Three local women win softball merit awards

By JAMES TUBB on September 18, 2021.

jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb

Rebecca Jackiw was just following in her mothers footsteps when it came to volunteering.

“My mom was a big volunteer for me and my sisters when we were growing up, so looking at all the man hours she put in when I was growing up to make my sporting events and all of the things I did as a child and a teenager, I just thought it was something important to do for my kids and for my community. If you don’t volunteer, things don’t happen,” she said.

“So without our great volunteers on our board… things wouldn’t be going on in this city.”

Jackiw is one of the three women from the Medicine Hat Minor Softball Association to be awarded Softball Alberta’s Provincial Merit Award. Jackiw, Cindy Cotton and Meagan Taylor from Medicine Hat, along with Lethbridge’s Tyler Fallwell have been recognized as Zone 1 recipients.

MHMSA president Michelle Campbell says she was delighted to find out one, let alone all three were receiving the award.

In a normal year, each of the eight provincial zones would accept up to three nominations. From there, Softball Alberta would vote and only accept one per zone. This year, due to the exceptional needs of volunteers over the past couple COVID seasons, Softball Alberta chose to award all nominees.

“I always tell people our board is the best in the whole city, maybe even in Southern Alberta,” said Campbell. “It’s amazing to me how dedicated they are… For all three of them to be recognized at a provincial level is fabulous. They already know their worth locally because we celebrate them all the time, they’re fabulous people.”

Jackiw has been a member of the MHMSA board for seven years and was described as important when Medicine Hat hosted provincial championships in 2019 and 2021. She has been in charge of handling uniforms since she started which has meant she’s been responsible for outfitting more than 500 athletes and five provincial teams.

Cotton, joined as the equipment coordinator and helped to equip all house league and provincial teams, and umpires with gear. Every base, bat, ball, helmet, bag of lime and diamond rake, was cared for in part by Cindy.

Cindy became U4 co-director in 2018 and helped wrangle 24 teams through MHMSA’s blastball program before taking on the position on her own in 2021.

Taylor, also ran the U4 blastball program for four years. In 2017 she took over media and advertising for MHMSA.

MHMSA hosted its Thunder Awards banquet on Sept. 1 at Ralph’s Steakhouse. The five teams in the association came together to celebrate all the season’s successes and each team awarded an MVP and up to two Thunder Achievement Awards.

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