds.
“We had some good competition. It seemed like everything went right down to the wire,” he remarked.
The seven local gold medalists included Rita Woodland (ladies’ golf), Mildred Bedard (ladies’ snooker), Ann Anderson and Edith Newman (table shuffleboard), Marg McTaggart and Hilda Hoffman (contract bridge), Clora McEvoy and John Moran (darts), Dave Jorgenson (men’s snooker), and the five-pin bowling team, “Angie’s” (Angie Podgorski, Ruth Caldwell, Mary Williams, Marsha Shute, and Wes Williams).
They now have the chance to compete in Activefest (the provincial senior games) in Kingston starting Aug. 13.
So far, 13 winners (including some from Kenora and Dryden) have agreed to make the trip. Some 17 area seniors took part in the last Activefest two years ago.
Wihnan said gold medalists who decline to attend will have their spot offered to the runner-up.
The husband-and-wife team of Ralph and Ann Longmuir nabbed the first of their two medals together by claiming silver in cribbage to go with their bronze in table shuffleboard.
He also won bronze in men’s snooker.
Other local silver medalists included Anderson and Newman (carpet bowling), Hubert and Clara Medhurst (euchre), Bob Barron and Keith McRae (darts), Bedard and Meryle Ogden (floor shuffleboard), Bud Hebert (men’s golf), Elaine Hebert (ladies’ golf), and Wihnan (men’s snooker).
The “Pin-ups” five-pin bowing team (Jack Smeeth, Evelyn Smeeth, Marg Tarrant, and Mabel Petsnick) won bronze as did Roberta Jeffery and Clara Medhurst (floor shuffleboard), Gord Calder (who teamed up with Grace Hutchison of Dryden in darts), and McTaggart and Hoffman (cribbage).
The games also gave visiting participants a chance to see the town as events were held at different venues. Golf was held out at Kitchen Creek, darts at the Royal Canadian Legion, bowling at Plaza Lanes, carpet bowling at Rainycrest, and bridge, shuffleboard, and snooker at the Sister Kennedy Centre.
“[The non-locals] knew what they were doing. Some of them had to get used to the surroundings but once they did, they did really well,” said Wihnan.
Other District 1A events—walking and swimming—were held in Dryden two weeks ago, but no local seniors participated.
