The Board of Directors of the Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame has announced the six inductees who will comprise the Class of 2013.
They are Ron Blackmer, Cal Cederquist, the late Jim Foti, Dan Palmer, Walt Thurnau and Jim Young.
They will be honored at the 32nd annual Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame induction dinner on Feb. 18 at the Lakewood Rod and Gun Club.
Tickets for the event are $50 and are available by calling chairman Chip Johnson at 485-6991.
The six new honorees will bring the total number of CSHOF inductees to 145.
Following are brief biographies of the new inductees. Longer biographies will be published later.
DAN PALMER
Palmer was born in Dunkirk in 1948 and has lived in Chautauqua County his entire life.
Palmer has been a broadcaster and sports director at WDOE radio for 37 years and has called play-by-play of more than 2,000 youth, high school and college sports games.
Palmer established a variety of awards at WDOE to recognize those involved in sports: WDOE Player of the Game, WDOE High School Athlete of the Day, WDOE High School Player of the Week, WDOE Leadership Award and the WDOE Community Sports Service Award.
Palmer emceed the 2009 CSHOF induction dinner when Fredonia's Michael Heary and Jenn Stuczynski were inducted.
CAL CEDERQUIST
Cederquist is a 1967 graduate of Southwestern, where he was a two-time CCIAC long jump champion.
He coached track and cross country for 27 years 1972 to 1981 and 1990 to 2008.
His career began in 1972 began at Chautauqua, a school without a track and hadn't won a dual meet in 40 years. He developed teams that regularly competed for and won league titles and also had trained many sectional and state qualifiers.
After a nine-year hiatus, Cederquist got back into coaching to organize a combined boys and girls track program at Chautauqua and won five league titles. His boys 1,600-meter relay team won a state title in the final athletic contest held in history of Chautauqua Central School.
Cederquist continued coaching after the merger of Chautauqua and Mayville that formed Chautauqua Lake Central School and had several state finalists and a state champion.
RON BLACKMER
Blackmer was born in Jamestown in 1941 and lived in Chautauqua County from 1991 to 2011.
In a stock-car racing career from 1960 to 1978, he won 133 Sportsman Division races at Stateline and Eriez Speedway. He also won four Stateline Sportsman championships and six Eriez sportsman championships, and 4 S-E Circuit championships
Blackmer also won 27 Late Model Division feature races at Stateline and Eriez. He won two Stateline Late Model championships, three Eriez Late Model championships, and two S-E Circuit Late Model championships.
At the time of his retirement, only one driver had won more.
JIM FOTI
Foti was a 1931 graduate of Jamestown High School and was captain 1930 football team. He then went on to play football, basketball and hockey at John Carroll University and was named to John Carroll all-time football team
Hhe then went on to coach at Erie Prep, Wheeling (W. Va.) Central Catholic, Bellaire (Ohio) High School and Warwood (W.Va) high schools. He coached basketball for 38 years and accumulated 466 wins, made seven appearances in West Virginia state tournament including winning the 1967 state championship and also won five five West Virginia Catholic schools state titles.
Foti coached football for 20 years and record 124 wins and also coached baseball, track, cross country and golf.
Foti, who passed away in 2004, coached semi-pro Wheeling Puritans basketball team in 1947-48.
WALT THURNAU
Thurnau was born in 1942 in the Philippines AND graduated from Lock Haven State College in 1966. He then taught history at Southwestern Central School for 36 years, retiring in 2002.
He was the assistant wrestling coach at SWCS coach under Flash Olson from 1966-74 before becoming the head coach from 1975-2002. During his tenure, Thurnau recorded 297 wins, two Section 6 championships, had 17 wrestlers compete at the state tourney and two, Ed Pawlak in 1999 and Jim Nelson in 2002, won state titles.
Thurnau also ran USA Kids Wrestling program at Southwestern for 25 years. He was the head coach at Jamestown Community College from 2002-2007 and the assistant coach from 2008-1011.
Thurnau is on the SWCS Wall of Fame and was inducted into the National Wrestling Coaches Association, WNY Wrestling Coaches Association and Upstate New York Chapter National Wrestling halls of fame. In 2004, he was named the NJCAA Wrestling Man of the Year.
JIM YOUNG
Young was born in 1954 and lived in Jamestown from ages 4 to 22. He is currently a chiropractor living in Comptche, Calif., and coaches basketball at Mendocino High School.
The 1972 JHS graduate played on the 1972 Section 6 basketball championship team. He then attended St. Lawrence University - played on varsity basketball team for four years and was the captain in his senior season.
Young averaged 21 points per game as a junior, 24 points per game as a senior and set SLU single-game point record of 48 points.
His 1,233 career points are second all-time at SLU. He also set records for - established SLU records for field goal percentage (.564) and free throw percentage (.86).
Young played one season of professional basketball for Division One Loughborough in the English National Basketball League and set scoring record with 54 points in a game and averaged more than 30 points per game
