Butler County Sports Hall of Fame Dec. 1

The 2013 Butler County Sports Hall of Fame class includes an Olympic Gold Medalist, a state champion golfer and a two-time state champion baseball coach.

Middletown native Kayla Harrison, who brought home the United States’ first-ever gold medal in judo in the 2012 London Summer Olympics, headlines another outstanding group of honorees.

Middletown’s Carling Coffing Nolan, who won the Division I state girls golf championship in 2002, is also being inducted along with longtime Fairfield baseball coach Gary Yeatts, who led the Indians to a pair of state baseball titles in 1986 and 1991.

Joining them will be Bill Bowers, a longtime coach of multiple sports in the Talawanda school district; Edgewood’s Mary Hummer-Shively, a state champion diver for the Cougars; Oxford’s George McCabe, who has won numerous national and international senior tennis titles; Middletown’s Bill McGuire, who as the Middies’ quarterback in the 1950s perfected the run and shoot offense of legendary coach Glen “Tiger’ Ellison; Cecil New, who was a four-sport athlete at Hamilton’s Taft High School; Hamilton’s Francis Parrish, a longtime swimming coach for Garfield, Taft and Fairfield high schools as well as for the youth of Butler County; and Ross’ Kimberly Way Steigerwald, an outstanding track and field athlete who now coaches track and volleyball at Ross.

The event will be held Sunday, Dec. 1 at the Courtyard by Marriott in Hamilton. The event will begin at 4 p.m. with a private social hour for the inductees and their families. There will be a public social hour beginning at 5 p.m. followed by dinner at 6 p.m. and the program at 7 p.m.

Tickets for the event are $25 each and can be purchased at Tom’s Cigar Store on Main Street in Hamilton, or by calling (513) 423-7734 in the Middletown area.