Co-founder of Vauxhall Academy of Baseball named to Alberta Sports Hall of Fame

By Medicine Hat News on February 27, 2017.

Doug Jones, the driving force behind baseball in southeastern Alberta and several national tournaments held in Medicine Hat has been named to the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame.

At an announcement on Monday in Lethbridge, Jones was named as one of 12 inductees for 2017.

Noted as a sports-builder, Jones helped found the Vauxhall Baseball Academy and the Badlands Baseball Academy in Oyen, where he is the town’s mayor. Jones was also on organizing committees that staged the Canada Cup of Baseball at Athletic Park in 2006 and 2008.

He also established the Lethbridge Bulls as an expansion franchise in the Western Major Baseball League in 1999.

Three press conferences held throughout the province unveiled this year’s class.

In Lethbridge, Jones was joined by 1984 boxing Olympian Rick Duff. In Calgary, inductees Marilyn Palmer O’Connor (golf) and Keltie Duggan (swimming) were introduced. A ceremony in Edmonton involved former Edmonton Oilers captain Ryan Smyth, female baseball pioneer Betty Carveth Dunn and the players of the 1984-85 NAIT Ooks hockey team.

The Bell Memorial Award, won last year by News CFL olumnist Graham Kelly, for media inductee will go to St. Albert Gazette sports scribe Jeff Hansen.