South Huron District High School music director Isaac Moore leads the senior concert band at MusicFest Canada in Ottawa

Story and photos by Casey Lessard

They’re the best percussion ensemble in Canada, and they’re right here in our backyard. Led by music director Isaac Moore and coach Dave Robilliard, South Huron District High School’s percussionists won the Zildjian Outstanding Percussion Section Award at this year’s MusicFest Canada national competition in Ottawa May 22; graduating student Jon Gill of Grand Bend, who is attending UWO for music in the fall, won the Zildjian Outstanding Percussionist Award. Judge and seminar leader Wayne Toews called the group the best student percussion ensemble in Canada, and could challenge any group in the world. If that’s the case, says Robilliard, it’s because the students are fully committed to success.
“We challenge our students in a way that other percussion ensembles I’ve seen in Canada are not challenged,” says Robilliard. “We give them – and they’ve requested – very difficult material that requires extra time and rehearsal on their time. It’s one of the best things (judge) Wayne Toews has seen in high school percussion ensembles, so in his eyes, it’s world class. It’s a very flattering statement.”
The accolades came hours after performing at the nationals; the percussionists performed last and earned a gold standard, while two other groups led by Moore and fellow teacher Matt Weston – the senior concert band and senior jazz bands – performed earlier the same day, each earning the silver award.
“A lot of kids in the music program are goal-oriented students,” says Moore, “and they respond well to having a goal. Whether we go to nationals or regionals, that goal is one of the things that motivate them to continue to get better. MusicFest Canada is on a different level because you have 10,000 kids from across Canada who are passionate about music. Something really special gets created when you put them together in the same place.”
To compete at nationals, the bands had to earn either gold or high silver with invitation at the regional competition in London. When the nationals are held in Ottawa, South Huron finds it convenient to attend, and a great experience as well.
“Ottawa is a great place to play, and the National Arts Centre is one of the best concert halls in the country, as it should be,” Moore says. “The experience of playing in that building and hearing other bands in that building, it’s incredible for them. It’s probably something a lot of them won’t have the opportunity to do again, so it’s important for me that every student experience the nationals if possible.”
During the years when the competition is not in Ottawa, Moore and Weston take the music students on non-MusicFest trips, including last year’s trip to Chicago. It’s part of Moore’s mission to give a rounded music education.
“A teacher I had while at university asked, are you giving your students a fantastic four-year band program, or are you giving your students a fantastic band program for four years, as in the same program for four years,” he says.
“A lot of what we do is based on routine and tradition, and it called into question for me how you maintain tradition and routine, but also offer the kids a different experience over the four years they are here. It opened my mind to the different options of where kids can go and what they can learn. In the four years you’ve got, you can do a lot.”
This year’s trip to the nationals was the second for Robilliard, whose father Bob was music director at South Huron for many years. After returning to Canada from graduate school in Oklahoma, Dave Robilliard joined Moore and Weston – the three studied percussion together at UWO – three years ago to lighten their load.
“I am able to focus on techniques and sound concepts that Isaac and Matt can’t focus on in the large classroom or band settings,” says Robilliard, who, unlike education majors Moore and Weston, pursued performance at university. He now works with the Stratford and International Symphonies, serves as a substitute for the Kitchener and Windsor Symphonies, and performs in a percussion group called DuO. His contribution has led to great success for the students.
“We received a gold standard in 2008,” he says, “which was my first year working with percussion ensemble. There was still a large number of carryover of students this year – Jon Gill, Joe Pavkeje and Jeff Penn – and we won gold again. But we don’t do it for the awards. We want to see students grow as musicians and see their confidence grow on stage.”
While South Huron has a full trophy case – and that’s just from this year – Moore agrees that they’re not looking for pats on the back.
“The real measure of success is how we feel about our performances when we’re done. I measure our success as a teacher how we fare when we compete at a higher level (the 2008 bronze winning senior concert band competed in a higher bracket this year and earned silver). If we were not taking the kids to an uncomfortable place, it would be an exercise in self-confidence. It makes more sense to shoot a little beyond where you might be so you can develop.”
The success can be attributed to the approach of the teachers, and the commitment of the students.
“It’s a lot of practice, a lot of one-on-one with your section and Mr. Moore,” says graduating student Trish Pavkeje, who performed in the concert and jazz bands. “It helps that Mr. Moore and Mr. Weston are easy to talk to. It’s easy to ask them for help.”
“Everyone’s on the same level and enjoys being there with everyone else,” says Joe Pavkeje, a member of all three groups, winner of the national honour award for the jazz band, and SHDHS student of the year. “Our school isn’t segregated into athletic kids and music kids. Everyone is doing everything. It feels cohesive for that reason.”
Clarinet player Stephanie Pratt agrees.
“Kids from all over the school are in this, so you get a sense of diversity,” Pratt says, noting music is attractive because of the lessons you learn. “Self-discipline is important, you learn a lot of patience and togetherness.”
For Stephen Mills, who has experienced bullying at school, the inclusivity makes the music room a refuge.
“We have to work together to do anything in the band,” Mills says. “We all have to talk to each other, and when you have to talk to someone, you appreciate them for who they are.”
And that’s exactly what Isaac Moore wants to hear.
“If a student is willing to commit themselves to the educational experience, we try not to discriminate in any way. Students can find their place in the band based on their strengths and weaknesses. Without your strong players and weaker players, you can’t maintain consistency. Eventually the weak players become strong and take over the leadership roles.”
Now that many members of the successful bands are graduating, Moore, Weston and Robilliard look to the future.
“We take it year by year,” Robilliard says. “The younger students will now have an opportunity to succeed at a higher level than they’ve had in the past. We’re going to do a lot of different pieces in different styles, and give everyone an opportunity to learn and grow.”

The Grand Bend Strip and publisher Casey Lessard took home more awards than any other newspaper in Ontario Friday, May 14 at the Ontario Community Newspapers Association gala held in Toronto. Here are the results and judges’ comments:

Is mom stunned by the success of the Grand Bend Strip? Unfortunately, they only take one photo at the Ontario Community Newspapers Association awards banquet in Toronto, and this is the one they sent us. From left: publisher Casey Lessard, mom Rita Lessard, OCNA president Don MacLeod, and co-owner Anjhela Michielsen hold the most plaques taken home by any newspaper at this year’s awards, held May 14.

3rd place – General Excellence (best overall paper), circulation under 1,999
Note: Top marks in 4 of 11 categories, including Front Page, Presentation, Photography, and Production Quality
Judges Norm Park, Cindy Beaulieu, Kelly Clammer, Heather Thomson: The most eye-appealing publication in this class. No question about artistic quality and photo presentation. That is tops in the class. This paper also provides good, easy to read features with strong leads. It’s a home-spun feel-good paper with a professional flair.

2nd place – Photographer of the Year (competing with all newspapers)
Judge Bill White: Strong features. Some very nice lighting.

1st place – Best Creative Advertising (under 9,999) – ad promoting Casey365.com
Judge Wayne Aubert: Unexpected clean layout for the clutter of ads in a community paper.

1st place – Best Feature Photo (under 9,999) – cover photo from Parkhill fair
Judge Dave White: I think the photographer made some smart decisions regarding depth of field and camera angle to help us feel this child’s pure joy. The viewer is right there with her. I really love this image.

2nd place – Education Writing – SHDHS music trip to Chicago
Judge Richard Dal Monte: Great photos and a good idea going along for the ride on the band trip to the Windy City.

3rd place – Best Sports Photo – Hockey Night in Zurich dressing room photo
Judge Ron Scheffler: The photographer is commended for exploring behind the scenes to reveal a closer look at those who play simply for the love of the sport.

3rd place – Best Photo Layout – Parkhill’s Five Fun Days
Judge Joe Callahan: An uncomplicated layout and typography that allowed the photograph to communicate effectively.

3rd place – Best Rural Story (under 9,999) – potato farmer Marcus Koenig
Judge Jake Boudrot: Well written, well researched, significant local story, with a nice layout and excellent photographs.

Why you’ll see PVB on the beach this summer

PVB Enterprises runs Canada’s largest independent beach volleyball camps. When one of owner and former national team member Mark Reilly’s club players, Taylor Ivey, and her parents Charlie and Katrine invited him to Grand Bend, an idea was born.
Reilly proposed developing a program in Grand Bend similar to the one he started in 1999 at Ashbridge’s Bay in Toronto. With plans to operate youth and adult camps and tournaments on the town’s north beach, Reilly and PVB approached Lambton Shores council in October 2009 and entered into a contract March 29, 2010 to run 15 courts for ten summers for $1500 per year.
Residents were informed April 5, and expressed to Reilly and the Iveys at a PVB-hosted meeting May 1 that they disapproved of the project and wanted it stopped.
While council supports the project, contractual problems (discussed on page 4 of this edition) led Lambton Shores to give PVB the 60 days notice required to void the contract. Council decided Monday night to renegotiate, and the matter is before lawyers. The Grand Bend Strip spoke with Mark Reilly Sunday night, ahead of the meeting, to see what he’d like to see now.

Interview by Casey Lessard

Grand Bend, Ontario - Mark Reilly of PVB volleyball.

Some changes to your original contract have been made as of Friday. What is the status?
Following the May 1 meeting we had with the community, we realized and were sensitive to many of the residents’ concerns. We’ve scaled back the contract and nothing has been signed yet, but we’ve had discussions with the municipality on how we could change a few clauses. Essentially adapt the contract to better suit the needs of the community and the municipality. We realize that the nature of the contract will demand an exceptional relationship with the municipality.

Here are some quick facts about the program: the original contract pitched 15 courts on the north beach for 10 years at $1500 per year; basically 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week for 15 weeks. What is the new agreement you’ve come up with the town?
We’ve scaled back the number of courts from 15 to 10 in year one. We’ve cut out all of the adult programming, all of the liquor licences and the idea of running tournaments where liquor would be involved for year one. We’ve entered a profit sharing agreement with the municipality where registration that comes through on the tournament side would result in revenue for the municipality. We’ve taken all of their concerns and digested them and came up with a proposal we believe will be suitable to the municipality and the residents.

Is the time length pretty similar?
We’ve scaled things back big time. We’re trying to show the residents and the municipality that we are listening and we’re hoping the residents will be sensitive to the changes and aware that the changes were made on behalf of them.
The courts are not being used nearly as much as it appears. In terms of the beach being used 24/7 by the beach volleyball courts, that’s not even close to a true equation. We have three child youth camps in place that are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays, and that’s for a total of three weeks. We’re running three OVA youth tournaments; we cancelled our first tournament in June.

One big change is the venue.
Yeah, the venue is now being changed to the main beach. For us, it’s equally exciting. Each beach has its advantages, but the main beach, we’re very happy to be there.

Would you consider other venues?
The program needs to exist and function out of the Grand Bend beach. The beach is the lifeline to the success of the program. Tourists and volleyball clientele want to be on the beach and experiencing beach volleyball on the beach in front of the water. Grand Bend presents an exceptional beach to do that on.

A lot of people remarked on the dollar figure for the original deal. What is the situation now?
The municipality will be making more money now, but it’s a win-win. What will end up happening in the new deal, the town will make more money with more programming. Should we be offered more tournament time, the municipality and businesses will make more money. Should they decide to lighten the tournament load, they end up getting less revenue. They want more money, they’re getting more money. But with that, we have to have more tournaments.

What is your vision for beach volleyball in Grand Bend?
We’re going to take slow steps and see what the market yields. If you do your research, some of your top volleyball players, including the top male and top female, came from the London and Kitchener-Waterloo areas. Western Ontario has a great volleyball history, and that history will get better. You’ll start to see beach volleyball athletes develop. Athletes simply don’t want to travel to Toronto and Cobourg, so our hope is a lot of families will see an opportunity to stay close to home and invest their time and energy in Grand Bend.

What’s your reaction to the way the community reacted to your proposal?
You have a generational gap who don’t understand the demands that young children are faced with and the many routes young children and adults can take these days. They don’t get the PlayStations and all the other distractions life presents for these families and young kids. I’m sensitive to that. I’m not calling them naïve. I’m calling them unfamiliar with the environment kids are dealing with.
At the same time, I’m completely aware and sensitive to these families who are craving more for their children. This program, without a doubt, is going to give the community a healthy, athletic focus. There are many residents, older and younger, who are afraid to speak. The way the other side presented their case, it was quite bluntly very aggressive. Any time people are afraid to speak, you have a problem. People should be able to speak openly and voice their opinions, and that certainly was not the case with this item. A lot of misinformation was dealt initially, and that bred anger and created a revolt against the project. As a citizen, I don’t agree with that.

I understand you have received some threats. Do you have any safety concerns?
I don’t. I think there will be a lot of focus and attention dealt toward volleyball and I think it’s a good thing. People are going to quickly realize this is a good, sound project, and we’re doing a good thing for the community. People involved in the project are going to take a lot of pride in the program, what we’re doing. I’m not concerned about safety at this point. We’ve addressed some of the safety issues, and we made it very clear that we’re going to be watching very carefully for outsiders who are not in support of the program.

There have been suggestions that because of your relationship to Charlie Ivey, who is related to former mayor Cam Ivey, that some favour was curried here. Has your affiliation with the Iveys led to any special treatment at council?
For anyone who wants to know how the volleyball business works, this has been the most taxing volleyball project I’ve ever been attached to. For anyone who thinks this has been an easy journey and that the Iveys have helped streamline this process and make it easy for us to get a contract, they’re sadly mistaken. Of every deal I’ve ever put together – with literally 20 or 30 companies or municipalities – this has been an extremely detailed process. Charlie has been a mentor to me, but in no way, shape or form has the Ivey name taken this deal through the pipes easily.

How do you heal the gap between your company, which wants to be here, and the people who are already here, especially the group led by Ed Fluter? What steps can you and they take to heal that rift?
I think they have to understand that there is a generation looking for more. We’re very grateful and thankful to be on the beach. We plan on working through a program model that is respectful to the community. If they plan to continue to slam the program and ruin the program, if that’s how they want to spend their lives and create their legacy in Grand Bend, that’s their path. If that’s the path they want to take, no one can stop them. But I’ll tell you that they’ll be upsetting a lot of families if it continues.

What is Grand Bend missing if it decides not to do this?
It’s a watershed moment. In the community of Grand Bend, we’ve had countless people email us to say they’re scared and are starving for a program like this. There’s a group of people that yields a lot of power and they do it in ways like mobbing. That’s what this was. They created misinformation and have managed to get a whole lot of people angry.

What if you aren’t here? What will you do?
I’ll continue on. I’m a passionate guy who’s involved in a game that’s done a lot for me. I don’t plan on ever stopping my volleyball journey. The sport has done wonderful things for my life and I feel I’m a disciple of the game.
If we need to go an alternative route, we will. But my hope is we don’t have to go down that road. I’m really confident that Grand Bend is the right spot to be.

Ed Fluter is a Grand Bend resident and representative of a new community association supported by many residents in the area. Fluter and his group oppose the PVB project – and any others – using the public beach for commercial purposes.
The Grand Bend Strip spoke with him shortly before Monday night’s council meeting.

Interview and photo by Casey Lessard

What are your main issues with volleyball on the beach at Grand Bend?
This is not a volleyball issue. I am a strong proponent of volleyball and other sports. My career was as a physical educator and coach. I love volleyball and sports and the benefits of sports. This issue is about commercializing our beach, a beach that has been designated for public use. It’s my feeling and our feeling – I represent a fairly large segment of the population right now – that no commercial activity should take over any portion of any of our beaches.
Beach volleyball is big business. If you have John Morrison of Not So Pro owing the City of Toronto $328,000 (including, according to the Globe and Mail, $113,000 for three months rent), you have to know this is big business. Even if it weren’t a huge potential for business, it’s still a for-profit activity on our beach.

So what do you say to suggestions that many of those opposed are of a certain generation that does not understand the needs of young people?
It has absolutely nothing to do with it. We are trying to protect this beach for people of all ages. We feel it is totally unfair that an organization of any kind is allowed to take over and lease a portion of public beach for private use for four months. One of the great joys I’ve seen over the years, on that part of the north beach that is not used for bathing purposes, the area considered underutilized is often used for spontaneous free play for people of all ages. I’m a strong advocate of that. Zoning regulation states that lakeshore be used for such passive recreation.
This deal is a precedent we don’t want to be set. I’m not against non-profit groups coming in and using a portion of the beach for a weekend, preferably during the shoulder seasons. In fact, I would be a proponent of that.
That portion of the beach that will be used for beach volleyball can be used by nobody else if they’re running from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week for the entire summer.

You are part of a new group referred to at council as the Community Association of Lambton Shores. Can you tell me about that?
We felt that our voice was not being heard. When you can show up with 100 people at three or four council meetings, when you can show up with 200 at the only meeting we had any opportunity to have input in (the PVB meeting on May 1), when you can get over 1000 names on a petition, including 50 businesses, when you can get that kind of vocal majority and be totally disregarded, you have to take further steps to fight this and other concerns through a group.

This has become quite a heated debate. Someone suggested they would put spikes in the courts where the children were playing volleyball. Do you and your group condone such violence?
Absolutely not. We condone no form of civil disobedience.

What do you plan to do if the revised agreement with fewer courts, shorter hours and fewer tournaments goes ahead this summer?
We are against that because it still doesn’t solve the bottom line issue. We have a number of strategies planned that I would prefer to keep in confidence at this point in time. We’re not going away. We’re not going to roll over and give up on this issue. We’ll take it as far as we possibly can.
There’s a small minority – I call them the silent minority – who claim they haven’t been heard, but have made no attempt to be heard in a formal, professional way other than complaining and gossiping in the background. Let them step forward and speak out.
We’re not getting personal in this debate. I have no personal issues with the proponents. This is an issue we’re fighting because we strongly believe in it.

And why council still wants to see beach volleyball in Grand Bend this summer
Interviews performed by Casey Lessard in advance of May 17 council meeting

Gord Minielly, Mayor
Years on council: more than 25, mayor since 2006.
Position sought in October 2010: none

Did you support the initial proposal from PVB?
Yes.

Do you support the contract the way it was signed?
Yes, I did. We’ve certainly altered it since the original, so I’m supportive of what’s being changed since the original.

Is there anything you would change about the contract?
I think it’s still a good idea, although there is a percentage of people who don’t support it. I like the concept of volleyball for kids on the beach, and I think it’s going to be beneficial to some of the people on the main strip. Maybe we should have done it on a yearly basis. We haven’t done anything about tournaments, but the fact that they’re not going to have any alcohol is a positive. The food voucher thing used to be done by the guy who rented the beach house, but it certainly wasn’t our intent to include that, so it’s gone.
If you bring more people to Grand Bend, the revenue of the businesses should increase. With Americans not coming the last little while and probably again this year, it’s an opportunity to get folks to bring their kids and generate revenue for the main street.

Do you think PVB should be operating on the Grand Bend beach?
I think they should. If they become successful, perhaps we can find a second venue so some of it can happen on the beach and some of it locally nearby without having to drive four or five miles to do that.
We’re kind of out of the contract, in my opinion, so we do have an opportunity to renegotiate if they’re interested. We’re not sure if that’s true or now. As of Friday afternoon, with 60 days notice, we’re out of the contract. They have been given notice.
It gives council some control to tighten up the contract if they’re still interested.

What rationale broke the contract?
It was the insurance portion and the fact that they were supposed to pay their $1500 by a certain date, which they didn’t do. The beginning of the season in the agreement was May 1. (They’ve been informed of this?) Yes.

Do you plan to make a new contract?
If council agrees, we will. If council doesn’t agree, we won’t. As of now, they still have the right to renegotiate. Because of the 60 day notice, there’s a little more time on our side to modify the agreement to what the residents were looking for.

What is your vision for the long-term use of Grand Bend’s beach?
The beach is for everybody’s use. If we can make this successful and bring more people, the long term would be to have two venues. Volleyball on the beach and volleyball close by. It would bring more folks and help everybody be a little more economically viable.

Carolyn Jamieson, Deputy Mayor
Years on council: more than 20
Position sought in 2010: Deputy mayor

Did you support the initial proposal from PVB?
Not the way it was, no. It was way too large.

Do you support the contract the way it was signed?
In principle. I still think it’s probably too big. I had my doubts about the number of courts, but I went along with the majority.
Is there anything you would change about the contract?
No.

Do you think PVB should be operating on the Grand Bend beach?
I do not have a problem with them operating on the beach.

If you could get out of the contract today (interviewed May 16), would you do it?
I have no idea. I hadn’t thought about that.
What is your vision for the long-term use of Grand Bend’s beach?
As a beach. They play volleyball there now, so they should continue to play volleyball. They swim, they sunbathe, they walk. You use it as a beach. I am not a beach person, so I am a poor person to ask. I do not like the water and I do not swim. But I understand that many, many people use that beach. They enjoy the beach.

