Shawna Pearman (Photo supplied)

By Troy Gillard and Josh Hall

well-deserved honour

Shawna Pearman earns Red Deer’s Lifetime Sports Achievement Award

Mar 27, 2020 | 11:23 AM

Shawna Pearman has been coaching with the Red Deer Central Lions Speed Skating Club since 1999, but her extensive involvement in sport goes much further.

Pearman’s passion for giving back to the community has helped make her the latest recipient of The City of Red Deer’s Lifetime Sports Achievement Award.

“I am certainly very honoured and very humbled,” Pearman said Friday. “I just feel I have an expertise with a sports background and that’s where I enjoy giving back to the community.”

“It’s something I enjoy doing, as well. I have three daughters that have all done speed skating in Red Deer, so for me that was a natural thing to do, to be involved.”

Pearman was the Speed Skating Canada Coach of the Year in 2013 and the Alberta Amateur Speed Skating Association Volunteer of the year in 2015-16. She was most recently the sport lead for long track speed skating at the 2019 Canada Winter Games and also helped guide local youth to medals at the 2020 Special Olympics Canada Winter Games.

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“Just seeing them being successful and seeing smiles on their faces, that’s the immediate something that I get back,” she said of her passion for working with kids.

“Being at the Special Olympics (last month in Thunder Bay, ON), it’s something that we can learn. Seeing those athletes when they win a race and they’re fist pumping and have big smiles on their faces, they’re so excited. And there were athletes there who finished last and did the exact same thing.”

It’s also a passion of Pearman’s to help promote inclusivity in sport.

“Especially in the speed skating club,” she noted. “I don’t feel it’s important that you become this great athlete or the best speed skater. It’s just about becoming the best person you can be, and the best athlete, and improving and working hard. We invite anybody into the club, and I feel that’s important.”

Pearman is a decorated athlete in her own right. She was a member of Canada’s national softball team that won gold at the 1983 Pan-Am Games. As a speed skater she competed at the Canada Winter Games in 1975 and 1979 as well as at numerous national championship events.

The resident of Ponoka says it’s important to give back to the community and accept everyone for who they are.

“If everybody gives their time and gives it selflessly, that’s why I do it. If everybody does it together, then we’re in a better place.”