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Terrace Peaks celebrate season and history

The gymnastics club in Terrace BC will celebrate their 45th anniversary and successful season, with lots of medals from a meet in Smithers.
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The Terrace Peaks Gymnastics Club showed strong progress in the Smithers Hollywood Invitational meet on June 4.

“They did very well, in terms of where they started the season and where they ended the season — the results show for themselves,” said coach Karl McPherson.

“I am very pleased with the progress that we made… we came home with a lot of medals.”

Hayden Taylor and Savannah Medeiros both won gold overall in their categories, and many of the other girls earned medals as well.

With 500 members in total this year, the club is gearing up for its annual year-end celebration on June 18, which will mark their 45th anniversary in Terrace. The young gymnasts will perform a final show, and there will be awards, a potluck, carnival games like a cake walk, dunk tank, and beanbag toss, and a historical slideshow and display board.

The Terrace Peaks Gymnastics Club was started in the early-‘70s by a group of four volunteers, including local coaches John and Ellen Simon and Les Orr, and the principal of Clarence Michiel Elementary School at the time.

The club was led by Ed Fairless and other parent volunteers in the Clarence Michiel Elementary School for many years. They borrowed the school’s equipment which they set up and took down every time.

Fairless decided that the club needed its own gym so that parents and gymnasts would not have to move equipment every time when they ran the program.

The club started fundraising and rallying volunteer help and finished building the brand new gym in Thornhill in 1991.

The new facilities have been well used and the club continues to grow.

They have been fundraising over the past several years for a $160,000-upgrade, where they will build new change rooms, men’s and women’s washrooms, and a new lobby and office area.

“We are more than two-thirds to our goal,” said Barclay Macdonald, a club director and volunteer parent.

They are starting the renovations this summer, applying for grants and working on final planning and permits. Down the road they hope to expand the main gym.

The Terrace results from the recent Smithers meet are as follows:

In the Jr. Olympics ages 13 and older against two competitors, Amelia Evans got third overall, gold in vault (9.45) and floor (8.95), silver on bars (8.0), and bronze on beam (7.6).

In the Jr. Olympics ages 11-12 against ten competitors, Savannah Medeiros won first overall, gold in bars (9.45), gold in floor (9.3), a tie for bronze in beam (8.9) and a tie for fourth in vault (9).

In the same age category, Ella Almgren finished tenth overall, earning bronze in bars (8.85), tying for seventh in vault (8.8), and eighth in beam (7.85).

In Jr. Olympics ages 9-10 against four competitors, Hayden Taylor won first overall, gold in bars (9.5), gold in beam (9.5), gold in floor (9.35), and bronze in vault (9.35).

In the same category, Carissa Nenninger finished second overall, tying for gold in vault (9.5), earning silver in floor (9.1), silver in beam (8.95), and bronze in bars (8.65).

Lily Macdonald finished fourth overall, with bronze in beam (8.7), and fourth in vault (8.9), floor (8.8), and bars (8.2).