DEARBORN – The Recreation and Park’s Commission Hall of Fame inductees and the Van Patrick Memorial Award nominees and award recipients are featured in a video presentation which premieres March 19 on CDTV and online.
The video can be seen on demand at cdtv.viebit.com or at various times on CDTV, which is channel 12 on Comcast, channel 10 on WOW and channel 99 on AT&T Uverse.
This year’s Van Patrick Memorial Award winners are Breanna Bates and Charles Frank.
Bates, from Edsel Ford High School, plays on the basketball and track teams. Frank, from Dearborn High School, participates in track and cross country.
Inducted into the Legends Hall of Fame are Jon Heady and David Sommerville. For over 50 years Heady was a player, referee and coach for many local hockey organizations. Sommerville played youth, high school and college tennis.
Founder of a youth basketball program, the Metro Basketball Association, Patrick O’Donnell will be inducted into the Special Hall of Fame.
Under normal circumstances, the award announcements would have been made at the Commission’s Annual Sports Awards Ceremony, which was cancelled for the second straight year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition to Bates and Frank, nominees for the 2021 “High School Athletes of the Year” award were Erin Moran (Dearborn High), Ashley Avant and Grant Reising (Divine Child), Brent Hojnicki (Edsel Ford) and Rawan Elhusseini and Jade Abdallah (Fordson).
The Recreation & Parks Commission contacts athletic directors at each high school to ask for their nominations of two students – one boy and one girl – for the annual Van Patrick Memorial Award based on athletic and academic achievements along with their community involvement.
Longtime Dearborn resident Van Patrick was an acclaimed radio and television personality who broadcast college and professional sports from the late 1940s until his passing in 1974.
He also served on the Recreation & Parks Commission. Following his passing, the Commission created the Van Patrick Memorial Award to honor the “High School Athletes of the Year.”