John Dehondt, Ward 1
Years on council: four
Position sought in 2010: mayor

Did you support the initial proposal from PVB?
Yes and no. I supported a volleyball school. I didn’t support tournaments, beer tents, food concessions, or the size that it came up at. Actually I suggested it be two-thirds the size they suggested.

Do you support the contract the way it was signed?
No.

Is there anything you would change about the contract?
There was to be a clause in it that should the residents not be on side, that we can terminate the contract. There are a number of things wrong with it. That would be the simplest. The way I saw it happening, they would go out and do their communications program. They would come back and say, “it’s not going the way we thought, why don’t we do this and this?” Work out a collaborative agreement between what the residents and PVB wanted.

Do you think PVB should be operating on the Grand Bend beach?
No, I do not.

If you could get out of the contract today (as of May 16), would you do it?
Yes.

What is your vision for the long-term use of Grand Bend’s beach?
My vision is to keep it uncommercialized. I qualify that, too. I’d like to see an international rugby tournament. I’d like to see volleyball played, but being played on four permanent courts that allow people to play, including the teams that have been coming there for years. I’d like to see a committee created that would be made of people from the service clubs that would come up with recommendations of what and how we should protect our beach. That would be the best solution. As far as the volleyball goes, it should go back to the recreation and leisure plan. I think what would be supported would be a small community-based volleyball school. We have enough talent in the community that we could probably create some sort of volleyball school that would be at a different scale than PVB but still give us the opportunity to let young people have sports activities. But it doesn’t have to be on the beach.

Is Klondyke still an option?
Kids don’t care if volleyball is on the beach or at Klondyke. I really don’t believe that. The kids just want to learn and go play volleyball. I can see doing 90 per cent of the activities off beach. They could do finals and tournaments on the beach. That would be perfect. I think residents would get behind that.

Bill Weber, Ward 2
Years on council: 22
Position sought in 10/2010: mayor

Did you support the initial proposal from PVB?
The initial proposal from PVB was different than what was approved by council. Many changes and controls were added by staff following council’s direction from discussions held in open council meetings.

Do you support the contract the way it was signed?
Yes. The contract was moved and seconded and passed by a quorum of council so I support it as a member of council. No, I do not agree with all of the terms in the contract.

Is there anything you would change about the contract?
Things I believe should be negotiated: I have always said that a smaller number of semi permanent courts would be better – six may be a good number; and I think the contract should able to be reviewed, amended, extended, or cancelled each fall after the season of operations.

Do you think PVB should be operating on the Grand Bend beach?
I believe a school for volleyball on the beach can be beneficial to our residents and our businesses, so yes.

If you could get out of the contract today, would you do it?
Anyone can get out of any contract. But what is lost in reputation or opportunity for the community may take years to recover from. The last motion from council was to look at options and negotiate with PVB to address concerns and work toward a volleyball program in Grand Bend.

What is your vision for the long-term use of Grand Bend’s beach?
The beach is public and should be enjoyed by all.

Mark Simpson, Ward 3
Years on council: seven
Position sought in 10/2010: mayor

Did you support the initial proposal from PVB?
In principal I did support the concept. I had concerns with the number of courts, parking, the amount of the lease, and alcohol at events.

Do you support the contract the way it was signed?
As a member of council, I accept the contract as written.

Do you think PVB should be operating on the Grand Bend beach?
The municipality does not provide programming. We provide the facilities for both non-profit and for-profit organizations to provide the programs.

If you could get out of the contract today (as of May 16), would you do it?
While I wasn’t at the council meeting where the contract was approved (I have missed 2 meetings in 7 years, and that was one of them), I support all the decisions made by my colleagues that night.

What is your vision for the long-term use of Grand Bend’s beach?
Passive recreational use with the continued use by community groups for their activities, and for other programs that are suitable for beach use.

Ruth Illman, Ward 4
Years on council: seven

Did you support the initial proposal from PVB?
I supported the concept of a volleyball school on the beach as I believe it provides increased opportunity for physical activity for youth and adults. The volleyball school can also be seen as having potential for economic spin off for community businesses.

Do you support the contract the way it was signed?
Lambton Shores does not have a parks and recreation department and I can support the for-profit proposal provided that we treat this organization consistently with other for-profits that have provided programming in our Lambton Shores facilities and that all operational costs be the responsibility of the organization. I do not envision provision of alcoholic beverages on the beach, use of food vouchers, use of amplified music or PA systems. It is also important to have an evaluation of the program at the end of the season.

Is there anything you would change about the contract?
If I had this to do over, I would prefer that the municipality initiate the communications plan and that we start smaller than what we initially agreed.

Do you think PVB should be operating on the Grand Bend beach?
Yes.

If you could get out of the contract today (as of May 16), would you do it?
We agreed as a council that we wanted staff to go back to PVB and discuss a modified version of the volleyball school. I am hopeful that negotiations and discussions can achieve some positive adjustments.

What is your vision for the long-term use of Grand Bend’s beach?
I see the Grand Bend beach as one of the many jewels of this municipality. I want to see the beach as an attractive, safe and fun place for all of our residents to live and play and for tourists and families to visit. I want to see opportunities for both organized and unorganized play for children and youth.
I want to see the beach continue as an internationally recognized “Blue Flag” beach with more opportunities for environmental programming in partnership with other community groups and organizations. The opportunity for partnerships for environmental education and partnerships in beach safety education is certainly possible in conjunction with a beach volleyball school.
I want to see more opportunities for the handicapped and disabled. The main beach enhancement goes a long way to making the area more accessible but we do need to review the overall beach enhancement plan and consider accessibility possibilities for the north beach. I look forward to community discussions of these issues as we move forward with the Recreation and Leisure Master Plan.
We do not staff a recreation department and we do not have the financial means to do so unfortunately. We facilitate programming by partnering with both public organizations and private profit and not for profit organizations.

Gerry Rupke, Ward 5
Years on council: four
Position sought in 10/2010: Ward 3

Did you support the initial proposal from PVB?
I thought it was a great concept. We had some significant concerns, and they were to be addressed and brought back to council again. I wasn’t there when it came back to council.

Do you support the contract the way it was signed?
It didn’t address all the concerns we had, and one of them was communication with the local residents. We realized from the start that would be problematic, and would require significant effort by the company to sell their program to residents.
Is there anything you would change about the contract?
The communication plan. Nothing proceeds until local residents are happy with the plan.

Do you think PVB should be operating on the Grand Bend beach?
I think it’s a good potential use of the beach, yes. I’ve seen it done in other communities. In fact, I was just in Israel, and in Tel Aviv they have a very similar beach. There were four or five courts there in continuous use and quite compatible with other uses adjacent to it.

If you could get out of the contract today (as of May 16), would you do it?
Yes. I would alter it. (But you support them offering something on the beach?) Yes.

What is your vision for the long-term use of Grand Bend’s beach?
It’s a primary asset of our municipality and should be used for the benefit of our municipality as a whole. All the way along our shoreline we have a great asset, and we should ensure it is used in an environmentally appropriate way to benefit this community.

Doug Cook, Ward 6
Years on council: A few months
Position sought in 10/2010: Ward 6

Did you support the initial proposal from PVB?
(Was not on council at the time.)
Do you support the contract the way it was signed?
I would support most of it in principle.
Is there anything you would change about the contract?
I’m a business owner, so I thought they were given a pretty lucrative opportunity for $1500. That’s my only position.

Do you think PVB should be operating on the Grand Bend beach?
I have no problem with that.

If you could get out of the contract today (as of May 16), would you do it?
I still like the premise. The fact that you’re giving young people the opportunity to have a sports program in Grand Bend is a good thing. The spinoff benefit to the local businesses was another opportunity for them. Businesses on the main drag tend to need some support, so I think more traffic in town wouldn’t hurt them at all.
What is your vision for the long-term use of Grand Bend’s beach?
I really don’t know the issue very well. I’d have to find out more about what’s going on in Grand Bend. There is a recreation committee being put together right now that will be coming out in the next few months, and it will give direction for what we will see in parks and recreation use across Lambton Shores.

John Russell, Ward 7
Years on council: less than a year
Position sought in 10/2010: Undecided

Did you support the initial proposal from PVB?
Yes.

Do you support the contract the way it was signed?
I don’t support the existing contract because I didn’t know it was going to be signed (missed meeting due to family concerns).

Is there anything you would change about the contract?
Those are all details. The issue is for or against. I’m for it. I’m for volleyball. I’m for recreational opportunities. We made mistakes and PVB made major mistakes because they didn’t listen to us when we said they had to deal with the public. That’s our mistake, too, because we didn’t force their hand with that.

Do you think PVB should be operating on the Grand Bend beach?
I have no problem with them operating on the beach.

If you could get out of the contract today (as of May 16), would you do it?
Yeah. I made a motion that was defeated at the last council meeting that referred the issue of volleyball as a use of beach. It should be referred to the master plan on recreation, which is starting as we speak. We have a strategic plan. Recreation, heritage and culture are not in that plan. A strategic plan without recreation is not strategic.
I supported what they were trying to do. The idea of having volleyball on the beach is a good idea. But we have a bad history on this council of not using the public in a correct manner. That’s why you have these types of documents and public processes (master plans, etc.). Because this wasn’t quite correct, I suggested that the world wouldn’t come to an end if you don’t do it right now.

What is your vision for the long-term use of Grand Bend’s beach?
I don’t have one. That’s why I go through processes like that. I spent a lot of years chairing planning in Bosanquet, and my feeling is this: it’s not my vision; you get public input and find out.

The Grand Bend Strip leads all community newspapers in Ontario with eight nominations for this year’s Ontario Community Newspaper Awards, including best overall paper and photographer of the year for Casey Lessard. The top three entrants were announced March 1; winners will be announced at the OCNA’s annual conference in Toronto May 14. The Parry Sound North Star has the second most nominations with seven.
To learn more about the Grand Bend Strip’s history of awards since its first publication in May 2007, visit http://www.grandbendstrip.com/about/awards.

The Grand Bend Strip and publisher Casey Lessard are nominated in the following categories:

General Excellence – Class 1
(Award for best overall paper from two random issues submitted)
Other nominees: Cobden Sun and Manotick Messenger

Education Writing
(Chicago! – SHDHS music trip)
Other nominees: Parry Sound Beacon Star and Richmond Hill/Thornhill Liberal

Best Rural Story (circ under 9,999)
(Fields of Gold – Marcus Koenig, potato farmer)
Other nominees: Listowel Banner and New Hamburg Independent

Best Feature Photo (circ under 9,999)
(Best Seat in the House – Dashwood soap box derby cover photo)
Other nominees: Aylmer Express and Bracebridge Examiner

Best Photo Layout
(Five days of good, clean fun – Parkhill Five Fun Days)
Other nominees: Ajax/Pickering News Advertiser and North York Mirror

Best Sports Photo
(Hockey Night in Zurich – Mark Buruma in dressing room)
Other nominees: Brampton Guardian and Mount Forest Confederate

Photographer of the Year
(Casey Lessard, photographer)
Other nominees: Belleville EMC and Peterborough This Week

Best Creative Advertising (circ under 9,999)
(Casey365.com – ad promoting website)
Other nominees: Mount Forest Confederate and Nunavut News/North

February 4
Hensall Public School

February 25
Stephen Central Public School

March 4
ARC makes recommendations to board

2008-09 school populations
Source: AMDSB.ca
Zurich – 148 (110% of capacity of 135)
Exeter – 303 (74% of capacity of 409)
Stephen – 171 (68% of capacity of 250)
Hensall – 152 (58% of capacity of 262)
Usborne – 117 (52% of capacity of 227)

Avon-Maitland District School Board superintendent of operations Mike Ash is the chair of the Accommodation Review Committee examining which schools should close in South Huron and Bluewater. The contentious decision will be made this summer, and may see one or more local communities lose their schools. The committee, consisting of school and community representatives, meets every few weeks to discuss the options and present their suggestions.

As told to Casey Lessard

Any accommodation review is a difficult process for the community. It’s also difficult for the trustees and the board staff as we consider these decisions. At the end of the day, we as a board have to be able to demonstrate that we are using the tax dollars we receive in a fiscally responsible fashion. If there are ways we can use the grant dollars we get, we need to do that. Duplication between schools can be questioned as an effective use of revenue.
More important to us, though, is being able to provide an effective quality program. Our belief based on our experiences is that we need to have a sufficient number of students in a building to allow us to prevent triple-grade classes as a minimum. This can also allow us flexibility in timetabling to minimize the number of double-grade classes, and provide options to students to be in a straight-grade class or a split-grade class. We also believe that there should be a sufficient number of classes so that you have more than one teacher in a particular division so those teachers can collaborate and learn from each other in terms of best teaching practices and improve the learning environment. As schools get smaller, it becomes more difficult, if not impossible, to achieve that level of staffing to allow for that dialogue to occur or to provide that flexibility in terms of timetabling.
Based on enrolment projections, the board has done some difficult work to consolidate the schools so we will have a stable, viable school system going forward. The enrolment in our area is projected to plateau and then rise a little bit. That increase in school age children will be very small. If we can come up with a consolidated group of schools in South Huron now, that will serve the needs of students for 10-15 years, if not longer.
Last year, we did a formal accommodation review with the Usborne school committee. At the end of that process, the trustees deferred a decision on the future of Usborne Central PS pending a review of all of the schools in the South Huron area.
The five elementary schools that feed into South Huron District High School were identified as having about 400 empty spaces in their schools. In addition to that, we have a couple of schools that have fewer than 150 students. The combination of the empty spaces, plus a significant number of spaces in SHDHS has prompted the staff to recommend that we look at the accommodation in that area.
Staff and the community have presented a number of options. The preferred option from the board staff includes both the closure of Usborne Central PS and either Hensall PS or Zurich PS, and then the redistribution of students from those schools to the remaining schools. At the last two meetings, we’ve also presented and discussed the closure of Stephen Central PS, and a configuration that would see two of the five schools close with the remaining schools operating as K-8. In the other scenarios, we were presenting Grades 7 and 8 at the high school. Friends of Hensall PS have presented the idea of closing Exeter PS and merging it with the high school through an addition to create a K-12 school. That would address excess capacity, but it wouldn’t address program delivery issues that would be present at the other schools that have small populations and small staffs.
Closing Exeter is a viable option for discussion. The concern with that is: where do the capital dollars come from to build the addition onto South Huron DHS? That money ultimately has to come from the Ministry of Education of the Province of Ontario. In our dialogue with the ministry financial folks, they only become interested in capital funding when it meets certain criteria. At this point in time, those criteria would require the closure of at least three schools to create a school in the order of at least 500 students. Any plan would have to include the use of any other excess capacity in the area under review, so that would include the secondary school. The ministry probably won’t provide capital to the board unless the community is on side with how that capital will be used.
The reality is that schools that are smaller than 500 aren’t self-sustainable in terms of the funding mechanism that is currently in place. In a district like ours, the schools that are 350 or 400 students are actually subsidizing the smaller schools. When a trustee looks at the equitable distribution of funding across the board, that is a concern. Should the smaller schools be subsidized by larger classes in larger schools?

Certainly the board trustees and staff are aware that closing a school is traumatic and has an effect on the community. Unfortunately, when we start weighing that impact, which is speculative, with the reality that we have to provide a program for our students today and balance our budget today, the program issues and the board’s financial picture will carry more weight than the impact on the community. Ultimately, we are charged with providing a quality education for our students, and their needs come first.
Quality of life is also a concern. Usborne and Stephen Central are both fully bused now. Any changes in the location of where those students would attend in the case of Usborne would actually reduce the bus ride for those students because the buses are run in conjunction with the secondary school and they stop there before going to Usborne. If the Usborne students were relocated to Exeter, they would have a shorter bus ride. If Hensall were to close, we would be putting a group of students who do not currently ride the bus, depending on where they live, on a bus ride ranging between 30 and 60 minutes per day. It’s a similar situation in Zurich. We do take that into account, and as we plan our bus routes, we make them an hour or less wherever possible.

It is not a done deal (i.e. the end result is not predetermined). The trustees make the decision. Staff and the ARC make recommendations; staff need to make their recommendations based on the ARC’s recommendations, so until they make that decision, the staff is listening. Then the trustees will consider all of the information and make a decision in June.
The timeframe for the ARC deliberations has been sufficient based on others in the past. One of the challenges for the members of the ARC is to keep focused on their mandate. The recommendations to the trustees don’t have to be accurate to the penny in terms of potential capital costs or changes in costs for the board, but they do have to give trustees a picture of what the community would like to see in terms of a school configuration for the next 10-15 years.

We know that when we go into this process that we will not make everyone happy. We focus on the core issues. For the school board, they are the delivery of program and ensuring we’re using our financial resources most efficiently and effectively. At the same time, we want to wherever possible address the concerns of the community while ensuring a quality program.

The next public meeting is at Hensall PS February 4, followed by one at Stephen Central PS February 25. The ARC will make its recommendations at a meeting March 4. Staff will report in April, and the trustees are currently scheduled to decide at a meeting June 22. The board typically ensures at least one year for transition, so changes would not be implemented until September 2011.

Joan Bradley is the vice-chair of the Hensall Public School parent council. All three of her daughters attend the school.

As told to Casey Lessard

With my children, part of the deal when we moved here was that they did not want somewhere they would have to ride the bus. They wanted to have a school close by and that was part of our decision to move to Hensall.
The board proposal was to close Usborne and either Hensall or Zurich, and move the 7s and 8s into the high school from all feeder schools. I’m opposed to putting the 7s and 8s into the high school. I understand some of the philosophy behind it, but the places where it has been done (Goderich and Stratford) are urban schools. In Goderich, the students can go over to the public school to walk home younger siblings. Here, we’ll be losing before and after school child care, and it leaves a big hole for us.
No community wants to lose their school. It’s so detrimental to the community. Part of the detriment is that Hensall has some great affordable housing. Young families won’t choose to move to Hensall if there isn’t a school.
I don’t want to ship my children to Exeter. It’s an older facility, it has issues with bus loading and unloading, there’s no parking, there’s very little playground space, it’s not an accessible building, there are security issues because the office doesn’t face the front door. Why close a good facility with room for expansion to put children in a school that is 70-plus years old and has seven or eight additions to it?
It’s still a lovely school and well-maintained, but it’s so close to the high school, why not make the high school into a K-12 school? It’s the right thing to do as far as taxpayer dollars go. If we’re having declining enrolment at the elementary schools, it’s going to hit the high school eventually. We’re not always going to be able to save these rural schools, but closing them and shoving the students in a facility that’s in worse shape than the one they’re coming from is not a good solution. A K-12 school at the high school is the standard practice that seems to be going on in Ontario right now. We just have to find a way to get the capital ($2 million).
The board tells us we would have to close at least three schools to get any capital from the Ministry of Education. The projections for South Huron District High School are attendance of 455 by 2018, so eight years from now. My question is, what is the cutoff to make a viable high school?
I think we need to figure out how to get some capital into this game. I haven’t crunched the numbers, but I think there’s a way we can get some funding. We need to build a good enough business case about making that a K-12 school to keep some long-term stability in the community. Closing one of these schools and pumping more into Exeter, only to have a school 20 years from now that is impossible to repair, how does that show foresight on our part?

We want to make sure we have a recommendation that accurately reflects what the community’s wills and wishes are and viable enough that the board will go ahead and accept it. If we’re not thorough enough, what we put forward may be revised slightly so they end up with an issue like they have in Blyth. They put forward a recommendation that all schools converge into one super school in Wingham, and they ended up splitting the town so that half of the students go to Hullett and half go to Wingham. Blyth ended up feeling ripped off because they lost their school and don’t get to take advantage of a new facility.

I don’t believe the decision has been made. The proposal in St. Marys is not what happened. The proposal in Wingham is not what happened. Our trustee Randy Wagler has been fairly responsive. I do think they’re trying to listen. It’s our job to make our wills and wishes heard.

It’s a lengthy, complicated process. There are a lot of things to take into consideration: how to best educate the children in the area, maintain things in the community, and make sure we’re spending our tax dollars wisely. It’s not an easy committee to be on. We’ve been inundated with copious amounts of material to try to get through and figure stuff out. It’s extremely challenging.

Laurie Russell is the chair of the Exeter Public School parent council.

