silver medals in Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling at the Pan Am games in Puerto Rico. He won in several other major events as well, including the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) championships for wrestling. Years later, in 2012, he was named to the Smiths Falls Recreation Hall of Fame. A bad accident ended his
These fish have attitude By FRANCIE HEALY If fish have personalities, Steve
Needham of Smiths Falls has captured them. His fish, carved out of ash or pine, are fish with character. Some are whimsical folk art, and
some are replicas of the real thing. All are bright, strong and compelling. You want to touch them. Then you want to stand back and look at them some more. It’s an art form that came to Steve
70 BOUNDER MAGAZINE
naturally. He has always sketched, and his father, Noble Needham, now a retired member of the OPP, is a
successful carver of driftwood fish. Steve was an artistic kid when he
was growing up, but that was in the 70s, when boys were encouraged to be – well – boys. And so they worked in the fields, played hockey, or did other “active” things. Steve wrestled. It looked like the start of a serious
career for him, beginning in high school with Smiths Falls coach, Lew Martin, and taking him to Calgary, Venezuela, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Sweden and Hungary. He had a silver Pan American medal by the time he was 17 years old, then won gold and
wrestling career when he was only 21. Part of his training had been to take a 100 km bicycle ride three times a week. He was going about 35–40 kph when he slammed into a parked car and broke his neck. By some miracle, he survived and walked again, but the recovery was long and the consequences were severe. When he recovered well
enough, he continued coaching and kept with it for about 25 years, earning his level 3 certification. His sons, Steven and Jacob, now 28 and 26, were among his students. But his work as a carpenter
ultimately had to come to an end. The neck pain and ongoing migraines, exacerbated by that kind of work, were just too great. (Now he’s a driver for McNamee Concrete, and that has worked out well.) While he was in his long
recovery from the accident, he
continued on page 72
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