There's a historical tradition of having great athletes on Bowen and this school year at West Vancouver Secondary School, island students added to it with strong, in some cases award-winning, performances. Led by two brothers, the 2011-12 Bowen student-athletes are impressive in number and quality.
The Bowen brothers that led the charge at West Van are Charlie and Jack Welsh.
Charlie, a rugby, football and basketball player, was named the Grade 8 male athlete of the year for the school, while his brother Jack, who plays rugby and football, won the title of Grade 10 male athlete of the year.
They didn't know if brothers had ever been named to such honors in the same year but they did note that it's not the first time a Bowen kid has won at West Van. Jack pointed out the most recent wins came in the past two years, as another islander named Jack won the male athlete of the year when he was in both Grade 8 and 9: Jack DeSante.
There were many other achievements from local kids at West Van this year, for instance from Katie Brougham who was nominated for the school's Grade 8 female athlete of the year and Finn Morales for the Grade 9 male athlete.
Mimi Jones, Josie Huskisson and Connor Holloway all received awards for combining high-athletic achievement with exceptionally high scholarship achievement.
Other West Van Secondary athletic achievers from Bowen this year include Robbie 'the Wall' Watson, who, over three years of high-school, has won a host of accolades for sports, Justin Wood, Colleen Woodward, Malcolm MacEachern and Jamie Frost.
Also worth mentioning are brother and sister Peter and Maia Blomberg and their two cousins, brothers Jonas 'the Basher' Bloomberg and Niko 'Boom Boom' Blomberg.
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