As told to Casey Lessard

Emotions are running rampant. No one wants their school closed. The reality is one or two schools have to close. It’s just the reality. To come up with a decision that everyone agrees with is not an easy process.
In Hensall and Zurich, if one or both close, it will have a huge impact. Why would new families come into that community if there isn’t a school available to them? They won’t move there.
I understand everyone’s putting proposals forward to make it fair, to make everyone involved. At first, Exeter and Stephen Central were not on the chopping block, even though they would be involved. The other night in Exeter, they brought up the option again that the Hensall community came up with of closing Exeter Public School and putting a K-8 school in the high school. The board came back and said that’s really not an option for funds. They said the ministry wouldn’t consider offering the money without closing three schools.

Closing Exeter is an option. Exeter Public School is not greatly represented at these meetings. The Exeter PS community seems to feel they are not affected. Exeter PS may not close, but it will be affected. I have put a plea out to the parents and guardians of the children and explained the options and telling them that we will be affected. Unfortunately we only had a handful out to the meeting the other night, one other representative at the Usborne meeting, and no one at the Zurich meeting.
I understand everyone’s concern about the age of Exeter PS. Personally, I think it’s in great shape, but I’m obviously biased. The age is one of the main arguments, but everything has been kept up to date. Everyone has cosmetic issues with their school. I don’t think it’s a hazard to anyone’s health to send their children there.

I don’t think there is enough time (given to the committee to make recommendations), but it has worked in other areas. It just happened in North Huron with the same amount of time and number of schools. We’ve had some unofficial meetings outside of the official ARC meetings. I think we should have more time, but…
I don’t think it’s predetermined. (The board) have their ideas, but truthfully, they are open to what we recommend. We do have a voice and they will consider what we come up with.

There is not a solution that everyone will be happy with. In the long run, people may come to think this was the best decision, but right now, there is not a solution where everyone will be happy. Unless this all went away and we all kept our schools.

Trustee Randy Wagler has unenviable task of deciding schools’ fate

Randy Wagler is one of nine trustees who will make the final decision about which school(s) to close. He is a chemical engineer and product manager for Honeywell, and his five children attended Exeter PS and South Huron DHS.

As told to Casey Lessard

I haven’t made up my mind. It’s early. We’re hearing the concerns, and there’s lots of time for more input.
In the end, the goal is to provide the best education we can for students. The best thing for communities is to have the best education for students. Sometimes, it may not be to have it in the particular setting people would like.
There are a number of criteria we consider. The first thing we look at is the impact on students. That has to do with the resources they have. If teachers can collaborate, that will affect their education. We do look at the financial implications because if we don’t have the right finances, that costs students as well. It’s not one or the other. They’re linked.
It makes a community strong when kids get the best education. I realize it’s a challenge, but I will go for the best education for students. If money were not an issue, we might not be doing this. But even then, it’s better when we can put more teachers grouped together to collaborate to improve education.

I think people are now at the point where they’re ready to give some input. It is a difficult process because it may mean some change, which is always a challenge for people. Some of the municipal councils have tried to stop the process or delay it, but the trustees believe the time frame for getting input is reasonable. The committee will be finished its work in March, and they’re ready to start sifting through the information and analyze and give input about the different scenarios.
Some solutions will result in more savings or less savings. There are lots of empty spaces, so that costs us money to keep those spaces open. We don’t have any indication that the ministry will give us any money for capital changes. There’s no influx of money. Given that, the lowest capital options are probably favoured, but we have to look at how it affects students.
I would like a long-term solution so we don’t have to review this within the next 10 years, and one that results in improving education for the students in our area.

We have strong communities. There are lots of communities around that are strong but don’t necessarily have a school in their town, Bayfield as one example. I don’t think it’s the only prerequisite for a strong town. Hopefully people see that, and rally around the quality of education for their students.

Richard Webb wins second Canadian Poker Tour title

Story and file photo by Casey Lessard

Canadian Poker Tour champion Richard Webb will retain his crown after winning the championship this weekend in Calgary, Alberta. The Grand Bend resident beat the tour’s 50 best players, and wins a second $100,000 contract that pays for his travel and entry fees to tournaments around the world.
“I think I’m happier the second time,” Webb said in a phone interview from Calgary. “It was a tougher field this time with even better players.”
In addition to the $100,000 contract, Webb took $120,000 in winnings from the tournaments he entered last year on behalf of the Canadian Poker Tour, among them a win at the Regina Harvest Poker Classic and a second place finish at the Barcelona Open, a stop on the European Poker Tour. The Canadian Poker Tour takes 20 per cent of his winnings, and he donates an additional 10 per cent to charities, including the Grand Bend Public School playground and Grand Bend Rotary.
Considering he spent 90 days on the road this year, he is thankful for his brother and staff for keeping the family business running. One of the highlights of his year was traveling with his wife, Jackie Stenhouse, and their daughter Sarah. This week’s he’s off to join Jackie in Phoenix, Arizona before tournaments in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. In addition to visions of Germany and Greece, a trip to compete in the EPT event at San Remo, Italy, is one he’d like to repeat.
“I love the place. The country is wonderful, the city is wonderful, and we’re going to go back there.”
Webb’s win will be available for viewing at canadianchampionshippoker.com soon. His 2009 win continues to air on The Score.

I traveled to Haiti in 2005 with Baptist Haiti Mission Canada, the Canadian arm of the largest mission based in Haiti. If you are interested in helping people recover there, I encourage you to donate to Baptist Haiti Mission. They are currently accepting donations to their The House That Jack Built fund for rebuilding homes, and named in honour of my partner Anjhela’s uncle Jack Michielsen.

You can send cash or cheque to:

Baptist Haiti Mission Canada
P.O. Box 11
602 Wellington Street
Wallaceburg, ON.
N8A 4L5

Include a note to say you want the funds to go to The House That Jack Built or most urgent need. All donations over $10.00 are receiptable.

Casey

Police seek driver, family seeks closure after Jason Pearson’s death near Grand Bend during Not So Pro volleyball weekend

Originally from Regina, Saskatchewan, Jason Pearson of Waterloo was an avid volleyball player, and serious about taking part in Grand Bend’s Not So Pro tournament each year. After the first day of competition at this year’s event, Pearson was killed while walking back to his campsite at the Grand Bend Motorplex when a truck hit him at 5 a.m. July 26. The vehicle and its driver are still at large.
Days after what would have been Pearson’s 32nd birthday (November 29), Casey Lessard visited Waterloo to speak with his fiancée Erin Jobidon and their friend Drew Neath.

Erin: We hit it off right away. He just glowed. He drew everyone into him. He’d go out of his way to do whatever he could for you. He was always up for something new and was good at everything he did.
I came here to go to the University of Waterloo, and I met Jay at the Boa Nova, a Portuguese-style high-class restaurant. I was working there with Drew’s ex-girlfriend and Jason’s roommate. I was serving and bartending, and he was working there as well; he had a share in the restaurant.
I was getting a tour of the restaurant after getting hired, and he was working in the back. I think even then, there was a sparkle in his eye that caught my attention.
We did everything. Skied, kayaked, fished, played volleyball, traveled, you name it. He got into horses with me. Name a sport, he was probably into it and good at it.
Drew: The first time I ever heard about Jason was from my ex-girlfriend. He was looking for people to play volleyball with him, but I had to try out because he would only play with people who were good. We ended up playing together at the pickup courts at University of Waterloo. I still have a lot of close friends from elementary school, and Jay was one of my first friends outside of that group of friends, and I’ve gotten to know a lot of people through Jay.
Erin: We moved in together after a year of dating because we were at each other’s house every night anyway. We lived in a house for a year and a half after that. He made a point of bringing me everywhere. He was like that with his friends, too. He had five groups of friends that co-mingled.
We lived together almost two years. He was great to live with. We had talked about getting married, but we had a mutual agreement that nothing would happen until I finished school. We went away to Kicking Horse, where his brother has a condo, and he proposed without a ring, but our intentions were known to his family. Our long-term goal was to have a farm for our horses. This house was our first step toward that.
Drew: I remember him saying the weekend in Grand Bend, “Save up your money, because when we get married, we’re going to go away somewhere.”
Erin: We were going to go somewhere warm and have a wedding.
He traveled way more than me. I had never really gone anywhere before I met him, and he used to go to Europe every year. He lived there for a year and played football. His family’s out west, he went out east every year, he went to Europe every year. Just a busybody.
We had known each other three months and he asked me if I wanted to go on a cruise to Greece in November. I said sure, but thought it would never pan out. But November came and we planned a trip. We stayed in Paris for three days and he knew every corner. It was crazy. The Greek cruise cost him $80. He could get anything for a deal. Anything. He wouldn’t tell anyone how he did it. Tickets for plays and concerts. He had connections everywhere.
Drew: For example, we went to last year’s Stanley Cup finals. His brother got us tickets and we all went down.
He told me two days before the game and we just packed up and went down to Detroit for the night. I think we paid $230 US, and we were very close.

For the love of the game
Erin: His friends were his life. His friends and volleyball. I wasn’t allowed to play on his volleyball team. I wasn’t good enough.
Drew: Jay was always the team captain. If someone was playing badly, he was the one to get them going. He’d have everyone’s spirits as high as could be so they could play well. We followed the Not So Pro tour. Hang and Bang was our team name most of the time.
He always wanted to win. In Grand Bend, we played intermediate because the competitive teams were fours, and he wanted everybody to play, so we played the intermediate sixes. It was still really competitive, and this year we probably would have won if this hadn’t happened. The year before we got third and second in the two tournaments I played in.

The fateful weekend
Drew: I got to Grand Bend two hours late. Jay saw me and looked at my girlfriend. He was about to say something, but he said the look on her face was so bad that he couldn’t get mad.
(At the end of the day,) we sat in the beer tent for a bit, and there was a girl trying to learn how to jump serve, so we stayed a while teaching her how to do it. We went back to the campsite and started partying.
Erin: I got there later. I had to work the Saturday night and I got there at midnight. We went to Gables and were there until close.
Jay and I got into an argument hanging around the bar waiting to go back to the campsite at the Motorplex. One of the girls we were with hadn’t been drinking, so she was going to drive my car. There were four of us, and Jay was being stubborn as usual. He said he was going to walk and stormed off. There’s no arguing with him when he’s like that. And it’s not unusual for him – he walked everywhere.
In the morning, he still wasn’t back, which was kind of weird, but he’s slept in bushes before. I was just going to head home for the day, and I saw there was an emergency road closure. I went back and started getting a little worried. There was a rumour that a girl had been hit. I kind of brushed it off but I had a bad feeling. I drove into town because, with volleyball starting in half an hour, I knew he wouldn’t be late for that. He still didn’t show up, so I drove back to the roadblock and the officer wouldn’t say anything.
One of the girls went back to the campsite to see if he went back there. She ended up talking to the investigator, and she said it sounded like it was him.
She came back to the beach. I remember sitting with Drew’s girlfriend watching them play a game and I saw Sarah, the girl who went back to the campsite, walking with the police officer, and my heart sank. I just remember looking at both of them and no one would say anything to me. They just stared blankly. I knew. I fell.
Drew: I remember driving and saying to my girlfriend, if he’s not at the courts, something’s happened. As soon as I saw her, she said yeah, and I collapsed. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say.
We just sat around waiting for the officers to do what they needed. We stuck around for interviews and headed home after that.

The aftermath
Erin: I waited in Grand Bend for my mom to come so I didn’t have to drive home. By the time I got home, everyone was calling. They all knew. It traveled so fast, and everyone was horrified. It seemed unreal and still does.
For me, one of my biggest fears was getting in a fight with someone and something happening. That’s how you ended it. That’s something I’ve always been terrified of. But it doesn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. A little fight is nothing. I know he still loved me.
The officers said they’re shocked nothing has come out yet. They interviewed hundreds of people. From what I know, they looked through the list of everyone registered at the Motorplex. They highlighted everyone who they think might have been leaving that evening. Their vehicle of interest is the truck with the trailer. But that could be from anywhere in Ontario or the States. We don’t know.
They did a reconstruction, and they think he was on the west side of the road walking back, and then may have been crossing the road. He was 100 meters from the Motorplex, and was hit at a low speed by a vehicle heading toward Grand Bend. It happened between 4 and 5 a.m. To their knowledge, they found him within 15 minutes. It was not very long.
I think about it and wonder why I torture myself. I hope it was someone who was driving and didn’t see him, and then freaked out.
Drew: They obviously didn’t stop. If they’d known, I’d hope they would have been nice enough to stop and get help, but from the sounds of it, they didn’t do anything.

Moving forward
Erin: I didn’t even know where to begin. I stayed with my mom for a week and then went to a friend’s house and stayed with her. We went out to Regina for the funeral and stayed with his family for a while. It was really important for me to be up there.
When I came back to reality, it was a huge slap in the face. We were living here, and I thought about moving out of this place, but I finally clued in that that’s not the way to deal with it. This is where there are memories and I want to hold on to that. Remember good things and try not to run away from thinking about it.
Drew: He was just a really good guy. The Monday after Jay died, a bunch of us gathered and everyone realized none of us had each other’s numbers because he was the one who got everyone together. He was that kind of person.
Erin: Our group of friends isn’t going to be the same. He always managed to get people together for something all the time.
It’s causing ripples in his family, for sure. His mom and sister are in horrible shape. His brother is super strong, and he’s held the family together while working full-time as a doctor.
For me, I do what I can to keep myself busy so I don’t have to think about it all the time. I’m not sure that’s a good thing. I work full-time and go to school full-time, and he’s on my mind every minute of every day. I can’t imagine moving on. I can’t imagine his clothes not being in the closet and his pictures not being on the wall. But I know that will happen one day.
For me, I didn’t think it would make a difference if we found someone. But I want to know what happened. He was always with people, and I just feel terrible that he was alone.
As Jason’s dad, Carl, says, “Someone knows something.” I can’t imagine being that person. I can’t imagine knowing something that horrible and not feeling the need to say anything.

In hopes of encouraging information that leads to the case being solved, Pearson’s parents posted a $25,000 reward, which was recently bumped to $35,000.
Any information is welcome; you can call Huron OPP at 1-888-310-1122 or CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.

Accommodation Review Committee community representative Tom Roes tells Casey Lessard that Zurich Public School should stay open. And that Hensall and Usborne should, too.
Will the school board listen?

Recognizing declining enrolment in area schools, Avon-Maitland District School Board is currently reviewing the need to close schools, including Usborne Public School near Exeter, and Zurich and Hensall Public Schools. To make such a decision, the board is required to collect public input through an Accommodation Review Committee, or ARC.
Tom Roes, who home-schools his children, is the community representative for Zurich Public School, which is being considered for closure. The committee also consists of the parents’ council chair, and a representative of Bluewater and South Huron municipal councils.
A meeting scheduled for December 10 would have been the second in the ARC process, but it is now scheduled for January 7 at Usborne Public School. A further meeting is January 14 at Stephen Central Public School.

As told to Casey Lessard

At the beginning of the process, the board staff presents their preferred option. Staff don’t decide; trustees do. The board’s preferred option has three parts: take all of the Grade 7 and 8s and put them in the high school; part two is to close Usborne; and part three is to close either Zurich or Hensall. Ultimately, they want to close two schools.
It would be a devastating blow to lose either school. Zurich is full of young families, and to lose a school would be like ripping the heart out of the community. The students at Zurich feel very safe at their school, they have excellent relationships with their teachers, and the teachers have a good relationship with the parents.
Zurich has some of the EQAO results in the entire board. Zurich is at capacity. Zurich has among the best teacher retention rates of any school in the board.
I think the main rationale behind closing Zurich is that it is one of the smallest capacity schools in the board. We have a lot of splits and some triple-splits. But they haven’t proven that splits are bad for students.
I think Hensall should stay open as well. It has special education classes, and a move to Exeter would be hugely problematic for those kids. They just moved from McCurdy a few years ago and they’ve just recovered from that.
One idea that has been thrown out by the Hensall people is the idea of closing Exeter Public School and renovating or adding to the high school to have an elementary school attached to the high school. That would open up green space for those kids, they’d be going to school in their own town, it would solve vacancy rates, and solve the empty space issue at the high school.
At this point, I don’t support any schools or sending Grades 7 and 8 to high school. The board hasn’t taken into account the effects of such a decision.
The board hasn’t explored other options other than closing schools. They haven’t considered sharing space with other boards. Similar to what they did in Stratford between the public and Catholic high schools; they share facilities.

It bothers me that, ultimately, we have no power in this decision. The board has the decision making power over the schools. We can only make suggestions. The Community School Alliance has been fighting with the ministry for a few years now trying to get them to call for a moratorium on closing schools where the closure is in dispute (such as is the case here). The minister refuses to do that.
According to the policy that rules the ARCs, the highest priority is supposed to be the value of the school to the students. If you look at what they’re doing, the highest value is clearly the bottom line. Avon Maitland is running a balanced budget, so that shouldn’t be a factor.
There’s a lot of skepticism that the board has already made their decision and this is a rubber stamp process they have to go through. There’s some evidence to support this. The ARC they did last year, they did five meetings to review one school, and they’re asking us to do the same type of review for five schools in the same number of meetings. Some other boards, including Simcoe and Peel, did ARCs reviewing four to six schools and had up to 26 meetings.

What do you think?
To have your say, Roes recommends you attend one of the meetings, write your MPP or school trustee, or tell the trustee what you think by talking with your votes.

View from the Strip
By Casey Lessard

I’m sure Gord Minielly is ready to let someone else be the front man (or woman) for the municipality after last month’s meeting to discuss the Lambton Shores sewer project. It’s a tough job and he has to do it. You can imagine why his health has suffered; more than 300 people attended the meeting, with most ready to fight him to the death over the project (only a slight exaggeration).
So what should residents do? It’s not for me to say. But I think the decision can only be made after the final numbers come out. If it’s more affordable than septic, doesn’t it make sense to share the burden among your neighbours? Sewers make a home more attractive to buyers, and housing prices go up as a result. I do understand Dick Matzka’s point about the cost of living pushing people out of the market here; I know I’ll likely never be able to afford a house here.
But when the provincial and federal governments are willing to invest in your community, it’s hard to say no. They sent money for the beach and money for the main street. If the money’s still there, it seems foolish to turn it down. But someone has to make the decision on how to spend it. Let’s make sure it’s an informed council. Election day, as Minielly reminded the crowd, is set for October 25, 2010.

Lambton Shores mayor wants low-pressure sewers before infrastructure funding runs dry

The Lambton Shores sewage treatment plant and Zone 3 sewer network could be the last project mayor Gord Minielly is involved in before he retires. Casey Lessard sat down with the mayor to discuss the projects.

Why is this project necessary now?
We just spent a big chunk of money on our beach, and any day you have a beach closing, it’s a negative for us. The Blue Flag designation will put up with two or three per summer. Our water comes south from Bluewater. If we can get them on sewers along with South Huron and us, we’re not going to be affecting the quality of the water in the Grand Bend area. It makes it safer for our visitors and our residents, and gives us a positive over some other areas in Ontario that are having more pollution days. We were lucky last year and had very few, but if you look a few years ago, we were closed many days. Whether it was our fault or animal runoff, we don’t know. If we can take care of our part, then we’ll know.

Where are you at today?
I’ve asked Maria (Van Bommel, Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP) to set up a meeting with the infrastructure minister for us to firm up whether there’s going to be two-thirds funding for us. When we met with David Caplan, he thought it was a great idea; “Do the plant first and come on back.” We’re going back to see if we can get that two-thirds funding, and if we do, Caplan told us 2014 was the cutoff. I would hope we can get some funding by 2012 and be completed along with Bluewater and South Huron by 2014.
There are effects going on in the water table that are not positive. I know people in Grand Bend are environmentally friendly, so I think we will get this done to the liking of the majority. Right now it doesn’t seem that popular, but the reality is, we are treating that water in a negative way. The lake water and the groundwater levels are the same, so it’s flowing into the lake. If we clean up our act, we can’t be blamed any more when there’s high E. coli; it’s got to be coming from runoff or something else.
One of the main reasons you feel you need to do this now is because of the money, right?
Two-thirds funding is not going to be here long. I suspect based on the deficits the province and Canada are going to have, there won’t be any money past 2014 while they try to clean up their debt. I think now is the most financially possible time to do it. If we can get two-thirds funding, it’s not going to be a burden. If we can spread it over 12-15 years, I think it will be doable for most people.

I was reading in the tri-municipal meeting minutes (where the three municipalities are discussing plans to build a shared treatment plant) that South Huron CAO Roy Hardy had spoken to someone who said there was no money.
I was at the same meeting that Roy was at, and I didn’t hear that. He was talking to people who were nervous about the downturn in the economy, but I have spoken with some of the ministers and as far as I know the stimulus package is going to continue because the economy is still in a trough, and they plan on doing what they planned in the beginning, which is going to 2014 and spending that money. Roy has his opinion about many things, and we don’t often see eye-to-eye, but the fact that we’re on track to get an appointment with the minister tells me they’re willing to talk to us; they must think this is going to continue on.

