Jennifer Horbay was presented with the 2023 Warman Diamond Citizen of the Year award at the Warman City Council meeting on Monday, June 24.
Horbay has been an active member of the softball community in Warman for several years, serving as President of Warman Minor Ball and also President of the Twin City Angels.
In accepting the award, Horbay said she was honoured and humbled to be recognized for her work with minor softball, and noted that the sport thrives because of the combined efforts of many people.
“I got into softball when my oldest daughter started playing at the age of 12. She is now 22,” said Horbay. “I love the game of ball, grew up playing it, and my dad always coached me growing up. I knew how much I loved and appreciated what he did for me and I wanted to do the same for my kids.”
Horbay was nominated by the community’s softball association. Her nominators stated: “Jennifer has gone above and beyond the past two years with Twin City Angels. In 2022 and 2023 she stepped up to coach a team despite not having any kids in the softball program. And when a team needed a certified coach to attend provincials in 2022, she offered to act as Head Coach so this team could attend, as the Head Coach was unable to get certified in time. In 2023 when our U17B program needed a head coach; Jennifer willingly put her name forward along with the help of her daughter Hannah Horbay. This division would have been without a coach had it not been for Jennifer.” Horbay said there was and always is a need for coaches and board members for every sport.
“It felt like the natural thing to do – volunteer.,” she said. “And so I started out by coaching, and then coming on board with Warman Minor Softball Association as secretary. I believe I was in that role for four years when I decided to run for president.
“Of course no one else wanted that job so I happily accepted it. I had an amazing board and the success the association and teams had is all because of the work they did. I was able to coach my daughter Hannah for three years and Kaitlyn for two years.
“When they stopped playing, I wasn’t ready to stop coaching and coached a marvellous bunch of U14 girls and then last year I coached those girls again at the U17 level.”
Horbay, who now umpires games, said volunteering “just feels natural” and said she loves seeing the players excited to be on the diamonds.