The newsclippings are yellowed with age and a bit tattered to the touch, but the tale they tell is as exciting now as it was when the 13-year-old Josephine Laba hit the cinder track of the 1920s in her first taste of victory.

With his unmistakable eye for fleet-footed talent, it was Edgar Stirling who discovered Laba. Stirling was supervisor of playgrounds during the summer months and physical director at Dalhousie University the rest of the year. Stirling coached Laba as he had Gertrude Phinney and Aileen Meagher.

Hall of Famer, the late Earl Morton, chronicled Laba’s career. “As a junior she was the only Canadian champion in the 100-yard dash and in a quote from a Montreal newspaper she had the unique distinction of being the first junior girl to hold that record.” Newspaper accounts lauded Laba “The outstanding star of the day, who showed that her title of Junior Canadian Champion over the senior sixty metre in 8 4-5, the hundred metres in the face of half a gale blowing up the track in the fast time of 13 2-5 and called it a day by winning the discus throw and running anchor on the winning relay team over the four hundred metres.”

She competed in the Canadian championships in Hamilton in 1930, then in Alberta in 1931. Laba just missed the Olympic team at the Hamilton trials in 1932. What was it like to see her run? J.E. “Gee” Ahern, founder of the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame, wrote, “.. a strong girl, Josephine’s blazing speed in the final yards won her many victories in the big meets.”

Laba’s marriage took her to Cape Breton where she has lived the rest of her life giving to her community the same way she gave to her track career. Josephine Laba was inducted into the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame in 1995.

(Reference: Induction program article by Heather Harris)