Is that the stumbling block from South Huron’s perspective? Is it the money or something else?
I have no idea. If you read the Lakeshore Advance, I made the comment that I thought we had a deal. Mayor Oke commented that he thought we had a deal but it wasn’t in the minutes. Mayor Oke didn’t come to the next meeting and it was in the minutes. It’s ready to be signed and we’ve invited them to come to a meeting in a couple of weeks and Bluewater and South Huron will hopefully sign along with us and then move on to the collection system.
That’s the sewage processing plant, which is quite a big project in itself. But that’s a separate project.
We got $15 million of infrastructure funding, and we have to add in another $5-7 million depending on how the tenders come in. But we have additional funding for energy efficiencies like solar panels.

And you do have that money secured?
Yes, we have $17 million of the total cost, so we’re well on our way to having that looked after. When that’s done, we hope to have the collection system ready to go if not in the process already.
Do you think that regardless of whether South Huron comes on board that you will go ahead with it?
We’re definitely going to build the plant. We have the funding, and it’s needed. We have no capacity for development, they have no capacity for development. Certainly Bluewater wants to get in there so they can clean up their beach-front. So for me, we have to go ahead. There’s no debate.

You’ve said changes are “coming down the pike”. What did you mean by that?
I’ve chatted with people from the ministry, and you can see that in Bruce they’re doing mandatory inspections of septics, and if your septic isn’t working, then you’re being forced to upgrade. The upgrades are not typically the normal. A gentleman told me the other day that he paid $18,000 for one that he had to redo. Would you rather do that and have something that will last 15-20 years or a permanent collection system you can depend on?
The question of whether it’s low-pressure or gravity is still being debated. Maybe we can do a combination. I know in Bayfield they have several low pressure tanks operating for the last 10 years with no maintenance. Maybe in the less dense areas we can use those and in the more dense areas, we can use gravity. But it’s twice as expensive, so it’s a debate that hasn’t been completed.

I’ve seen the numbers; will it be twice as much overall or per house?
I think it’s an overall view. Where I live, my sewer is 17’ down. When you excavate that far down, you have to have a much wider hole. In places like Beach o’ Pines, we’d have to excavate the road and probably damage many trees trying to get down so you do have a flow. We have to look long and hard. Doing gravity feed is not environmentally friendly; if you have a greenfield site, it’s not bad, but when you have a woodfield like that, it’s pretty bad for devastation. Then you have to rebuild all those roads and it’s part of the cost. The low-pressure system is less intrusive.

The gravity system construction would also take the roads from having a cottage feel to having new roads like downtown, right?
People like it that way (narrower roads) because it forces people to drive slow. Fix them up and put them in (to standard) and they’ll be like speedways. Walking to the beach will be more scary than it is today. But the fact is it’s much more expensive.

You spoke of development at the meeting. What is the vision for how these communities should look in the future? Should they always have the style of roads they have now or should they be at today’s standards?
Any new development will have 66’ roads with proper sewer lines. Southcott Pines and those subdivisions built them purposely (narrow) because they don’t want visitors coming in and out. Unless their board makes a decision, the roads will be like that until they change. They were designed that way and will stay that way. (But with gravity) there certainly would be a lot of damage. I suspect they would have to be (restored to the new standard).

Of the three options – gravity, low-pressure, and septic tanks – which one makes the most sense to you?
In my opinion, in the areas along the lake, the low-pressure is the least intrusive, the least expensive, and based on what I know about those pumps, should be as good as the gravity feed.
The issue with no power, I don’t know how many of the folks in there have generators, but I suspect it’s a lot. Our power grid around here is not what it used to be, and when you’re out for 24 hours, especially when it’s cold, you either have to move or have some form of heat. Especially along the lake in the gated communities, the low-pressure makes the most sense.
In new developments, the gravity feed makes sense. It makes lots more expensive because the contractor is responsible for that cost. I don’t know if we can do this one way and the other. That’s why it’s hard to answer questions because we don’t have the answers. Hopefully by this time next year, we’ll have a plan in place they can go forward with.

When I look at the numbers of people affected by this, the count I saw was 1500 homes in Lambton Shores that don’t have sewers. How many people are there year round?
I don’t know. In Beach O’ Pines, it’s likely the majority (that aren’t there). That’s changing. If I look down the road 15 years, I see Grand Bend having two-storey buildings all along Main Street with business on the main floor and apartments above.

How important is it to have services like this?
I’ve moved around Ontario and I always tried to find places that had sewers. I’m sure the tiles in Huron Woods are being filled with tree roots. A sealed low-pressure system doesn’t allow roots in, while a gravity feed does.

What is your current feeling about what people think about what you’re proposing?
I’ve been elected one way or another, sometimes in and sometimes out, over the last 30 years. Change doesn’t come easily to the average person. Here in Forest, the fire hall had been let go and we decided to build a new one. People threatened us and we had public meeting where people yelled at us. Carnegie Library wasn’t wheelchair accessible and we built a new library; I lost an election over that because I was the chairman of the committee that put it together. But the reality is that once it’s done, people go on with their lives and say, “Isn’t that a lovely library? What a beautiful fire hall.” People have difficulty with change and if it hurts them in the pocketbook, they have greater difficulty.

What is the actual cost per household expected for the sewer project?
We haven’t figured out the final numbers. I suspect that probably by spring, we should have those numbers down. We have to go to the ministry with firm numbers. I’d like to get them done sooner, but there are some decisions we have to make first. If your septic system is five years old, how long will you be grandfathered? If you grandfather nobody, there’s more people to pay for what you’re doing. If someone put one in yesterday and spent $20,000, it’s hard to ask them to cough up another $12,000-15,000.
The other thing we have to do is, if someone wants to build tomorrow, do they put in something less expensive than a whole septic system?

If the province and federal government do not have the money for this project, will it happen?
I guess I could answer that by saying I won’t be the mayor when that decision is made. Depending on the council of the day, and how much they think this is important, they will make that decision. Personally, I think there’s a 50-50 chance we will get funding. We have a good argument to make: we have a great beach, we’re trying to be as environmentally friendly as we can, and we need their help in getting us there. Tourism has been down in Ontario, but we are a destination and they know that. I have a good feeling we’re going to get some funding. I said that about the plant and it came through, and I hope it carries on. We’ve been very fortunate.

What is the timeline on this decision?
We’re trying to get a meeting for mid-December with Gerry (Phillips, infrastructure minister), and if we get some positive news there, I suspect we’d talk to him at the OGRA (Ontario Good Roads Association) convention in February, give him an update on numbers. The environmental assessment in Bluewater and South Huron, so they should have good numbers by then. I emailed them to say we were arranging this meeting and to ask if they’d be interested in coming. I got an immediate response from Bluewater and I’m still waiting for South Huron because they don’t want to play with us. Hopefully they come around. We’re meeting in Varna again and hopefully they’ll be there and sign the agreement so we can go to Toronto.

When do you think you’ll have something to tell people in the community?
At the latest in May, and at the earliest before we go to Toronto in February. I don’t think we need to have a meeting. We’ll put it out at a council meeting and I’m sure everyone will hear very quickly. Toronto and Ottawa have treated us very well, and other municipalities are jealous of the success we’ve had. I don’t think there will be money after 2014 for a long time.

Southcott Pines resident Dr. Carl Belke retired from Brandon University after 31 years teaching chemistry. Dick Matzka has cottaged in Southcott for 58 years. Neither is in favour of the sewer project proposed.

What are your concerns?
Dick: There are two major concerns. One is the expenditure the township plans on making. Two is that they keep telling people they’re going to get financial support from the province. A letter from the tri-municipal meeting says the province is not going to be able to assist them. Apparently there’s $8 million in the Build Canada fund, and it’s going to go to major metropolitan areas (Mayor Gord Minielly’s disputes this).
Carl: I’m concerned that they present the numbers correctly. Let the people decide if there’s a problem or if there isn’t a problem. How big of a problem is it and is it worth spending the money on a sewer system?

They mentioned nitrates at the meeting as being a concern. How do nitrates become part of the ecosystem as a result of human activity?
Belke: Our elimination process puts out ammonia and nitrogen products from the metabolism. The bacteria found in most systems are aerobic, which means ammonia gets converted to nitrate. Nitrate is very soluble. It’s an excellent fertilizer and plants require it. Nitrates can cause algae in the lake, but it’s good for plants. If you give nitrate anaerobic bacteria, that turns it into nitrogen gas, and our atmosphere is mostly nitrogen.
The limit for nitrates in drinking water is 10 parts per million. If you look at Pinery Park, the level is 0.2 ppm. If you look at Southcott, the average here is 3.1 ppm. If you compare that to what the river is putting into the lake – mostly from farmers’ fields – they’re about the same as what we’re doing.
Golder says we’re polluting the water, but who knows what the level was before we were here in the 1950s. We have geese here that contribute a lot of waste and that contributes to the nitrates.
Dick: They’re going to build a sewage plant and they don’t have to. The plant is going to pump more nitrate into the river than they allow.

Is the plant necessary?
Carl: Yes, in one respect. The Clean Water Act says any new development will have to have both municipal drinking water and municipal sewers.
In 2006, Dillon recommended a plant that would cost $13 million and a sewage collection system that would cost $40 million. Fast forward to 2009, the plant will cost $23 million. At the meeting the man from Dillon said the cost had gone up by 25 per cent. But it’s gone up 73 per cent. What’s the collection system going to cost? Sixty-eight million (based on extrapolating the numbers by 73 per cent)?
Dick: And they’re not finished with the plan. We’re only talking about 1500 homes in Lambton Shores. This town operates full bore for three months. For nine months it’s low key and casual. We’re spending a tremendous amount of money for a project that’s not necessary.

Carl, you hoped to speak at the meeting. What did you want to present?
Carl: I wanted to present the analytical data on the water wells in a normal light. They directed it to one parameter and ignored everything else to scare people that everything is bad. Maybe it is bad, but is it as bad as they say? Since no one in the area is on well, no one is directly affected by the drinking water.

You’re saying it’s still bad. What do we do to fix that?
Carl: Have better septic systems, I guess. The problem is, none of the septic systems here are inspected. Everyone waits until there’s a problem.

There are three choices: low-pressure, gravity and septic tanks. What is the most logical or best situation?
Carl: If they were honest with the numbers, the best we can do is let the people decide. I don’t think there is a pollution problem, and we’re not going to be growing in this neck of the woods (Southcott Pines).
Dick: I firmly believe that septics have done the job over the last 50-70 years. We should stop the sewage plant, grow the lagoons, and stop the sewers in the dunes area completely.

Industry professional thinks septic tanks are fine, gravity next best option

Richard Webb of Stewart Webb & Sons has been installing, repairing and replacing septic tanks and sewer line connections for more than 20 years. His family has been in the excavating business for more than 75 years.
The Strip asked the Southcott Pines resident for his expert advice about the sewer project plans.

As told to Casey Lessard

It would greatly benefit us, but I don’t see the benefit of spending the money if it’s not necessary. Certainly if it can be proven that huge of a negative effect on the environment, but we’ve done all we can to protect the environment. The septic systems here work properly.
There’s thousands and thousands of dollars that we would earn if sewers went ahead. For the amount of repairs that we do in septic systems, we might do 10-15 installs a year. If the sewers went ahead, our company would have work unlimited for 10 years. Then there’s the repair work after.
For the people in this area right now, private septic systems are the way to go. If they’re going to force us to go to sewers, a shallow-dug gravity system, meaning 5-6’ deep along the road with pumps in our basements would be my choice. A low-pressure system would be my last choice.
If they’re going to force people to put in sewers, don’t do low-pressure systems. From a maintenance standpoint, with pump chambers, they’re just a maintenance nightmare. If you’re going to install sewers, make sure they’re gravity fed.
The low-pressure system is not commonly used. It’s not a preferred method. Let’s say there are 20 houses on a street and 18 of them are owned by people who only come to Grand Bend in the summer time. The remaining two pumps have to push your effluent down the street to a central boosting area. When the system was designed, it was built so 12-13 pumps were kicking in. What’s it going to work like? That’s what the engineers are going to have to answer.
They’re trying to put in low-pressure sewers with as little disturbance as possible, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right way to do it. Why not pump the sewage from several main pumps instead of pumps on each individual property?

I feel they’re trying to fund this sewage lagoon expansion project and they need to have a certain number of homes using this system. I’m a big advocate of future development. But here in Southcott, in VanDongen, in Beach O’ Pines, we all sit on good soil for private septic systems. There’s more than enough area and the load rates are acceptable to have private septic systems on these lots.
Before they considered the water quality, they had a signed, sealed and delivered deal that everyone was going to be on sewers. We convinced them to come back with some data, and the highest readings that came back were from the oldest area in Southcott and the highest load areas; the highest readings were 5.5 ppm, and the acceptable limits for drinking water are 10 ppm.
We take sand from excavations here, take it back from the site and reuse it in septic systems to the north in the clay. We know the sand has a T time (percolation rate) from 3 to 6 minutes per centimetre. That’s the time the water takes to pass through the material. We know that’s an acceptable rate.
In Bluewater, they need sewers. The lots are too small and the clay conditions are too heavy to make a septic system work properly. In clay, they have a T time of greater than 50 min/cm. It needs to be lower than that, so we bring sand in and put it in the septic bed. Here, we don’t need to do that.
An engineer from Golder got up and said we were sitting on soil that was unacceptable, but any indication that we have, the soil is more than acceptable, and in fact is ideal. In Southcott Pines, I have a contact area of 300 square feet because the soil absorbs the water at a good rate.

We need a council that will take a hard look at whether this is necessary or not. I’d like to see all the associations that fall within this area stand up and say no to this.
I’m hoping they will stick with their word and let the new council decide, which will give us enough time to put in a council that will do what’s right for the people in this area.

The Grand Bend Chamber of Commerce named Paddington’s owner Jen Gaukroger its entrepreneur of the year, and named the Colonial Hotel and Gables Bar the business of the year for 2009.
The awards were presented at the chamber’s annual general meeting Thursday night at Hessenland Country Inn in St. Joseph.
Guest representatives from Saugeen Shores also shared their first impressions of the area at the meeting (see our story from our visit to Saugeen Shores and my editorial comment).
The Grand Bend Strip will profile Jen Gaukroger in the November 19 edition, and the owners of Colonial and Gables in the December edition.

Inspired by Brian Dale’s Miss Grand Bend, a group of radio listeners is fighting to win CBC’s Great Canadian SongQuest

Story and file photos by Casey Lessard

Only days remain to vote for Grand Bend (or its competitors) in CBC Radio 2’s Great Canadian Songquest, a contest to choose one town from each province to be immortalized in song. Grand Bend made it into the top five for Ontario thanks to some aggressive voting by enthusiastic radio listeners, including Brantford resident and Klondyke Park trailer owner Frank Beattie, University of Western Ontario sociology student Heidi Klopp and others.
“It’s about getting Grand Bend noticed and recognized,” says Klopp, 20, a Zurich veteran who now considers Grand Bend home. “It’s an awesome small town with as much to offer as the big towns.”
Beattie and Klopp thought the contest would be a good way to promote their favourite iconic song about the village, Brian Dale’s “Miss Grand Bend”, which is now available on Dale’s peace/love/waves/song CD that came out this summer. Plans to promote Dale’s music changed somewhat after nominations began and the nominators realized the contest wasn’t to recognize songs that already existed (vis-a-vis “Miss Grand Bend”), but rather to find 13 places across Canada that would be written about by an artist from each province. For Ontario, the artists are Jully Black (R&B/soul), Hawksley Workman (alternative), Shad K (rap), Lynn Miles (folk/roots), and Justin Rutledge (alt-country).
“It’s too bad they’re not using local artists like Brian, Greg Gallello, Natalie Tobin,” Klopp says, “but it’s still a good thing for our town.”
It’s a misunderstanding shared by early Grand Bend bid supporter Frank Beattie, 56, who heard about the contest from a friend.
“All I could think about was Brian’s new album, released after all these years, and thought maybe this is a place to suggest ‘Miss Grand Bend’ as a candidate for the contest,” Beattie says. “They had a few blogging tools that allowed you to create a blog to promote your place. Every time you logged in, you could nominate your town, so on the first day while updating the blog, I voted enough to get us off to a pretty good start.”
A good start is an understatement. At times, Grand Bend was in the lead, and finished in the top five, good enough to be a finalist. After a week of voting, says CBC Radio director of music Mark Steinmetz, Grand Bend was fourth after Algonquin Park, Sleeping Giant (Thunder Bay) and Toronto; Picton was fifth. It’s a proud accomplishment for Beattie, who nine years ago had no idea where Grand Bend was.
“After finishing a big project at work, my boss said we needed to get away,” he says. “There were eight of us involved in that project, and our entire company was dependent on our group, so he decided to leave them on their own while we went away during the middle of the week. We rolled in on Wednesday night. I remember calling my wife and saying, ‘This is unbelievable. It’s an hour and a half away from home (Brantford) and it’s got everything we want.’”
Two weeks later, he brought his wife for a stay at the Oakwood.
“We sat in the dining room for a late dinner and the sunset coming down Oakwood Drive hooked us.” Later that summer, they bought a used trailer at the Klondyke Trailer Park. “Best investment we’ve made,” he says.
His passion for the village is apparent, and his love for local music – among the reasons he and his wife decided to stay – makes him want to promote it across Canada.
“Brian has been adamant since this started that we promote the town, not him. To me, Grand Bend is a secret and a gem. It’s priceless and not well-known. Do we want to lose our paradise? The answer is no, but I’ve been promoting Grand Bend for eight years and the only person to ever take me up on my offer, my neighbour at work, is now my neighbour at the park. He and his partner just love it.”
“It’s a town for everybody and every age group,” Klopp says. “No matter how old or young, there’s something for you.”
For Klopp, the people are the main attraction, then the location. And of course, there’s the music.
“We’re a very musical town, and everyone feels the music. Even if you can’t get up and dance (at a Gables jam night, for example), you can bop to the music.”
For Beattie, the location is the inspiration.
“The beach, the lake, sunsets, the strip, the atmosphere. It’s like Gravenhurst, but it’s 40 minutes from London and an hour from Stratford.”
That’s why CBC Songquest is a good fit, Klopp says.
“I thought it was exactly what Grand Bend needs with the new downtown and beach renovations. What’s the point of spending those millions of dollars if no one comes? Tourism has definitely been down these past few years. It’s great that the locals get to enjoy it, but we want to share it with everyone else as well.”
Just the type of message CBC hopes will come out of the contest, in addition to raising awareness of a recent format change at Radio 2.
“We wanted something to engage Canadians, the artistic community, and our people here to come up with 13 new songs commissioned by the CBC that represented towns across the country,” Mark Steinmetz says. “Rather than us dictating how it was going to go and who we would commission, we thought it would be great to open it up to Canadians.”
While expecting major urban centres to make the top five for each province, he notes that smaller centres are leading the pack. “It’s a tight race right now for what people are voting for,” he says. “It’s a way to discover new artists in this country. We play a diverse range of music, and there are so many great artists out there that don’t get played on private stations.”
Plus it’s a good way to create new music about Canada.
“I don’t know if you know this, but Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Canadian Railroad Trilogy’ was actually a CBC commission (for the centennial year, 1967),” Steinmetz notes. “We’ve commissioned many types of music. That came from internally. Now Canadians get to help us decide who we’re going to commission. And who knows, one of these songs could become a song that gets embedded in the nation’s consciousness.”
Local listeners hope Grand Bend inspires that song. The final days of the contest will be tough, but Beattie remains as optimistic as he can.
“I think it’s going to take a miracle now to win. Toronto has a few million people, while we have a few thousand. Brian Dale says it right: to be successful in the music business, you need luck and connections, and for us to win this contest, it’s going to take a lot of both.”
“Vote as much as you can,” says Heidi Klopp. “You can vote once a day. Tell everyone you can. Listen to CBC radio, and spread the word.”
To vote, visit: http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/songquest/

