Latest installment of Butler County sports champions on display

Oh, what a century of sports champions have come from Butler County. That is quite evident from the exhibit, “A Century of Champions,” now on exhibit in the lobby of Hamilton’s city-government building at 345 High St.

This is Part 2 of the series. The first part was on display in the same space from the spring into the summer.

In Part 2 alone of the exhibit, covering from about 1970 to now, are Olympians, like Hamilton archer Darrell Pace and Middletown’s judo champion Kayla Harrison.

There are major-league players like Pittsburgh Pirates sidearm pitcher Kent Tekulve (Hamilton); National Football League Hall of Famer Cris Carter (Middletown) and many more, including Todd Bell of Middletown, who aside from playing for the Chicago Bears, also broke the Ohio high school long-jump set by one of the world’s greatest athletes, Jesse Owens, who held multiple track world records.

There also was University of Kentucky standout Kevin Grevey, a No. 1 National Basketball Association draft choice who started for the Washington Bullets’ 1978 World Championship team.

And of course, there is Middletown’s Kyle Schwarber, who with the Chicago Cubs last year won the World Series.

Both exhibits were put together by Sam Ashworth, of the Middletown Historical Society and Hamilton’s Heritage Hall, who said he received huge amounts of help from Stu Eversole of the Butler County Sports Hall of Fame.

“I’ve done a lot of exhibits for Middletown, but this kind of gives me a chance to do some things for the county, and Hamilton,” he said. “I enjoy it.”

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