Bryce Neary is a man in motion: the Valens resident hit the ground running about 10 years ago – and hasn’t looked back since.
Neary, 19, was named in January as the 2025 Rockton Fair Ambassador. His presentation board at the competition was filled with his athletic accomplishments in track and cross country, sports he got into thanks to his Grade 4 teacher at Dr. John Seaton Public School. The sport became his passion, and still plays a big part in his life today.
“I’ve done everything from a 400 metre race around a track all the way to a marathon, and I'm about to do my first Iron Man this summer,” said Neary. Currently, he’s doing most of his training indoors, swimming at the Wayne Gretzky centre in Brantford and riding his stationary bike, and doing some outdoor running. “You’ve got to face the elements sometimes. I don't have a treadmill.”
That work ethic, and many other skills learned through sport, carry over into many areas of life, notes Neary. Currently, he is doing his second co-op term with Alectra Utilities through the power line technician program Conestoga College. He says being part of teams has helped him negotiate working relationships and taught him how to be coachable.
“You spend your whole life playing pretty elite level sports, you get a lot of feedback,” he said. “Sometimes it's pretty harsh, and you’ve got to learn to deal with that, like you have to realize you did something wrong, and maybe some people's ways of teaching you that are unorthodox. That transfers right to the workforce.”
Competing for the school as part of a track and cross country scholarship, he’s earned the OCAA and CCAA All Academic awards, which recognize students who achieve honour standing as well as excelling at the elite level of competition. Conestoga’s running team placed third in the province and sixth in Canada.
Neary says he was drawn to the power line technician program because it gets him outside and allows him to work with big equipment. “I think it’s a really cool job, just working up in the air in bucket trucks and everything,” he said. “It’s super fun. I really like driving around, it’s almost like playing with Tonka truck toys when you’re little. And the guys I work with are great.”
Neary attended Dundas Valley Secondary School, where he also played soccer, volleyball and badminton. He was on DVSS student council as part of the Valley Advisor team, helping out with Grade 9 orientation, and enjoyed representing the school at the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board as a member of the Student Senate.
“Every week, we would go to a meeting at the HWDSB building and talk to all the other senate members and see how things are going through our schools,” he said. “Then we got to even talk to the head of HWDSB too. So that was pretty sweet, have your voice heard.”
Neary was just starting high school when he found another passion: volunteering at the Rockton Fair, something he’s done every year since. Last year, he estimates he spend 70 hours volunteering as part of the maintenance crew during the Thanksgiving weekend event.
“It definitely teaches you hard work,” he said of the experience. “Doing unpaid work or volunteering is, I'd say, the best way to gain a work ethic, especially when that work has to do with something you really don't want to do, like garbage at 6 a.m. or whatever, and like helping out with cow and horse shows and things like that with a bunch of heavy stuff when it's raining. So that really helps give you a good work ethic, which, I mean, translates into everything in your life.”
Neary was encouraged to vie for the Fair Ambassador title by 2024 Ambassador McKenna Stephens. He secured sponsorship from the Rockton Women’s Institute, and has the support of his close-knit family, mom Cynthia, dad Doug, sisters Sydney and Dylan, and brother Brody.
Neary gave a passionate speech during the competition about the value of hard work learned through years of volunteering at the fair. He’s a strong public speaker, even though he’s never been on a debate team or other official activity. Again, he credits his years on sports teams for this skill.
“I was the captain of every pretty well every team I've been on,” he said. “So you get a lot of practice speaking in front of your 30-man team or whatever, and you’ve got to motivate them…and get them excited before a race. So being the captain of teams definitely helps with the nerves in front of groups and things like that."
Just the second man to represent the Fair after Roy Loree held the title in 2011, he’s looking forward to being a strong ambassador for Rockton, and says his calendar is filling up with activities through the rest of the year. He’ll be at the upcoming Rockton Dinner Theatre, take part in community events such as the Lynden Canada Day parade, the Dundas Cactus Festival and of course, the Fair itself.
He says he’s looking forward to the CNE Ambassador of the Fair program in August.
“The thing that I'm most excited for would be the CNE competition, just because you meet every other ambassador from fairs in Ontario,” he said. “So it's just going to be super cool to hear about their fairs and everything, and meet new people that obviously have similar interests.”
He acknowledges he’ll be one of just a couple of men at the event, as the ambassador role has traditionally been filled by young women.
“I think it'll be all right. We all have the same goal,” he said. “We have the same interests and we’re all pretty similar, I guess.”