What Grand Bend can learn from a visit to Southampton and Port Elgin

Story and photos by Casey Lessard

What is the first thing a visitor notices about Grand Bend? The answer to that question will soon be delivered by a delegation from Saugeen Shores as part of an exchange program organized by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA). The program, called the First Impressions Community Exchange, involves a diverse group of business owners and residents traveling to a community similar to theirs but a few hours away.
This week, Grand Bend Strip publisher Casey Lessard was among the group organized by Grand Bend Chamber of Commerce manager Chris Bregman on a Lambton Shores sponsored trip to Southampton and Port Elgin to assess the first impressions of the communities.
“The first impression is an invaluable marker for communities to decide which things they need to work on first,” Bregman says. “That could be signage, or working on infrastructure. It provides guidance to the community to know which projects to move ahead with.”
Captain’s Cottages owner Dinah Taylor joined the trip to assess retail and business services in Southampton, a beach town similar in size to Grand Bend.
“Our observations on Highway 21 were not terribly positive, but my view of Highway 21 going into Grand Bend isn’t all that positive, either,” Taylor says. “But once we got onto the high street, which is the main retail area, we were very impressed. What they have there is very much the sort of thing we’d like to see on main street Grand Bend.
“There was a huge mix of stores and services. They had a kitchen store that has everything you could want. They had a 100 mile grocery store that was like going back in time. The store had whole wheat pasta grown and manufactured in Ontario. I didn’t know you could get that stuff. They had a lingerie store that you might find in London somewhere. A sporting goods store that had kayaks for rent, lifejackets for rent, and really interesting gear for sale like snowshoes and surfboards.
“Talking to people there, they said they had no drop in business this summer, and sales were actually up at the lingerie store during rainy weather.”
While concerned about the lack of wheelchair access consistent throughout the town, and a lack of activities for children, Taylor came away from the experience envious.
“They had exactly what we want, and at the right level. They gave the feeling of a comfortable year-round community where it would be nice to raise a family.”
A commercial and residential property owner, chamber treasurer George Appel assessed recreational activities and was impressed, returning to Grand Bend with a sense of where village needs work.
“(Saugeen Shores) presents much better. Our main street doesn’t have the look it should. The buildings need a lot of work. I don’t know how to do it, but part of the problem is the tax rate businesses have to pay and the fact that we have such a short season. The businesses don’t have the revenue to pay for remodeling.
“We have the attractions they do,” he says. “We have the Pinery Park, the Playhouse, the Motorplex and the drive-in. But they don’t drive people downtown.”
Appel noticed excellent signage in Port Elgin pointing visitors to the beach, which is not immediately visible the way it is in Southampton. A group of British visitors at the beach in Southampton said they stopped simply because they could see the “sea” from the highway. It’s something Chris Bregman would like to see mimicked here.
“If there was a way we could make the visible from Highway 21, it would capture more first time visitors,” she says. “Whether that’s possible or not, I don’t know. Maybe clearer signage saying ‘Beach This Way’ would help.”
And once the people are drawn in, Dinah Taylor thinks it would be nice to explain what’s significant about the area.
“I think what’s missing here are the historic plaques explaining the history of our area,” she says. “Grand Bend is a historic place, and many of the people who come here don’t know the first thing about Grand Bend.”
One of the key successes for Saugeen Shores is a business centre that is focused principally on local residents, with tourism – and yes, even the beach itself – secondary to local traffic; it’s almost the opposite approach to that taken in Grand Bend.
“I hope the Main Street project is going to encourage a different kind of retail business,” Taylor says. “In Southampton, there was a very comfortable feeling. It was clean. The downtown was well maintained and there is a sense of pride in the community. I’m not saying that’s lacking in Grand Bend. They have a tradition of a year-round population. Our downtown doesn’t reflect that yet.”
It will take some time, says Appel.
“Maybe we’re being unfair comparing Grand Bend with Saugeen Shores with the higher population and high-paid people. Retired people don’t spend as much money as people making a living with children.
“They’ve got the Bruce nuclear plant with high paid people who are living there year round,” he says. “The solution is more year round people in the area. Then we have to get stores downtown that people want to go to year round. There just isn’t enough traffic downtown.”
Chamber manager Chris Bregman learned a lot from the trip, and will be pushing for one change to mimic what is done in Saugeen Shores.
“Their chamber takes charge of events and promoting them, and the municipality provides funds for the tourist information centre. (Seeing) the very close relationship the chamber of commerce has with the municipality; I think we could make a real difference to the economic development if we had that kind of relationship.”
Bregman hopes to exchange thoughts in person with the Saugeen Shores delegation; she’s inviting them to the chamber’s annual general meeting November 12 at Hessenland.

A South Huron teen died Saturday after he and a sofa fell off a moving pickup truck. Sixteen-year-old Cody Johnson was sitting on the sofa, riding in the back of the pickup on a private property west of Exeter, when the sofa fell off the back at about 6 p.m. Saturday. He was taken to South Huron Hospital, and was later pronounced dead. The driver of the truck, another 16-year-old boy, was taken into police custody and released.

Needs supporters to maintain River Road presence

Story and photos by Casey Lessard

The Grand Bend Art Centre could give up the lease on its River Road space if a fundraising effort fails to generate enough interest before October. Artists (including this reporter) use the space to teach art workshops to community members. Artist Teresa Marie, who launched the centre last summer, hopes to sell enough books of coupons valid year-round at local businesses ($40 each, available at the River Road Gallery and elsewhere locally) to pay the rent and secure programming for the fall.
“We have to let Milford know by October whether we’re going to keep this facility as an art centre,” Teresa Marie says. “If we can sell 150 coupon books before the fall, we can probably pull ourselves out of this. Then in April we’ll do the coupon book again with more coupons and have a fresher book for the new season.
“I’m looking for people who want to support the art centre, and this is our gift back to them and our gift to the community to keep the money spent in the community.”
The centre has $15,000 in annual expenses, and rentals and workshops do not cover the cost completely. Even with donations from Rotary and some private donors, the centre has not been able to cover costs.
“We fell short of our budget last year. Milford Purdy, who has been very forgiving, has let us continue to have the place and we’re paying him on a catch-up basis right now.
“As a painter, I was trying to get all of the painters in town together to form groups to use the art centre. For the short term summer season, I wanted it to be available for visiting artists who would stay for the weekend, take some workshops, meet some artists, spend some money in town, and get to know our community through the art.”
Regardless of whether it has a permanent physical space, Teresa Marie says the centre will continue to operate.
“If we can’t come up with the funds to keep that location, I will have to farm out the workshops elsewhere. I will continue to do this on a smaller scale, but I would like to see it continue here.”
Judy Steeper of Corbett hopes the space can maintain the status quo.
“I love the classes,” Steeper says. “They’re Grand Bend’s best kept secret. We’re really fortunate to have it because it’s a treasure. It’s great, especially for me. I work as a wedding planner and designer, and this helps me keep my creativity up.
“It’s handy and it’s close to home. It’s adding tourism and it’s a plus all around.”
Marie Hughes of Bayfield agrees.
“I hope it keeps on going,” says Hughes, who has taken several classes at the centre. “I’ve been hoping to do this for years and years. It’s an opportunity to do some learning close at hand without driving to the big city.”
Hughes notes that the centre is special because students of all abilities are welcome.
“It’s suitable for people who have never picked up a brush. I like that everyone in the class is at different stages in their ability.”
That’s what attracted Rosemary Stevens of London to the Teresa Marie’s painting workshop.
“I always wanted to find out if I could paint,” Stevens says. “I just retired in January and I established a bucket list of things to do that I never had time to do. My mother painted for pleasure and I always admired her work. I thought I’d like to try that and come down and take a class.”
How has the experience been?
“It was very scary when I first started, but now I’m developing some self-confidence. It shows you that you just have to try.”
“People don’t always want to buy things,” says Teresa Marie, “but they want to do things. Grand Bend needs to offer that so people can stay active physically and mentally.
“I started to paint when I was 28 years old and I learned to paint from Barry Richman, David Bannister, and Klaus Verboom. Through them, the art gallery developed. Good things happen when good people get together. Out of that has grown a second gallery. I was taught by other people hands-on, and I want to share that with other people.”
For Rosemary Stevens, supporting the art centre is important for Grand Bend, not only for the students but also for the greater community.
“I think it’s an expression of people in the community and their appreciation for where they are. It’s very important.”

To show your support, buy a coupon book ($40 at River Road Gallery and elsewhere) or sign up for a class.
To find out more, call 519-238-8978 or email grbartcentre@hay.net.

Federal and provincial funding means project has to finish by June 1, 2010, but Lambton Shores was ready thanks to master plan

Story and photo by Casey Lessard

Grand Bend’s Main Street is less than a year away from a major makeover that will see few major changes, but which the municipality believes will make Grand Bend a better place for pedestrians and motorists.
“The whole idea is to make the street more humanized,” says Patrick Li of EDA Collaborative Inc., the company that mapped out Grand Bend’s beach enhancement project. “Encourage pedestrian safety and enjoyment without compromising the cars. We maintain what is required for two-lane traffic, and we clearly identify parking on both sides. We create angles in and out so it’s easier to park. We also begin to introduce colour and graphics, trees and banners, benches and bicycle racks.”
The thrust of the project is reworking the road and sidewalks to meet current provincial standards for accessibility and safety. The road will be graded and sidewalks will allow for smooth entry to most businesses, Li says. Parking will be reduced by about 20 spaces on the main street. Trees will be replaced with native trees; the new trees will be given appropriate room to breathe and grow. Hydro wires will be buried on the north side and poles on the south side will be replaced. Paving stones at intersections will form visual mosaics that symbolize local themes, and a new meeting space will replace some parking spaces at the former Finnegan’s parking lot.
“We have an opportunity to make the street easier for pedestrians and traffic,” says Ward 1 Lambton Shores councillor John Dehondt. “We can fix a lot of the things that were done in the original design. If you look through the main street, we’ve lost a bit of parking, but everything flows better and it’s safer for pedestrians.”
The project is going forward thanks to a federal/provincial infrastructure grant that will cover 2/3rds of the $2.6 million project. Thanks to advanced planning by the municipality in the form of its master plan, the project was an easy pitch.
“We went ahead in each of our communities and put together what we would like the communities to look like. When we found out that infrastructure money could happen, we were shovel-ready, and they said go for it. It all has to be done by June 1, 2010, and we can accommodate that.”
The plan is not perfect, say business owner Greg Gallello and artist Teresa Marie. Gallello says he came to the Thursday show-and-tell meeting with a closed mind, and left putting his trust in the municipality.
“Grand Bend is what it is because of the beach,” Gallello says. “Without that, we’re just like any other small town. We have to remember our main attraction is the beach. When you turn on Main Street now, you see the sand and the water, and it looks amazing. Looking at these plans, it looks like you’re not going to see the beach anymore because of all the trees.”
Teresa Marie believes the municipality handled the process poorly, racing through the process that will still see local funds pay almost $1 million for the project.
“It could have been on display all summer,” she said of the plans displayed Thursday. “They’ve known about this. They’ve got the money. It’s not like they found out about this yesterday.”
In fact, last time this newspaper was invited to a meeting about the downtown was in May 2008, when plans included angled parking.
“They want me to believe that this is what they’ve come up with in a year,” Teresa Marie says. “And no price breakdown. How much will those paving stones cost? Why are you putting paving stones on a road where no one’s going to see them? Why not put that money into sculpture instead of trees on the street? Everyone has trees. Sculptures are more unique.”
For John Dehondt, majority rules, and he says most people are on board with the project, even if the details cause disagreement.
“I think everyone’s on side with the project fundamentally. If we don’t inconvenience people during the process, I think we’re good.”
There is still some room for public input, but it seems as if the bulk of the project is a done deal. The municipality will be putting it out to tender soon so the project can meet its June 2010 completion deadline.
“This kind of development can bring in a new clientele for merchants,” Li says of the benefit of supporting the project. “Before, merchants relied on teenagers driving their hot rods. We’re trying to encourage young families to come. Creating a more comfortable environment to come here and spend money.”

Story and photos by Casey Lessard

Master boat-builder Skip Izon has been working on a non-aquatic project for the last little while: restoring what’s believed to be the oldest horse-drawn ambulance in Canada. The ambulance, built in Petrolia in 1908, spent the last 25 years at the Lambton Heritage Museum after it spent ten years at a private museum.
“It was originally built by JR Fennell of Petrolia Wagon Works, who signed the work February 4, 1908,” says Tom Moore, a Lambton County paramedic raising funds to restore the wooden vehicle. “It was kept in Petrolia and used at the town hall, which was also the fire hall. It was used up to about 1919. What’s special about this one is it’s the last horse-drawn ambulance in Ontario, and probably the oldest in Canada.”
While it is relatively well preserved, the two side-boards and some other parts were damaged because the vehicle was kept outside under a lean-to for the 10 years before LHM curator Bob Tremain acquired it.
“It was exposed to the elements so the original basswood was cupped and split on the back and one side worse than the other,” Moore says. “We went and got the exact kind of wood and Skip milled it all down to the 3/8” that it was. He’s put it on in the exact way it was, using the same screw pattern and techniques with a few more modern materials.”
For Izon, it’s a relatively simple, yet delicate, operation.
“Compared to what I do on the boats, this is pretty straight ahead. For me the challenge is to do it exactly the same as they did it.
“There’s a connection (to the original builder),” Izon adds. “I’m using most of the same tools they use. Hand tools, chisels and hammers. They used metal screws with wooden plugs, and mine are the same.”
Not much has changed
Both men, Moore a paramedic and Izon a firefighter, see similarities between how emergency vehicles were used then and now.
“I’ve been a firefighter for 18 years,” Izon says “and Tom’s been a paramedic for 25 years. I will often go in the back of the ambulance to perform CPR, so this looks very familiar to both of us.”
“It’s kind of the same configuration as we have today,” Moore notes. “We have room for the bed, a medicine cabinet, a seat for the attendant, who likely would have been the doctor in 1908 in Petrolia.”
When it comes to history, the ambulance has a great deal of significance for paramedics and firefighters across Canada.
“It’s an important part of our heritage. A lot of firefighting apparatuses have survived, but not a lot of ambulances. There’s not a lot of heritage pieces for paramedics across Canada, so I think once word gets out that this has been restored, there will be quite a bit of interest.
“For the public, we can say there’s been an ambulance service here in Lambton County for over 100 years.”
And for Moore, it’s a special piece because unlike other ambulances, this one served only in its designed role.
“This ambulance was built and only used ever as an ambulance,” Moore says. “A lot of ambulances were also used as hearses and some for delivering milk on the weekends. This was only ever used as an ambulance. The oil and petroleum industry around Petrolia was very dangerous at the time, so a lot of people were getting hurt, and badly. I believe the town of Petrolia commissioned this to get the people from the oil fields who were hurt and bring them back to town.
“We actually know the last patient” who rode in the ambulance, Moore notes. “The guy who restored the bell told us it was his mother’s first husband, who was transported to Petrolia hospital in 1919 after being electrocuted. He died at quite a young age and his name was Howlett.”
Once Izon’s work restoring the siding is done, the foot-operated bell will be returned to its place, as will the lettering and logo on the side.
“I’ll paint it black again,” Izon says, “and we’ll find an artist to paint the red and gold cross like it was. It’s going to be quite striking.”
Moore has raised $10,000 through corporate sponsorship, personal donations, and the Association of Municipal Emergency Medical Services of Ontario. A memorial fund for Paul Patterson, a Kerwood-born paramedic who died in the line of duty two years ago, also contributed $2,100 to the project; Moore says the restoration will be dedicated in Patterson’s memory in September.
Moore would like to see the project finished by early that month so the ambulance can take part in the Petrolia Fair parade. There’s one catch. “We’ve yet to find a skilled horseman to pull it,” he says, noting Izon hasn’t volunteered.
“It’s almost a kind of time machine,” Izon says. “It goes from this time back to 1908. It’s a common bond between those two times. We haven’t changed much in what we’re doing or who we are.”
For more information, or to donate, visit http://www.horsedrawnambulance.com

Great news for Crediton, where federal and provincial funds will be matched by South Huron for a total of $900,000 to make a sports complex and community centre. The money will join Ontario Trillium Foundation funding and community fundraising to build the project. The project should be done within the next two years.

Molson Canadian Rocks gave $1,000 to the project. McCann expects the event will raise the last $10,000 needed from the community portion of the funds.

Bob Teskey was “a good listener and companion.” This week, his wife Barb pays tribute to his legacy by walking in the Relay for Life. Her lesson: live your dreams.

Originally from Sarnia, retired teacher’s assistant Barb Teskey, 58, and her family are participating as team Family Ties in Grand Bend’s 12 hour Relay for Life at Klondyke Sports Park July 10 and 11. The survivor lap starts at 7 p.m.
Teskey’s husband Bob was a teacher for 30 years, and was six months away from retiring from Cathcart Public School when he was diagnosed with pneumonia. Two weeks later, doctors had bad news: he had lung cancer, and it had already spread to his bones. Despite radiation on his hip, Barb and Bob received disheartening news on February 14, 2005: Bob would have to move into palliative care. Bob Teskey died two months later aged 54. He left behind two sons, and an expectant daughter-in-law.

As told to Casey Lessard
Photos courtesy Barb Teskey

Bob was a good companion. I miss his presence. I used to go out and walk all the time and knew that he was there waiting for me. Coming home at night and knowing that he’s not here to greet me and be here for me – you just have to cope. You have to go on.

Bob and I were born and raised in London, and we went to the same high school. There were a bunch of us who hung out in a coffee shop after high school, and we knew each other and had been friends for a long time.
We were very good friends, so it was difficult to make that leap into romance. It just happened. Then we decided that we would be together. He had a wonderful sense of humour, and I think that’s why I was attracted to him. We had a lot of the same interests. Our favourite thing to do in Sarnia was walk in Canatara Park, and we spent a lot of time at a cottage in Kettle Point until the boys were 16. We always loved being at the beach and having a cottage. When he passed away, I knew a lake setting was where he would have loved to have been.

With the pneumonia, we just assumed he would be okay. He was on medication for a couple weeks and it wasn’t going away. He went in for another x-ray and they saw a mass on his lung. In the original x-ray, it wasn’t there. You’re in a state of shock, and that point we weren’t aware of how aggressive it was. But it became very apparent that it was moving very quickly. It was Valentine’s Day that he had to go into palliative care. The cancer left him paralyzed from the waist down from that point.
It doesn’t even give you enough time to think and to process it. You’re also in some denial that this is meaning that it’s the end. We hadn’t really wanted to believe it.
He never once complained. He told me, “Barb, there are worse things with parents losing children to it.” He didn’t seem frightened. He didn’t say, Why me? He was very brave through the whole thing.
His battle with cancer was very short. It was such an aggressive cancer, and for the last two months of his life, I lived in palliative care with him. We had all the comforts we needed, but it was a difficult time, especially at the end when he lost consciousness. The last few days were very tough, just sitting beside him.
He was so looking forward to retiring and pursuing other interests, such as traveling. In an instant, your life is changed.
When he was in palliative care, he was quite ill when I found out that our son and daughter-in-law were going to have our first grandchild, so I very much miss that he didn’t get a chance to meet his grandchildren. That’s one of the toughest things because we were looking forward to being grandparents. I believe he is with us and knows that he has a lovely granddaughter and grandson.

He asked my daughter-in-law to make up photo boards for the funeral home, so she made them up really quickly so we could have them. We had the pictures in his room so that when people came in, we would talk about all the different pictures. It made it easier because we would talk about old memories. We didn’t really talk about his passing that much, other than he and I personally. We would just talk happy memories. A friend taped an interview with him for many hours, which I haven’t yet been able to listen to. He tells me he hasn’t yet, either.
Because he was a Grade 8 teacher and young – he was only 54 when he died – of course, the children were devastated. He received all kinds of wonderful messages from the kids and parents.
This was the first time my children had to go to a funeral, and it had to be their father. They were both overwhelmed by the number of people who were there. It was very difficult for them.

Because this happened so quickly, we didn’t have time to prepare. If there’s anything you want to do in life, don’t put it off. You don’t know when your day is going to come.
I was nervous I wouldn’t have a travel partner, but people always call. I basically say yes to everything people offer. Wherever they want to go, I’ll go. It’s very important to be happy and live your dreams before anything happens to you. Do what you want to do.
We shared wonderful times together. I know he would have loved being up here at the water with me. It’s very difficult that he’s not able to share this with me.

Barb recommends everyone should attend or participate in a Relay for Life. To donate, visit www.cancer.ca/relay

Hotel management sends message of thanks to all those who helped preserve and restore the beachfront landmark

Heading into their 52nd year as a beachfront inn, The management of Bonnie Donne Manor-on-the-Beach are thankful that a small March 29 fire contained to one room didn’t destroy their entire business.
Although small, the fire led to two months of restoration; luckily, the inn was able to open before the summer season’s onslaught. General manager Kristie McIndoe explains what happened and the fallout.

