Dill Howell Award Recipients:

Ben Cheney, Rosy Ryan, Bobby Adams and Mikal Thomsen

Ben Cheney

Without Ben Cheney, Tacoma wouldn’t have the longest tenure of any franchise currently in the Pacific Coast League (now more generically called Triple-A West).

Over 60 years of longevity in the storied history of the Coast League became an impromptu reality in 1960. That’s when Cheney contributed $100,000 to join funding from the City of Tacoma and others to build a stadium in less than 100 days that would allow the San Francisco Giants Triple-A team to move from Phoenix. Using light towers and seats from Seals Stadium in San Francisco (the light towers still stand and there are a handful of the original box seats still around the area), the crew completed the stadium which has since featured Cheney’s name.

Dill Howell Award Recipients

The Cheney name had previously become synonymous with local sports as Ben Cheney used profits from his lumber business to start a charitable foundation and sponsor many youth and adult amateur athletic teams. Cheney sponsored dozens of teams in multiple sports, including some that advanced beyond local leagues to win national championships.

The Ben B. Cheney Foundation has been a long-lasting success and contributor to the communities in which the Cheney Lumber Company had mills. The foundation still provides support to a variety of athletic endeavors and many other causes and needs in the community.

Cheney was born in Lima, Montana in 1905. After his mother died, he moved to live with his grandparents in South Bend, Washington—on Willapa Harbor—at age 9.

After he earned a basic education in business, Cheney went to work as a stenographer at the Dempsey Lumber Co. for just $85 a month. In 1929, Cheney was hired by the Fairhurst Lumber Co. primarily as a wholesaler. In 1936, he founded the Cheney Lumber Company, establishing mills in Tacoma and Medford, Oregon. He standardized the production of 2-by-4 wall studs creating a more efficient sawmill process with less lumber waste. Many of the teams he sponsored