Bo Mearns was the greatest equestrian rider ever to come out of Greater Victoria and was the Canadian equestrian queen of the 1970s. In her time, she was one of Canada s top-three equestrian riders and was a member of the Canadian national equestrian team a number of times. Through her top seasons, between 1973 and 1980, she set a seven-foot-two-inch Canadian jumping record and scored sixteen major event wins across Canada. The only disappointment during that decade of success was a near miss in making the Canadian team for the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics. The Oak Bay High graduate rebounded to make the national team in 1977 for its tour of Europe and was on six International Nations Cup Teams. Most of Bo s success came atop Flying Nun, an unlikely future championship horse she bought at the racetrack for a mere $400 in 1968. By the time of its death in 1981, Flying Nun had amassed career winnings of $110,000. Flying Nun, the horse Bo bought on an impulse, was one of the best show-jumping horses of its time and catapulted Mearns to international stardom in equestrian sport.

Roy Smith roared out of Western Speedway, where he started in 1965 at age 20, to race on the great NASCAR tracks of North America. He enjoyed a tremendous 12-year career driving Super Modified cars throughout the Northwest where he won many major events and championships. He showed his great skills behind the wheel by winning the NASCAR Winston West points championship three years in a row from 1980 to 1982. He placed 22nd in the 1976 and 20th in the 1978 Daytona 500 races and enjoyed a career highlight with his 1982 top ten finish at Daytona. What makes these accomplishments all the more remarkable is that Roy was a true outsider. He was a Canadian driver operating on a budget that was a mere drop in the bucket compared to the famous and high-powered teams of competitors such as Bobby Allison and Ricky Rudd. Smith was named Victoria's male athlete of the year in 1980.