As told to Casey Lessard
Photos by Casey Lessard

Mom and dad started 52 years ago with five closet sized rooms, one shared bath but no tub or shower. Everybody washed their hair and bathed in the lake 52 years ago. There were no locks on the doors; every door had the little hook and eye job, so you could lock yourself in, but you couldn’t lock your stuff in when you left the room. Life was pretty simple.
By the sixth year, they winterized it and we moved up here permanently. They slowly acquired the property around it. They lived in the business for 32 years, and eventually built their own home on one of the cottage properties.

The fateful morning
In a typical year, we get a drain snaked from the top of the manor to the sewers. It’s a typical thing that Andy O’Brien (of Grand Bend Sanitation) comes and does. We had set it up for a month earlier because, although we usually do it at the end of April, Dave saw Andy at the Tim Horton’s and said, let’s do it.
They were here the next morning, and they were digging a hole to send the camera down. Dave had turned on the hydro just prior to that, and Andy handed him the cord to plug the camera in. Dave went inside and smelled smoke. He came out and asked Andy if he smelled smoke, too.
Dave tried to go upstairs, but he couldn’t because the smoke was that intense. They figure it had been 10 or 15 minutes, tops. Dave called the fire department. The firefighters were so happy to save the building because in most cases, they just can’t get there in time or no one was around to see it start.
The fire was contained to one room. They threw everything out the window and got the fire out.
We called the insurance company who called in the restorers, WinMar. Literally within an hour-and-a-half, we were underway with restoration. We had vanloads of people here.
They say they have a 48-hour window to get the soot off so it doesn’t etch. Even with all the doors shut, there was soot in every room upstairs. Because it was cold, the hot fire led to condensation of soot. It was dripping down the walls and looked like someone brought in a hose and sprayed it down with tar.

A new experience
I’d never experienced a fire, and I had no understanding of devastation that was involved. I give WinMar so much credit. Everyone involved was so empathetic and knew their jobs inside out. They seem to understand that everything starts from scratch and you build on that.
They understood that we are a family business that has a regular clientele and we didn’t want to disappoint them because of the many months we had prepared to get open. The insurance company cooperated with us on that, and gave us a six-day workweek instead of five.
The month of May was gone. There was no office, no area for us to receive people. The building was turned back over to us June 1. Our season starts May 1, so we were a month behind. It took another two-and-a-half weeks to get the rooms rentable again.
We didn’t have an area where patrons could approach us, so it was frustrating because no one could approach us other than by phone. Our biggest concern was that you build on the regulars with newcomers. Because they weren’t able to come and look around, for example if they come to the beach or for a drive and notice us, and we give them a tour, we lost that opportunity.

Preserving the business
Not a lot has changed here. We replaced our TVs with flat screen TVs, and any flat goods had to be replaced, like beds, linens, fridges and carpeting. But your perspective changes. You don’t worry about the little stuff so much. We’re very happy that we didn’t have to turn all our people away. It would be a horrible thing not to see our regulars again. We were very fortunate. The fire was going to happen, but if we hadn’t planned to clean that drain a month early, I’d be pulling my hair out right now.
This week, we have people in their 18th year of visiting, and Shirley has come here 30 years. That’s what makes it all worthwhile, when those people come back and you get to see what has happened in their lives. That’s really why we’re here.

View from the Strip
By Casey Lessard

It’s no secret that the newspaper business is in free fall as businesses tighten their advertising budgets. Local papers, like the Grand Bend Strip, are supposed to be immune to such a tightening, but that’s changing. I have to admit that I didn’t see the change coming.
It’s my worst kept secret that my profit margins are so slim that they’re often non-existent. And that was before the economy tanked. I faced this reality earlier this month when I headed into early May prepared to put a newspaper together. News came that several key clients decided not to return to the fold for the summer, and it became apparent that I would no longer be immune to the changes that are happening in this industry. Faced with taking a fairly large loss, I was forced to cancel the May 13 edition of the Strip. It was a hard decision to make.
Even harder is the decision I’ve had to make since then, and that is the one to end free distribution of the Strip. It’s simply no longer sustainable, especially for an independent publisher like me. So, despite a letter that went out to subscribers outside the free coverage area of Grand Bend, Exeter, Dashwood, and Crediton, the paper will no longer be available free anywhere after the June 17 edition. Starting with the July 8 edition and going forward, the paper will only be available by subscription or paid at local shops.
Going forward, I want to thank you, the reader, for helping the Strip achieve the success it has to date, and hope you’ll continue to support it. I am especially grateful for the 600 loyal subscribers who mailed in their cheques, often with kind notes. It’s important for someone like me to receive such affirmation, especially considering I have done this for two years without pay.
Not that there haven’t been other rewards. Last year, I earned first place in Canada for reporting, second in Ontario for photography, and third for photo page design. This year, mostly for my reportage, I earned two first-place awards in Ontario, a second in Canada and one in Ontario, and four thirds in Canada. It’s among the best turnouts for any paper in Ontario (and possibly Canada) this year. A full list of the honours can be found on page two and at GrandBendStrip.com.
So, if you think what we are doing with this newspaper is worthwhile, please support it financially. First, I hope you will subscribe, and second, support the businesses that have advertised in the past and those that continue to advertise in the Strip. I also hope you’ll consider taking one of my photography classes, and attending my art show and sale at Bliss Studio this summer. Reprints of photos from the newspaper are always available for sale, so if you like a photo, please consider taking one home.
I’ve said this in the past, but I’ll say it again: Thank you. I can’t do this without you.

Excerpts from comments by CCNA and OCNA award judges:

CCNA judge Michelle Stewart (2nd place in Canada for feature series):
Casey Lessard’s series on wheelchair accessibility had touching personal stories of people confined to wheelchairs and their everyday struggles with limited access. Lessard accompanied his subjects in their everyday activities and spent time getting to know this issue through their eyes. This writer wasn’t satisfied to just report on an issue, he took time to live it and do his part to remedy it.

OCNA judge Ted Murphy (1st place Sports & Recreation story for No Lifeguards…)
Lessard did a masterful job on two fronts: he highlighted a dangerous situation (three drownings in three years) in addition to paying tribute to the most recent victim, a 14-year-old girl. It was a clear cut winner.

OCNA judge Kelly Clemmer (1st place Best Editorial for No Lifeguards…)
This editorial… was striking. It was worth the additional effort. It begs the question, how much is a life worth?

Cooks working for one of Canada’s top chefs are peeling potatoes grown in Corbett

Marcus Koenig, potato grower

As told to Casey Lessard
Photos by Casey Lessard

We had a mixed vegetable, dairy and cash crop farm in Switzerland, very small and very intensive. When we came here, we took over a potato operation that grew roughly 800 acres of potatoes conventionally. I had more and more trouble with chemicals, health-wise. In 2001, it was very bad and I could hardly work. Just by accident, I got a book about a different way to look at the soil from an organic, natural standpoint. That got me started on the organic thing. I needed an eye-opener to see there was another potential way to do it. I couldn’t keep spraying. For us, it was either sell the farm or go organic.
The University of Toronto needed a local (meaning Southwestern Ontario) supplier of potatoes. We are not a large acreage grower, but for an organic grower with 30 to 50 acres of potatoes, we are one of the larger ones. They needed someone who could give them a continuous supply of potatoes. They called me up, and I said they should go to Pfennings, and because they sell my potatoes. They said, “No, we’re not going to do that. When we pay a premium, we want that premium to end up in the producer’s hands. Otherwise, we’re not going to do it.”
I think that’s a very healthy way of thinking, and I was impressed, so we thought maybe we should supply them. They liked our products because we supply them with the varieties they need and we know how each variety behaves in the kitchen. We give them new stuff to try, and if they don’t like it, we don’t supply it. They get what they need and for us, it’s more work because we have to go to Toronto, but we are able to capture the wholesale premium, the delivery premium, and keep it for ourselves. On a long-term basis, we can justify it.
A Toronto farmers’ market focused on bigger volume producers approached us. Most farmers’ markets want people who will supply quarts of apples or quarts of potatoes, but they wanted people who could supply bushels and bigger volumes. I wasn’t really interested in doing it, but they kept asking us if we could come. At exactly the same time, a friend said he would have time to help us part-time on the farm, so we could justify trying it out. We started at the end of September, and we immediately got positive results from it.
The first day, chef Alex Johnston from Jamie Kennedy’s restaurants came and asked what we had. We told him we had potatoes, and he asked how we grow them. We told him we grow organically and use some biodynamic processes. So he took a 50lb. bag home.
The following week he came back to our truck. He’s a very quiet guy and doesn’t talk much. But he was very excited and said, “Hey, we had these potatoes, and these potatoes are awesome. We’re going to buy your potatoes.” We didn’t discuss price. He just said these were the potatoes they were going to buy. That’s it. No discussion.
They take quite a volume, so we gave them our volume discount and that was it. We have done business with them now since last September. I go to his restaurant every week for breakfast and coffee.
We now supply four restaurants in Toronto, including Jamie Kennedy’s chain; we supply all his potatoes. We supply Crush, Cava, and a new restaurant. They’re not all top-end restaurants, but good ones that want to use the potatoes mostly for fries. We have enough sales to justify driving to Toronto on a weekly basis.

A better way of life
I enjoy farming this way better. It’s more independent. In conventional farming, you rely so much on external input. You buy the fertilizer, you buy the chemicals, and the only thing you do is apply the stuff. You supply the land and they take your crop. I never really liked that system because it’s not truly independent. The farmer is the supplier of the soil, but someone else does the managing. It’s going more and more towards that.
Don’t misunderstand me: there are good conventional farmers. This way is more independent because you rely on your own knowledge and your own labour, and you produce your own inputs by composting and animal production. That’s what I enjoy about organic farming.
Also, you have a product that the market wants. I don’t have to go to market and ask, “What will you give me for that?” We are in a strong position: we produce for a market that appreciates our product, and we deal with customers that say, Thank you.
In conventional farming, your customer doesn’t really need you. For them, they are so big worldwide, that one farmer doesn’t make any difference. With organic, you deal with smaller companies that need you, but you also need them. It’s a much healthier relationship between the customer and the producer.
Local food will be way bigger than organic in the future. This is the real way to go. This is going to be the big thing and that will give anybody who produces good stuff on a local level a chance.
Energy has to go that way, too. We should be putting a wind turbine up and one guy can supply our neighbourhood with power from it. The guy who has 1000 pigs should put a manure digester up and produce electricity or natural gas for his neighbourhood. The economic situation now will drive more people to that.
Our so-called leaders talk about how important it is to keep up free trade, but that’s because they’re afraid free trade will collapse. That’s exactly what’s going to happen because it has no future. It gave us all these problems. Worldwide trade and all these products from China gave us the problems we have now. So the solution is to keep going the same way and expect different results? It doesn’t make sense.

Looking for a better future
We as suppliers are not taken very seriously by our suppliers and customers anymore. As a farmer, it is very nice to work with people who appreciate what you are doing. We are not going to get rich quick, but we can survive and increase our wealth slowly. I’m pretty sure I can provide a future for someone down the road.
Every person who lives on this Earth has a purpose, and some people are just born and naturally find their way to that purpose. Some people never find their purpose. I don’t know what my purpose is, but right now, what I could do to bring humanity forward is by supplying good quality food that makes you think straight. Good food, good thoughts; junk food, junk thoughts. It’s that simple.

Parents hope for new jungle gym for kids to monkey around on; need to raise $70,000

Story and photos by Casey Lessard

Concerns about safety and the prospect of a child who uses a wheelchair being unable to enjoy the playground have triggered a push by the Grand Bend Public School’s Home and School Association to fundraise for new playground equipment. With designs by Active Playground Equipment of Point Edward based on wish lists from teachers and parents, the association’s proposed equipment will cost $70,000 to make and install.
While some of the money may come from pending grants, fundraisers expect they will have to find most of it through donations from local businesses, community organizations and fundraisers.
“It’s a lot of money,” says Amy Wiseman, who is on the playground committee. “Half the price goes to making it wheelchair accessible. My hope is to have it by this summer, but it may be 2010.”
Wiseman is hoping a Hydro One grant for $25,000 comes through to excite others in the community.
“I’m hoping the community does step up. These are our kids and we’re doing this for the community.”
“It’s a great idea,” says principal Susan Manz. “The children need it. But it has to be safe and accessible to everybody.”
“There’s a small playground now that is about 15 years old,” Home and School Association president Andrea Matheson says. “The new one will be four times the size and wheelchair accessible. It’s quite an improvement, for sure.”
Currently the equipment services only kindergarten to Grade 3, and Grade 8s do a souvenir photo on the climber at graduation. There are limits to when the equipment may be used and also how long it is open in the fall and spring. The new equipment would extend all of the above, Manz said.
Despite previous reports to the contrary, the board of education will not be matching funds raised. The board’s beautification grant is about $5,000.
So far, fundraisers and requests have raised several thousand dollars, including fundraisers (Little Caesars Pizza Kits, Mabel’s Labels, and Ian’s Kitchen) and donations (Stewart Webb & Sons, and Grand Bend Women’s Institute). Tim Horton’s has committed to donating the proceeds of its Smile Cookie Campaign, Mac’s is putting a donation box on their counter, and Hayter’s Turkeys is donating food for a fundraising barbecue May 16.

To donate or for more information, contact Amy Wiseman at 519-238-1116 or Andrea Matheson at 519-238-1710.

Grand Bend gambler Richard Webb will travel globe after winning the Canadian Poker Tour crown

Richard Webb hit it big January 21 when he won the Canadian Poker Tour Invitational Finals at Ocean World Resort and Casino in the Dominican Republic. Webb was the best of Canada’s top 43 players, who were invited to the Caribbean resort to compete for the $60,000 title and a sponsorship contract worth $100,000. With the win, Webb will represent Canadian Poker Tour as the Canadian poker champion, and the company will pay his entry fee and all expenses when he competes in tournaments across Canada and around the world this year. He also gets to keep most of his winnings from any tournaments where he places “in the money”. It’s a high level of success for this 48-year old Dashwood native, who grew up playing cards and still plays poker weekly with his friends and family.

Photos and photo illustration by Casey Lessard
As told to Casey Lessard

When did I start playing poker? Probably with my dad when I was a young child. He would deal hand after hand of seven-card stud, and practice and play. He was a card player, and I learned my card skills from him. As we were growing up, we played cards all the time: euchre, solo, hearts – all the card games you play as a family.
Along came the charity casino days, and I played poker at those not knowing much of what I was doing. It was mainly limit poker, so there’s a fixed small blind and large blind, and there are only three or four raises. Each game would be $5 to $20 per game.
We started playing out at a local establishment in Exeter on Monday and Tuesday nights, and we moved out here for a regular Tuesday night poker game (his basement has a poker room complete with a beautiful poker table, comfortable chairs, and a painting of dogs playing poker). We had been playing various types of games, but we could see that no-limit hold ‘em was where the future of poker was. In no-limit, you can raise any time. This was in the fall of 2004 after Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker, which really was the start of the explosion of the poker trend.
In February 2005, I entered my first tournament, the Bluewater Championships at Point Edward charity casino, which was their first. There were about 400 people putting up $500 each. Lo and behold, I finished second. That was a good start. I took a good portion of the winnings and took a month long motorhome trip across Canada with my family.
I played the Bluewater Championships again in February 2006, and won it that time. They had another one in September, and I won that, too. I think first prize was something like $50,000 each, so that set me off. I made headlines in poker magazines, and the international poker rankings mentioned it because it’s unusual to win back-to-back.
In 2007, I made the money again at Bluewater, finishing 12th. Then I went to Regina, where I won a tournament. It’s not the biggest tournament in Canada, but it’s one of the best.
In 2008, I came back and won the Bluewater for the third time. That gave me entry into the Canadian championships, which were put on by the Canadian Poker Tour. They decided to have a tournament for the top point getters throughout the year. In any given year, I’ve never been the top points person, but I’ve always come close. Historically, since I started, I am number one overall.

Canadian championships
It was a very good field of experienced players, all of who had won tournaments or come close, and we played in Puerto Plata. It was well put together with a big reception party. I went through day one, not as the top chip player but as one of the top 12 moving into day two. By the time we got to nine players, I started to take the lead. When we made the final table, I was the chip leader. Not by a lot, but I was chip leader.
I played well. I made two bad calls throughout that time where I actually got in the hand when I was behind. In one case I lost the hand, and the other I drew out on a guy from Toronto. He had an ace/nine versus my king/jack. You get two cards and you’re trying to make a five-card hand. Three cards are flipped – the “flop”. The “turn” brings another card, and then there’s the “river”. I got a jack on the flop to make a pair and that eliminated him.
That was good luck. You want to get in when you’re the favourite. His hand was 55 per cent favoured to my 45 per cent because he had the ace. He had one card that was over my two, but my two were over his bottom card. He had to hit an ace to win. It worked out for me.
I proceeded to knock out the rest of the field. I got down to playing heads-up with a guy named Robert Beveridge, who won two Grey Cups as a CFL player and now coaches football at the University of British Columbia. I trapped him on a hand. I had pocket queens and he had ace/seven. I was 75-80 per cent favoured to win the hand and luckily he got an ace in the flop. The very next hand I picked up pocket sevens and moved all in against his ace/queen. A seven on the flop gave me three of a kind and I won the tournament.
With the $60,000 prize, I get a $100,000 contract to go around the world and play poker. I give them 20 per cent of what I win and I give 10 per cent to charity in the city where I win. If it’s an international win, I’ll donate it in Grand Bend, Dashwood or Calgary, where the Canadian Poker Tour is based.
I’ve worked my schedule so I can still run my business (Stewart Webb & Sons septic systems, which he runs with his brother), and have already started touring. I went to Los Angeles for the LA Poker Classic, which is one of the premier events. The winner takes $1.7 million, and I played well, but didn’t make it into the top 63 to get into the money. I jumped on a plane a couple days later to Calgary and finished 38th, which was in the money, and came home.
I’m going to Regina this month; to Sanremo, Italy in April, to play in the European Poker Tour event there; Calgary for the Canadian Open; Las Vegas for the World Series; Barcelona, Spain; hopefully the North American championships in Niagara; and a whole bunch of tournaments across Canada to represent the tour coast-to-coast.
For the World Series of Poker, there will be 7,000 players putting up $10,000 each, so first prize is about $9 million. Last year there were two Canadians at the final table.

Keeping everything in perspective
Cards are a hobby for me. You see the glamour and glitz on TV, but there’s so much more that goes into it that it isn’t something I would want to have to depend on for rent payments at the end of the month. It would certainly subsidize my income if I decided to retire, but the pressure wouldn’t be there to perform.
I’ve been fortunate. But if I never won another tournament again, I’d be quite satisfied with what I’ve achieved. That said, the Canadian Poker Tour wants me to win. Next year they’re planning to do the same thing but offer contracts to all of the players that make the final table.
If I walk into a poker room anywhere in Canada, they know who I am because of the previous years. I play as hard as I can, but it’s always about the W for me. I don’t look at the money – I look for the win. That might help me be more relaxed at the end, and I think that’s one of my strengths. Plus I have a lot of final table experience.
I wear sunglasses and a hat, and I’m listening to music a lot of the time. I try to establish how good someone’s hand is, and if I’m right 60 per cent of the time, I’m doing well.
The more hands you see, the better. In no-limit poker, there’s raising (the stakes) and folding (your hand); no calling. Calling will just get you into trouble unless you’re trying to trap somebody. A good fold is as good as a good call. Maybe better. You’ve got to be able to fold when you’re beat. If you don’t, you’re going to be out of the tournament in a hurry.
It doesn’t matter if it’s for $10 or $10,000; it’s still about winning. I still like to play. Cards are a social sport. At tournaments, you’re sitting at tables for 10-12 hours, so I want to be able to talk to the person next to me. If you’re likable, maybe people don’t try to knock you out as hard. I always shake hands and say goodbye to everyone.
I’m definitely living the dream. It’s always nice to take Jackie and Sarah with me to places where it’s nice and warm, or places they want to see. Jackie will be going with me to Italy, and hopefully Jackie and Sarah will go with me to Barcelona. When I’m there playing, I don’t do anything other than play, but if I take an extra week, we can enjoy the places together. The money I’ve won has been used for things for my family and extended family, so it goes to good use and isn’t wasted.
We still play every Tuesday night with the boys, and they beat me all the time. I play with my father every Tuesday and he beats me quite regularly. I like the ability to play with my dad. I’ve taken him to some tournaments; he sees the success I’ve had, and he’s proud of that.
If I win $50,000 Sunday night, I still go to work Monday morning. If I were given a long-term contract to represent an organization, I probably would take it. I like the ability to get out there and meet people. If they want me to do charity events, I’m happy to do it. If I have interviews to do, I’m happy to do that. If I win one of the big tournaments this year, it’s not going to change the way I am and I’ll probably still come to work the next day. Well, maybe I’d take a couple days off before coming back.

