MONTEGO BAY, St James – RAYMOND ‘Ray’ Harvey, Meet Director and chairman of the organising Committee of the Milo Western Relays is to be conferred with the Order of Distinction in the rank of officer during the annual National Honours and Awards ceremony at King’s House on October 17.

Harvey, who has been involved with the staging of the successful one-day meet since 1985 when he joined Aubrey Campbell, will be one of five persons who will be recognised for their contribution to sports.

The others are Molly May Rhone, Rev Emhrain Morgan, Peter Moses and John Green.

A former hurdler who represented Jamaica at several levels since making the national team to the 9th Central American and Caribbean Games as a schoolboy at Kingston College in 1962, Harvey has also competed at the Commonwealth Games, Pan-American Games.

In an interview with Observer West earlier this week, Harvey said that while he is honoured to have been selected as a recipient of the national honours, it is “no time to sit back and rest as plans are already well underway for next year’s staging of the Milo Western Relays to be held at the Montego Bay Sports Complex on February 11.”

Harvey said that among his many accomplishments, he was proud of his contributions to the sport in western Jamaica and has seen first-hand the “tremendous improvement in the quality of Western Jamaica’s Track meets, which now attract the majority of Jamaica’s outstanding athletes.”

This improvement has resulted from his insistence that officials who run meets are trained and suitably qualified.

Harvey was captain of the track and field team at the University of Nebraska where he broke several school and conference records.

He was also the World Record holder in the 60 yards low hurdles, running 6.70 seconds in 1966.

Harvey was the youngest president of the Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association, serving between 1971 and 1975 and is still actively involved in track and field administration, serving as Meet Director for the Gibson Relays since 2002 and Meet Manager for the Jamaica International Invitational and the National Junior and Senior Championships.

He was also the Meet Manager for the highly acclaimed and very successful IAAF World Junior Championships held in Kingston in 2002. He was the Competition Director for the equally successful CARIFTA Games held in Montego Bay in 2011.

Havey has been Team Leader for numerous national teams to CARIFTA Games, CAC Games, Commonwealth Games, and Indoor World Championships.

His athletic experience has not gone unnoticed, as he frequently performs his role as an expert commentator and track and field analyst for radio and television at track meets staged locally.