Haliburton's "Mural Wall of Sports Heroes"

On the outside of the A. J. LaRue Community Centre, in the village of Haliburton, in the Municipality of Dysart et al, are seven large murals painted to celebrate the achievements of local sports heroes.

The first two murals recognized long-time NHL stars Ron Stackhouse, who played in the 1970’s and 1980’s and Bernie Nicholls, who played in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

Twenty years later a donor came forward to add more murals for more recent local sports heroes, CFL football player, Mike Bradley. (2000’s) and NHL hockey players Cody Hodgson (2010’s) and Matt Duchene, (2010’s and 2020’s).

The brother and sister pair of Lesley Tashlin and Taly Williams make up the final two banners. These were painted and installed in 2022. 

Lesley Tashlin was an OFSSA champion in high school, and went on to become the fastest female 100-meter hurdler in 1995 in Canada. She competed in 6 major international competitions: the Pan-Am Games (x2), the Commonwealth Games (x2), the Francophone Games, and the grandest stage of them all: the Olympic Games in 1996.

Her brother, Taly Williams, was a star athlete in track and football in high school, studied engineering and played football at the University of Waterloo and went on to become a CFL defensive back with the Toronto Argonauts and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the 1990s.