To see Richard Webb win the Canadian Poker Tour Invitational Finals, you can watch The Score in April. Air dates and times are not yet set, but will be listed at thescore.com

View from the Strip
By Casey Lessard

You may have seen – or not seen but noticed – that A-Channel London no longer has a morning show. The people who lost their jobs there are among many cut from the television station, including some who will be let go in August. Also gone are two bureau stations in Wingham and Windsor. It’s a tough time for television journalists in southwestern Ontario, that’s for sure.
I used to be one of those people, working at CKCO in Kitchener until 2005. And I went to school, worked with, or worked beside several of the people who lost their jobs this week at A-Channel. Anjhela and Gloria played their music on the morning show a couple of years ago, and my dad was interviewed several times by Wingham’s Scott Miller when the sewer debate was happening in Crediton. I saw many of these journalists after Bill and Helene Regier were murdered, and again at the Imeson trial. I’m sure you’d recognize some of their faces.
Television is facing tough times as advertising dollars dry up in the current economic climate. But let’s be honest; does local television serve a purpose? If the advertising dollars aren’t there, isn’t it just a big waste of money on a very large make-work project? Who needs local TV when we have the internet?
You can do pretty much everything you need on the net, including watching your favourite shows, talking to friends, making friends, making enemies, whatever.
More importantly, you can even read the news on-line. Who needs TV news? Heck, you don’t even need to buy a newspaper – you can get that on-line, too. And it’s free!
In fact, that’s true for journalists, too. We don’t need to be in Wingham, Dashwood, or even Varna to know what’s happening there. It’s all on the internet, and a TV assignment editor can simply send someone from London to do the story when it’s needed. Even better, forget London and centralize in Toronto. It’s not that far to drive.
Besides, do you really care what happens in your own community, on your street, to your neighbours? That information is overrated, and someone has to be blogging about it on the internet, right? Maybe even someone who actually lives in this area.
Personally, I don’t own a TV, but you probably do. Let’s look at the bigger picture. The loss of local programming at A-Channel is not just about the fact of the loss. It raises a larger question: do we really need local news?
A few hundred people in this community (meaning you, the Grand Bend Strip subscriber) think it’s important to read the local news in this newspaper, and the other paper has a few readers, too. But how long will that last before the internet takes over and you’re the last to know when someone from your community is named a Canadian champion, or that your child did something great? When local news outlets leave, start the clock.
The most important part of this equation is the one the TV networks and the internet news providers can’t provide. Every news story starts as a local news story. Then it goes regional, then provincial, national and international. If there’s no local news provider, there’s no news. That’s the truth.
You know the value of local news – you even pay me to do it. Thank you. Now spread the word. Maybe we can keep some of those people at A-Channel producing news that matters to you.
If you think local TV news is important write your support for A-Channel news to the CRTC, CTV Globemedia, and your MP.

Alternative View
By Lance Crossley

Prime Minister Stephen Harper drew heavy criticism earlier this month when he told CNN that international forces in Afghanistan were never going to defeat the insurgency. His comments provoked a tongue-lashing by everybody from opposing political parties to the renowned Washington-based magazine Foreign Affairs.
What’s really shocking about Harper’s comments is not their legitimacy; many reputable sources close to the issue have said the same thing for a long time now. The real scandal is what his comments and the ensuing reaction to it reveal about the pathetic scope of debate on the Afghanistan issue.
Those who criticize Harper do so because they believe the war can be won, or that it is an insult to soldiers to say otherwise.
What links Harper and his critics is that they all justify the war based on whether it is winnable or not. If we can win, we should stay. If we are going to lose, we should go. (A few years ago Harper was happy to boast to the world that Canadians “don’t cut and run”.)
There’s been an appalling lack of critical thought in this country about this war ever since the former Liberal government signed up for George Bush’s “war on terror”. Iraq has had plenty of critics, but Afghanistan has been strangely immune to criticism. Nowhere can I find a convincing answer to a very simple question: Why are we there?
Are we there because of September 11? The Taliban were not involved in the planning of 9/11. Before the invasion, the United States propped up the Taliban regime with millions of dollars until American oil interests were unable to build a lucrative pipeline through the country. That is why government documents show the U.S. was planning to overthrow the Taliban well before the terrorist attacks. Sound like Iraq? This is a more rational explanation than the idea of squandering billions of dollars just to hunt down one man.
Are we there to instil freedom and democracy? In October 2001, the U.S. and its allies ignored the pleas of 1,000 non-Taliban Afghan leaders to stop the bombing of their country. The leaders begged the West to overthrow the Taliban regime through other means – a goal they believed was possible without killing. Why were these proposed alternatives never considered?
Are we there to counter Islamic fundamentalism? We now have a country run by drug warlords with no viable economy, horrendous rates of illiteracy, and widespread starvation. Nothing has improved. Things are worse. Worse yet, the Taliban has been given a new lease on life thanks to the hatred the war has incited among Afghans.
To date, more than 100 Canadian soldiers have died. With each death, this country turns into hero-worship mode, turning our soldiers into martyrs for dying for such a ‘noble cause’. But their deaths do not make them heroes; rather, they become tragic figures. Their deaths are tragic because we cannot give a good reason why they had to die.

Focus of annual show is representational art

Paint Ontario
March 14 to April 5
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. – Lambton Heritage Museum

By Casey Lessard

“Fight poverty, buy art.”
That’s the mantra Paint Ontario founder Barry Richman uses to encourage people to support the representational art show he started in 1996.
“Paint Ontario was established by me, selfishly,” says Richman, “to serve artists like me – representational artists. We paint something that looks like that thing. Not abstract, not installations.”
This year’s juried show accepted 300 entries from about 110 artists; only 120 fit on the walls at the Lambton Heritage Museum. Most artists are from Ontario, with some from Michigan and elsewhere. Some artists will have no pieces accepted into the show, and the most an artist can have in the show is three.
It’s an attractive venue for artists for a reason. Forty-three paintings sold last year, an increase from the year before; this year may be different because of the economic climate.
“I don’t know any place that sells 43 pieces in three weeks. I don’t know how sales will go, but we’re up 50 per cent in entries from last year.”
All of the art is available for sale, with prices ranging from $175 to $6,000. Last year’s average sale price was $645. To prize for best in show is $2000, with other prizes offered. They include purchase awards for two pieces: $750 for a local piece featuring people living a healthy lifestyle that will be purchased by the Grand Bend Area Health Services and paid for by John and Helen Walsh; and $500 for a piece chosen by Richman to join the Paint Ontario permanent collection.
Richman is available to give tours to anyone coming to the show for the first time; he also has a wall set up with a good cross-section of the different subjects represented in the show.
“The biggest thing I enjoy is watching how artists have grown compared to last year. Artists come and are very objective about why not all of their pieces got in the show, or why none got in. They find out where they’re falling short and talk to me about what makes a good painting or a great painting. To me, that’s very important.”
For more information, visit www.paintontario.com

Return of the Tundra Swans
March 14 to April 5
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. – Lambton Heritage Museum
www.returnoftheswans.com

If you’re a fan of birds or awesome spectacles, you should visit the Thedford Bog east of the Lambton Heritage Museum this month as the tundra swans return. Every spring, thousands of tundra swans leave the eastern U.S. seaboard en route to the Canadian arctic. There’s no specific date to predict when they will first arrive, but the museum’s website can keep you up to date on their progress.
“It’s just part of their migration habit,” says director and curator John Tremain. “They’ve been raised with that route. It’s a nice 24 trip for them from Chesapeake Bay. They arrive tired and rest and feed here for about two weeks.”
The birds return in the fall, but don’t rest for long because it’s not as safe; spring thaw waters on fields give them space from predators and plenty to eat in the form of corn left over from the harvest.
The best place to find the birds is off Greenway Road, on the road east of Highway 21 just before the road curves north. Bring binoculars and a camera with a telephoto lens (perhaps even a tripod or monopod), and dress appropriately. Pinery naturalists and Friends of the Pinery make regular trips to the area with spotting scopes for visitors to view the swans.

Meet Me at the Diner
Exeter Skating Club Carnival
Sunday, March 29
12 and 4 p.m. (two shows) – South Huron Recreation Centre
$8 (advance) or $10 (at door), $4 for children 12 and under

While skaters prepare their routines for the Exeter Skating Club carnival March 29, students at South Huron District High School are preparing a backdrop to match the theme, Meet Me at the Diner.
“In groups they came up with images that reflect the various eras from the 1950s to now,” says visual arts teacher Carleen Hone, who is supervising the project by her Grade 10 art class. Among the images are portraits of Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and Garfield, as well as images of breakdancing and iPods.
The SHDHS band will also perform at the carnival, which features junior national skating champions and local skaters.

More than 100 performers, musicians, directors, stage managers and production crew need temporary rental accommodation for the 2009 Huron Country Playhouse season.
“We rely heavily on the community’s support,” facility manager Paul Pembleton said in a release.
The average accommodation rate is $70 per week, Pembleton said, and cast and crew work five weeks at a time, including two weeks of rehearsals and three weeks of performances; some work the whole season. Accommodations close to the theatre are appreciated, but some performers have access to vehicles. Required amenities include cooking and washroom facilities.
“It’s a great way to bring in some extra money if you have an empty room or two in your home, or a private apartment, basement apartment, or empty cottage that would be available during the summer,” Pembleton said, noting some people host several actors for the whole season, while others host for just one five-week period.
Info: Paul Pembleton (519) 238-8387 x50 or paul@draytonentertainment.com.

World Religion Day
Sunday, January 18
2 to 4 p.m. – Grand Bend Legion (Kevin Locke will also perform at the Huron Woods clubhouse Sunday night at 7 p.m.)
Featuring Lakota hoop dancer Kevin Locke and the London Unity Choir. Clergy of local churches will offer readings and prayers for world peace. Refreshments served. Everyone welcome.

Gord and Josy Britton wouldn’t miss World Religion Day for anything. Currently in Ethiopia singing with Van Gilmer’s Bahá’í House of Worship Gospel Choir, the Brittons will return home just in time to celebrate the event’s fifth year in Grand Bend.
“Every year we’ve had participation from the Grand Bend United Church, the Anglican church, the Catholic church, the Presbyterian church in St. Joseph, and the United church in Dashwood,” says Josy. “We’ve had representatives of the Muslim and Jewish communities. To cover other religions, we’ve had to invite people from outside the area. The last two years we’ve had the princess from Kettle Point come and do a native prayer.”
This year, organizers are especially proud to have American Lakota hoop dancer Kevin Locke as the guest of honour.
“He’s an amazing individual,” Gord says. “He has such skill. His hoop dancing is unbelievable. What adds to its beauty is its symbolism.”
“His hoops are in four colours: black, white, red and yellow,” Josy adds. “They represent the four races, four directions, four winds. He uses 28 hoops to show all sorts of symbols of renewal. He makes them into birds, butterflies, eagles, sun, moon, and stars. He shows changing seasons through the dance. He shows that everyone is each other’s brother and there can be unity.”
Promoting unity is the main goal of the event, an initiative of the Bahá’í faith. The Brittons are members of this faith, and one of its principles is to build a peaceful world through the unity of mankind.
“We have to start understanding and celebrating our diversity,” Gord says, “and World Religion Day promotes that unity in diversity. All these faiths and non-faith groups come together to celebrate in unity.
“All of these religions share a golden rule, stated in different ways. Live together, respect each other and treat your neighbour as yourself. You don’t bomb your brother if you believe the world is one country and we are one human race.”
The Brittons faced concern when they converted to the Bahá’í faith, but have found the community more welcoming as time has passed.
“Some of our friends were worried that it was a cult or something,” Josy says. “There isn’t any fear anymore. People are surprised at how few Bahá’ís there are here because we’re quite an active group.”
“We often focus on the divisions,” Gord notes, “but all the world religions come from the same source, and that’s God. God wouldn’t create competing religions. If they look closely enough, they’ll find a great deal of commonality in the spiritual teachings, but where the differences lie are in the social teachings. Social conditions change. We shouldn’t be judging religions on the social differences.”
Ultimately, the Brittons believe we are all the same and looking for the same things in life. The key is to work to understand other cultures and religions, and events like World Religion Day help achieve that goal.
“Understanding isn’t tolerance. It’s celebrating the fact that there’s something that connects us all. We’ve traveled to Israel, India, Africa, and elsewhere, and families are families. People wake up and care about their children and want to get on with their lives in a peaceful way. It’s not going to happen by accident, but by deliberate planning.”
The event is free, and people of all beliefs are welcome to attend.

2009 Grand Bend Winter Carnival Events Guide

Monday Feb. 16, 2009
3 to 5 p.m. – Oakwood Clubhouse
Bring the family for a free swim. Special Kids menu begins at 4 p.m.

How a day at the beach changed Reagen Robinson’s life

Exeter toddler Reagen Robinson’s life will never be the same after an outing to a private beach near Grand Bend in August. Soon after arriving at the beach with his parents Brad and Katrina and brother Jordon, Reagen ran toward an extinguished, but still hot, firepit and suffered third degree burns to his hands and second degree burns to parts of his legs.

As told to Casey Lessard

Katrina Robinson: We’re lake people. It’s nice to live next door to one of the most beautiful places in the world, and we take advantage of it. We have two small kids and two dogs who enjoy to swim. We’re beachgoers. It’s a fun, inexpensive day to have family time.
It was a Friday afternoon, and after Brad finished work we decided to go to the beach.
We were at a private beach. We had just sat down and I noticed he went toward the fire pit and I literally just about had him. I couldn’t catch him fast enough. He fell into a fire pit full of ashes that were still fairly warm. I picked him up and threw him in the water with me. I didn’t know what else to do. Brad came down and took one look at him and said we had to go to the hospital. It all happened so fast. It seemed like we got there one minute, and the next we were driving back down the road with a screaming baby.
Shock took over. Usually I’m a very queasy person, but for some reason I was the pillar of strength. I carried him into Exeter hospital and they took him from me so I could give them information. I went back and all you could see was his skin was charred. It was all grey. I don’t know how else to describe it because I try not to think about it; it’s so horrific.
I remember having to stand in the hospital room and hold cold cloths of saline solution over top of him. They explained what they were going to do and gave him a drug called ketamine to knock him out. Before I knew it, he was being taken to Victoria Hospital. We dropped Jordon off at Brad’s parents’ house in Ailsa Craig, and it felt like forever to get from Ailsa Craig to London. We got lost and finally found where we were supposed to be.
I don’t think the severity of it sunk in until the next morning, Saturday. Having been brought up to speed by his team, the plastic surgeon came in and had a look and said flat out that Reagen had to have skin grafting. He said he would wait until his normal surgery days, which were Wednesday and Thursday, but then he came back and changed his mind. He said if it was okay with us, he would do it the next day, Sunday.
On his first surgery, they skin-grafted up his forearms, the back of his hands and the fronts of his fingers. They placed pins in his fingers to keep them straight so he didn’t move any of the skin grafting. It takes between three and seven days for the skin grafts to be fully attached.
Originally they thought they would have to skin graft his palms, a spot on his knees and a spot on his toe. But after two hours, the surgeon came to us and was excited, saying he didn’t think his knee or his palms needed the surgery.
We were in the hospital for four weeks. They were shocked at how fast he healed, and Dr. Scilley was calling him his Superhealer. They were pleased enough to let us go home, but reminded us that we would have to have home care come in every day because he had sores that would need dressings. We went home with some dressing instructions and we were to wrap Cobans (a type of compression bandage) to add some tension into form before we got into gloves. We were home doing that for about a week before we had to go see Dr. Scilley. The Coban, because it wasn’t wrapped properly, started to cut into the bases of the fingers and added new wounds. Unfortunately, because of the way the health system works, no one from the hospital could come out and teach our home care workers how to use them properly, and you have to be a pro at it for it to work properly.
The physical therapist, surgeon and a couple of nurses went to a conference in Montreal, and discovered gloves that had some tension in them with silver to help the healing. These were eventually replaced by the full pressure gloves he uses now. His left hand was burned worse than his right hand; he has about 95 per cent use of his right hand, and we’ve had issues with his left hand. His web spaces grew in a bit and the gloves are cutting into the web space. We’re trying to get it to heal, but you need pressure on it to keep it functional. It’s just getting better now.
The body is still trying to repair its own skin because it doesn’t understand skin grafting. The blood vessels are still up at the surface, so if he were to pick his finger, it would bleed like crazy. The gloves help put pressure on his blood vessels and add form to his fingers. His fingers will never look like yours and mine, but he’ll be able to bend them.
With the home care workers, I hold on to him and we go through six exercises to bend his joints and stretch the skin to its maximum potential. Even in a 24-hour period, you can have a lot of contraction, so you have to manipulate it while it’s still not completely healed.

Inflicting pain daily
They’re hopeful that he will have full mobility. With his left hand, he doesn’t do a whole lot because it’s still sore. He favours his right hand, and we hope the mobility’s there in his left hand, but he can’t talk so we don’t know.
It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’s not an easy thing to watch a child go through pain. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t have to assist in inflicting pain on him. I honestly thought when they first taught me how to do the exercises in the hospital that it would get easier. It doesn’t. In fact, it gets worse because it’s been four or five months continuous.
When you have a burn, you have a burn for life. He will require surgeries until he is fully grown because his fingers and arms will grow but his skin won’t grow with them.
It has its downfalls for being as young as he was, but it has its upside, too. He’ll never remember what happened, and he’ll never know any different. He’ll just have to adapt. It’s life. You can’t go back and it’s never going to get any worse than it was that day. We just have to teach him that everyone is different, and you can do anything you want as long as you set your mind to it.

A November fundraiser in Parkhill raised almost $20,000 to offset the medical costs. Reagen needs gloves, which are covered 75 per cent by OHIP every six months, but the family has to pay for any additional gloves in the interim. Medical supplies and other expenses, such as parking for regular visits to the hospital, also come out of their pocket.
Donations are still being accepted. Cheques made out to the “Parkhill Lions Club in trust to Reagen Robinson” can be sent to the club at P.O. Box 207 Parkhill, ON N0M 2K0. Tax receipts will be issued.

By Casey Lessard

The end is near for Crediton’s only retailer, and its owners hope that end refers to construction on the town’s only bridge and main road, not the end of their 15-year business.
“There are no guarantees,” says Diane Faubert when asked if the business will survive to the January bridge repair completion date. “We don’t know. We’re going to try.”
Jordy’s Gas Bar, one of the few businesses in the village, has been hit hard by three years of road construction caused by sewer installation; this year’s discovery that the bridge had a crack was the straw that threatens to break Jordy’s back.
“I’ve taken a leave of absence from my bus,” Faubert says, “I’ve laid off my (three part-time) employees, I’ve unplugged a couple of fridges and freezers to cut back. We’ve cut back our hours because there just isn’t enough business. It’s pretty tough.”
“We became aware in late 2006 that it’s the same type of bridge that collapsed in Laval, Quebec,” says Acting Director of Public Works Dave Laurie, who notes they’ve been keeping tabs on the bridge since then. Repairing the bridge was Huron County’s least expensive option, estimated at $430,000.
“The bridge was built in the mid-50s, and it was a design that was popular, the cantilever beam design. We had done some repairs earlier in 2006 to address other issues, and early this summer realized there’s a crack in one of the beams critical to supporting the bridge. It probably was a flaw in the bridge from the time it was built. Luckily it’s the only one of that type we have in Huron County.”
Traffic is rerouted around Crediton at Parr Line until next month. Consolidated Sign & Lighting is at the Parr Line end of Crediton’s main street, and its lit sign is visible from the detour.
“It’s not an issue for us,” says Consolidated’s Larry Eveland. “I’d rather see it happening rather than not happening.
“We’re just lucky our bridge isn’t the one that collapsed and killed somebody. It had to be fixed before someone got hurt.”
The discovery of the crack is important to public safety, but an unlucky case of bad timing for Faubert, whose business has already suffered from construction that deters traffic en route to Grand Bend and the Motorplex.
““We used to get a lot of Motorplex traffic, but they don’t want to go over rough roads,” Faubert says. “After three years of this, I don’t have any financial savings or extra money to tie me through. I have another month and a half to go. I’m taking it day by day and hoping that I’ll survive this.”

