Bernie Borden
admits that while he was a
good athlete, he wasn’t a great
one. Yet, the contributions
Borden has made to his
hometown of Clio are that of
legend.
Borden is being inducted
into the Greater Flint Area
Sports Hall of Fame’s
Class of 2012 as a special
service award nomination
— a tribute to his lifetime of
promoting athletics in the Clio
community.
“It’s an honor and certainly
an unexpected one,” said
the 83-yeard-old Borden, a
1947 graduate of Clio High
School and current Clio
resident. “Clio obviously is
very important to me and
anything my wife (Betty) and
I have done to help in any
way, we were happy to do it
because it’s important to our
community.”
Borden, former owner of
Borden’s Pharmacy, has
sponsored numerous softball
and baseball teams — both
youth and adult — as well as
individual athletes looking to
raise funds to attend athletic
camps. He is also a longtime
supporter of Clio High School
athletics, both financially and
as a fan.
The softball field at Clio
High School is named in his
honor, as is the bridge at M-57 and I-75 in Clio.
“Well, the school is still
very important to me and I
follow all the teams as best
I can. Through the good and
the bad, I suffer along with
them,” Borden said of his
support for Clio athletics.
“I’m still involved as much
as I can be and if they need
something, I do what I can to
help them out.”
Borden was nominated for
the Greater Flint Area Sports
Hall of Fame by Tom Skinner,
a longtime friend who is the
president of the Greater
Flint Area Baseball-Softball
Association.
“This is a guy who came
from a small town, he’s a
Clio guy and as soon as he
was able to establish himself
in business, he immediately began giving back to
the community,” Skinner
said. “People like that are
indispensable around here.”