Story and Photos by Casey Lessard

They may not have won the national championship Vanier Cup, but the University of Western Ontario Mustangs football team continues to win the hearts of boys and girls at East Williams Public School in Nairn. Several of the team’s players are taking part in a mentorship program to help the children improve their literacy while learning the fundamentals of football.
“One of our students wrote in his journal about his love for football,” says principal Vivienne Bell-McKaig, who spearheaded the program last year.
“We asked if he would like to meet (a player), and he was quite excited about that opportunity. So we wrote a letter inviting the Stangs to our school, and this has grown from a one-buddy opportunity to a whole school mentorship program.”
“It started off small with a couple of guys,” says linebacker and long snapper Conor Elliott, who is a friend of Bell-McKaig’s daughter and leads the program. “It’s blown up and been going strong ever since.
“I love it. I love seeing the kids. Their reading has gone up. It brings you back to why you’re doing what you’re doing. It makes you work harder and when you see how well they’re doing. I’d always wanted to pursue education, but this made it clear in my mind.”
Inspired by Elliott’s commitment to education, left guard Matt Norman is now interested in pursuing education as a career.
“I love helping them learn and it’s a great pleasure,” Norman says. “These kids really look up to us, and I was taken by surprise how they welcome us. It’s a great feeling.”
And it’s a great feeling for McKaig, who has seen progress already.
“There is a gender gap in learning and it really shows in the Grades 4-6 age groups,” she says.
“This shows that boys, and even football players, like to read. We already have seen big, big improvement in our reading and writing scores since these guys have been coming out. It’s improved the motivation and purpose for reading and writing.”
Plus, it brings a smile to the faces of the students.
“It’s really fun,” says Grade 5 student Adam Galloway, “because they’re really smart and it’s fun to play with them and read with them.”
The program also reminds the players of the importance of school.
“It makes us realize we have to buckle down at school,” Elliott says. “It’s a good reality check.”

View from the Strip
By Casey Lessard

What a rollercoaster ride of emotions Canadians have been on this month. The scene in Ottawa has polarized the nation, with the Governor-General putting the brakes on a government takeover bid by a Liberal-NDP coalition (let’s be honest, the Bloc is in there, too, even if no one will admit it; however, I think they have less power than the Conservatives want us to believe).
Post-crisis polls say Stephen Harper has more support than he did in October. Personally, the prospect of Stephen Harper winning a majority scares the heck out of me; right now, it’s a real possibility.
Conservative supporters paint the Prime Minister as the victim in this battle, but his economic statement was tailor made to start a fight: he planned to drop the $1.95 voter subsidy, attack labour unions, and eliminate gender pay equity. Coming into a confidence vote armed with an economic statement no one in opposition could support only weeks after the election, Harper seemed genuinely surprised that anyone would stand up to him, especially Stéphane Dion, whose Liberals let him pick on them for the past two years.
I can’t understand when people call the coalition a team of schoolyard bullies. It’s more realistic to call them the victims, and Harper the bully who has been pushing them around for too long. Nothing has changed because he ran to the teacher, who tells them all to cool it.
It seems as if the coalition is doomed, but we’ll see if that’s true. Harper’s support has grown only because Dion’s has dropped (dramatically), and with him out of the way, it will be new ball game come January. Time will tell whether the coalition will emerge stronger or weaker after the prorogation period ends six weeks from now.
More importantly, time will tell whether Canadians will realize that more of us voted for a party other than the Conservatives, which means that if they work together they have the right to run the government. That’s how it works here.
At least this crisis has helped make one thing happen: Canadians are certainly more engaged in politics than they were a month ago. Perhaps next time there is an election, more of us will stand up and be counted. We got ourselves into this mess, after all.

Alternative View
By Lance Crossley

One of the most intriguing aspects of the recent struggle for power on Parliament Hill was the propaganda war. Nowadays we call it public relations, but it still amounts to the same thing: the conscious and intelligent manipulation of public opinion.
In the dramatic lead up to the Governor-General approving Stephen Harper’s request to prorogue Parliament – thereby saving his political career – the country witnessed an ugly battle for the hearts and minds of Canadians.
The anti-coalition propaganda was particularly disgraceful.
The source of this propaganda came primarily from two very well oiled machines: the Harper government and big business.
Let’s start with the Harper government. It is to be expected that politicians with power will try every means to keep it, but the Conservatives resorted to outright lies to prevent the fall of their government.
They relentlessly repeated that this was a separatist coalition (it’s actually an NDP-Liberal coalition that has the Bloc’s blessing) and shamelessly implied this was a coup d’etat (when in fact it is perfectly democratic – Canadians elect a Parliament, not a government). The problem with the Conservative propaganda is that it is manufacturing a national unity crisis and spreading ignorance as to the kind of democratic system we have.
Big business was also against the coalition, although for a different reason: the fear of a government friendly to progressive labour policies. This view was reflected in the corporate-friendly editorial boards at most of the major newspapers. The Globe and Mail said it was “dangerous” to have members of a “left-wing, labour-beholden party” in cabinet. It even demanded Harper resign just to avoid this scenario, even though it endorsed him for leader during the recent election campaign.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce (CCC), a huge business advocacy group, originally criticized Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s pathetic economic statement, saying it lacked a real economic stimulus plan. But the powerful lobby group was clearly more worried about the prospect of a coalition. The reason was plainly stated by its president, Perrin Beatty, during an interview with CBC Newsworld where he brought up Bill C-257: a private member’s bill put forth earlier this year by the Bloc Quebecois that would have strengthened Canada’s labour rights. The bill failed but the fact that Beatty used it to explain his opposition to a coalition accurately revealed his motives. Conversely, it also explains why the coalition was so heavily endorsed by the Canadian Labour Congress and so many unions.
Even the Liberals were aware of big business’s opposition, as they went out of their way to tell corporate Canada the NDP would have no significant financial role in a coalition government.
The first casualty in public relations is truth. All the fear mongering by powerful interests prevents Canadians from acting in their own interest. It’s not that everyone has to agree on the idea of a coalition, but the winning idea should not belong to those with the biggest propaganda machine.

Lance Crossley is an award-winning journalist who has worked for The Ottawa Citizen, The Haliburton Echo, and The Prague Post.

By Casey Lessard

Similar to the crowd at a Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel church, familiar faces fill the rows of seats at today’s gathering. I see Steve Dietrich, Pat and Marion Sullivan, Marty and Teresa Larkin, Don O’Rourke, and many Regiers. Instead of seeing Father Ray Lawhead at the front of this room, though, he is among the many. Family friends fill the seats house left, with Carlos Rivera’s family at the front. The Regiers occupy the entire house right side. Altogether, the court seats about 100. We, the media, number 20 and have the privileged position of occupying the jury boxes on either side of the court.

It is now several minutes past ten o’clock on October 27, 2008, and we are waiting for Jesse Norman Imeson’s murder trial to begin. Unlike the Riveras, who used the front entrance, the Regier family was able to avoid the throng of reporters and photographers by using the back entrance. Their sober faces bely the fact that they must wonder what the lawyers at the front have to chuckle about. Perhaps today’s proceedings will bring good news. Hopefully those in attendance will leave with a lighter load than they carried in.

At 10:10 a.m., Imeson’s defense lawyer Don Crawford comes to speak with the reporter ahead of me, Peter Edwards of the Toronto Star (he wrote the book One Dead Indian about the Ipperwash crisis).
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Crawford says. “Is this what it takes to get you out of Toronto and into the sticks?”

My stomach growls. Knowing the courthouse would be full, I left home at 6:30 to ensure a seat. Normally I would be fine after a few hours without food, but the tension in the room makes my gut constrict.
It is quiet, with only a spattering of whispers here, then there. The audience is still, staring forward. The court reporter fidgets, police stand on guard, and lawyers chat among themselves.

It’s 10:20, and the bailiff looks over her shoulder at the judge’s door. No action yet. “Go ahead and bring him out,” a voice crackles through an intercom behind the door to my right. Chains rattle beside me and the door opens. Police offices guide Jesse Imeson behind me and to the prisoner’s box in the middle of the court room.

“All rise.”
Imeson stands and his face wrinkles. His chains restrict him from scratching his nose.
“Let me apologize for the delay,” says Superior Court Justice Roland Haines. “I realize this will e an emotional morning, but I ask you to please restrain yourself from any outbursts during the proceedings.”
Crown Attorney Robert Morris reads the charges against Imeson. He will be pleading not guilty to first degree murder charges, but guilty to three counts of second degree murder. Morris tells the court that a guilty plea carries an automatic life sentence, with no parole for at least 10 years and up to 25. The lawyers have agreed that Imeson will serve concurrent life sentences with no parole for 15 years for the murder of Carlos Rivera, and no parole for 25 years for the murders of Bill and Helene Regier. Morris notes this is the maximum sentence available according to Canadian law, and is the same as a first degree sentence. Because he has killed more than one person, he is not eligible to reduce his sentence after 15 years.

I have an odd vantage point. Jesse Imeson’s prisoner’s box is directly in my line of sight over Morris’ shoulder. We stare at each other, and it is an odd feeling to know he is helpless. This court controls his fate as he controlled the fate of his victims.

Imeson stares at the bailiff as she reads the charges. As she tells him that he is charged with killing Bill Regier, his head drops. When she tells him of the charge regarding Helene Regier, he stares ahead. When she is finished, she asks how he wishes to plea. This is the first time I hear his voice.
“Not guilty as charged, your honour,” he says the first of three times. “Guilty to the included offence of second degree murder.”
His eyes widen as he finishes, and he stares at the judge.
“Do you understand that by pleading guilty,” Justice Haines asks, “that by pleading guilty that you by your unlawful acts caused the deaths of Carlos Rivera, Bill Regier and Helene Regier?”
He nods. “Yes, your honour.”

Crown attorney presents the evidence of the case, and it’s shocking to hear the details of the deaths. Regier granddaughter Nicole Denomy’s audible wail breaks the silence when Morris recounts how Bill Regier was tied in a crucifixion pose while Helene was tied on the floor before being shot to death in the basement of their home. These are details I’ve never heard before this day, and it’s impossible to believe the crown did not have a case to find Imeson guilty of first degree murder.

The court takes a break and returns to hear victim impact statements. The Riveras – Carlos’ mother and father and two brothers (one brother was unable to attend) – had intended to present their own statements, but are too overcome with emotion to speak.
Their lawyer Jennifer Holmes presents on their behalf, and tells the court that Carlos’ mother, Maria, is unable to work, and is financially and physically insecure.
“I’m a different person now. I cry constantly. I walk around in a daze thinking about him. At night, the thought of Carlos invades my mind. I have thoughts of taking my life.
“Carlos was everything to me. This murderer killed Carlos’ dreams and my dreams as well.”
Carlos’ father, Carlos Sr., wonders: “Did (Carlos) ask for help, or did he try to defend himself?”
Carlos’ brother, Javier, would speak to Carlos every day after work. “Sometimes I come home and wait for the phone call that never comes.”
The words of Alvero Rivera make Holmes break down. “He took me under his wing and made me into a man. He loved taking care of me. I love you. I miss you.”
“Carlos helped take a demon out of society,” Hugo Rivera writes. Imeson reacts with a toothless grin, and it’s hard to tell whether he wants to laugh or growl. Clearly uneasy at this point, Imeson appears infuriated to have to listen to their testimony.

The Regier family is next to speak, and they choose to face the killer directly.
Daughter Carol Denomy speaks first: “Our lives are changed forever. In everything we do at work and at home, we see them.
“We can no longer go to Mass with them, and sit on the front porch to watch the sunset. Our conversations with Mom and Dad kept us stable and rooted, always reminding us of what was important in life.
“We will never forget this deep sorrow. It was sudden, violent, undeserved, and defenseless. The pain is sharp, raw, intense.
“Violence is foreign to us. Our hearts are wrenched between an emotional torment of evil, grief, sadness, and fear. Breaking into the sanctuary of one’s home is a bizarre and barbaric act.
“We carry on our lives because that is what our parents would have wanted us to do.
“We are consumed by their absence.”
Brother Paul Regier: “On that night, Bill and Helene looked evil in the eye. This tragic event has opened wounds of despair. We work obsessively to dull the pain of that warm summer’s evening when this cowardly act changed us forever.
“There is no justice… neither sentence nor compensation will euthanize our sense of loss and anger. Although this tragedy has shattered the peace and tranquility in our families and community, for our own health we are all trying in our own ways to graft on to the wound in our family’s tree a healthy memory of happier times.”
Granddaughter Nicole Denomy: “We have all become more skeptical of how safe we really are in our homes. Moving out on my own has been postponed because every night I am reminded of how my grandparents were taken from this earth.
“It is ironic that two selfless people who lived their entire lives for everyone around them were taken at the expense of one person’s incredible selfishness. Grandma and Grandpa would have given him a chance if only he had done the same for them.
“Our family is tired of associating Grandma and Grandpa’s wonderful life with the wickedness of this man.”
Granddaughter Kelli Rathwell: “Our Grandpa had said in a conversation a couple weeks before his and Grandma’s heinous death, ‘This world is changing, you just watch.’
“I believe that when a person is at their very worst, it is because no one is around.
“Please know that you have done our family no favours on this day. But always remember, although you did not listen to the plea of our beautiful grandparents for their life, their family has listened to yours.”

Accepting the crown’s evidence, Don Crawford says the DNA stands for itself, but tells the court that Imeson did not go to the Regier farm with the intention of killing anybody. “Things,” he says, “unfortunately got out of hand.”
Defending the plea bargain, Crawford tells the court that the families “have been spared the anguish of having to testify at a preliminary inquiry and a subsequent trial.
“I can’t imagine the amount of money that would have been spent,” he reminds the judge.
While Imeson chooses not to apologize in the courtroom, he has given his lawyer a statement to read. “I will be an old man when I am released, if ever. I am truly sorry. Please forgive me.”
The judge’s reaction seems more honest. “It is apparent they were extraordinary people,” Justice Haines says. “I would like to express my sympathy and extend my condolences.”

After finalizing the details, the judge sends Imeson to serve his sentence at a federal facility outside of Ontario.
We get one last look at Imeson, and I am the last person he sees before he leaves the court. We stare at each other as we have done many times this day. Feeling no fear, I hold my stare with an emotionless face. I now know the depth of his transgression. He breaks and looks to his left. Is this one moment of true embarrassment? The door closes.
“This court is closed for the day,” the bailiff says.

Congratulations to Grand Bend’s Paul Ciufo, who was nominated Tuesday for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, according to the Canadian Press.

Winners will be announced November 18 in Montreal.

View from the Strip
By Casey Lessard

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but – like it or not – Grand Bend area residents will soon be tying into a municipal sewage system. Many people aren’t aware of the impending costs that are associated with the process, but with figures in the tens of thousands of dollars, they need to start planning now. Perhaps you’re one of them.
Crediton faced this crisis two years ago, and the fallout still has residents talking. Just recently, they faced a deadline to pay cash (about $10,000 per lot plus hookup costs) or face mandatory financing at more than five per cent for 20 years; many thought the day would not come, and missed an opportunity to reduce their costs by finding private financing on their own.
While you can’t stop the provincially mandated process that is well on its way, if you live in the area affected by the proposed sewage system (Grand Bend, St. Joseph, and Dashwood), you can start saving your pennies and talking to your bank. The cost isn’t set yet, but you can bet (based on other communities’ experiences) it will be in the five-figure range for most. Do you have that kind of money underneath your mattress? Didn’t think so.
The situation is worst for the residents of Dashwood, who will have to pipe their waste into Grand Bend, and it’s quite a distance. The cost to do so will be between 20 and 30 per cent of their home values for many.
Home values will increase accordingly, residents are told. Tell that to homeowners in Crediton, where home values haven’t changed much and the home sales market is flooded. Don’t be surprised if you see the same situation in Dashwood some day soon.

The Dashwood resident isn’t eager to tie into Grand Bend’s sewage line. Are you?

Story and photo by Casey Lessard

Sewage collection system information session
Tuesday, September 30
7 to 9 p.m. – Grand Bend Public School

Standing in front of a lagoon that currently services the sewage waste of 1100 residents, John Mason wonders how these same lagoons east of Grand Bend will hold the waste of 11,000 in 2031. Yes, there will be a new sewage treatment facility at the site (once the tri-municipality consortium of Lambton Shores, Bluewater and South Huron approves it), but the Dashwood resident questions the decisions that are leading to the future he fears.
“People are upset,” Mason says. “I had a neighbour come over the other night crying; she can’t afford to keep going right now, let alone have a $26,000 sewage bill to tie in. Then there’s the $150 monthly cost. Mother Nature is doing it for free right now (Dashwood is on septic). They’re just putting undue hardships on everybody.”
Since the Walkerton E. coli tragedy, wastewater at all Ontario lagoons (Grand Bend’s was installed in 1979) must be treated through a treatment plant. Following Crediton’s and Hensall’s lead, Dashwood, St. Joseph and Grand Bend must now convert from septic to sewage with a plant at the present lagoon site on Mollard Line.
“Last year in Hensall, the costs that were presented to us then were $26,000 for each lot in Dashwood to tie into the system,” Mason says, “but that’s at today’s rates and we might not tie in for 10 or 12 years. Who knows what the price will be then.”
Mason is concerned that not everyone in the project’s zone is aware of the fact that they’ll be paying big money to tie in.
“Along the lake it’s $24,000 each to start,” he predicts. “A 3,000 gallon tank is $5,000. The other tank is $5,000. Plus they have to tie in from the road, so all told it’s about $40,000 per lot from St. Joseph to the Pinery.”
Lambton Shores community services director Peggy Van Mierlo-West says she can’t confirm a projected per household cost because the firm handling the project, Dillon Consulting, is not finished its proposal and has not set a cost estimate.
“They are working on that right now,” she says, “so I don’t know where people are coming up with those numbers.”
Mason figures that with Dashwood home values in the $150,000 range, it’s not a stretch to suggest that most families there will have to refinance their homes or move.
“We recently put my mom in a home, so we have her home for sale. It’s 30 years old, brick with a full basement on an acre lot. Double-car garage. We got an offer on it the other day for $147,000. A house just like it just sold in Exeter for $349,000. Wait until we get assessed for sewage, and we won’t be able to give this house away.
“Dashwood’s the last teepee standing, where we can live cheaply. Where are our poor people going to live? The Bible says, ‘The meek shall inherit the Earth.’ Where are we meek going to live?”
Mason has some solutions that could help pay for the project. They include making such infrastructure expenditures tax deductible; offering government loans at the prime rate; and canceling the project by diverting the affluent to fertilize trees at the Pinery.
The public input phase for the tertiary plant is complete, Van Mierlo-West says. Promoted as a superior environmental alternative, the new facility would use top of the line technology, including UV radiation, to purify water and eliminate not only bacteria but also nitrates and phosphates, along with any toxic materials residents put down their drains. Solar, wind, and geothermal technology would help power and heat the plant.
The lagoons on Mollard Line currently drain into the Shipka Drain, which feeds the Parkhill Creek, which takes the water to Lake Huron south of the pier. While the new system will manage 10-times as much water, Van Mierlo-West says it will reduce the amount of waste that goes into the lake – by a long shot.
“It doesn’t eliminate the risk, but it reduces it most drastically. Very low actually,” she says. “We’re sizing it for that capacity, and we’re looking at a method that will have the water treated by UV light before it’s released.”
The September 30 meeting is a chance for residents to tell Lambton Shores council which system they want to transport the waste from their home to the plant. The two options are: gravity to a municipal pumping station; and privately powered pumps that force the water into the main pipes. With the first system, small buildings with control panels will be erected in strategic locations; with the second, each homeowner will pay hydro to pump the waste out.
“We haven’t made a decision yet on which method we’re looking at,” Van Mierlo-West says, noting the cost for each will be presented at the meeting.
After receiving more than 100 comments from the last public meeting, Van Mierlo-West is eager to see a strong community turnout; community associations in Southcott Pines and Huron Woods, among others, are encouraging residents to attend the meeting.
“A lot of people are going to be showing up for this meeting,” she says. “It’s nice to know there’s interest in this project. If there wasn’t, I’d be worried.”

The Dashwood-based Bluewater men’s tug of war team, representing Canada at the world championships in Stenungsbaden, Sweden, repeated their 2006 11th place finish in a pull-off against Italy, which they won handily. Switzerland took the tournament with a win over England. A total of 18 teams competed in the 640kg men’s senior class.

See previous story about the team’s journey.

“It’s time to win gold”

Ten-time Canadian champions chase elusive world tug-of-war title September 4-7 in Sweden

Photos and story by Casey Lessard

They’ve been the best tug-of-war team in Canada since 1997, but they’ve never tasted success on the world stage. For the Bluewater squad based at Matthias Metzger’s farm northwest of Dashwood, this year is different.
“If they believe they can win a gold medal, I think they can,” says coach Jim Connolly of London. The team heads to Stenungsund, Sweden to fight for the world championships September 4-7.
The difference this year, Connolly says, is the team has a cohesive plan to win thanks to help from his son-in-law, life coach Rob Di Cesare. He’s been helping the team overcome the mental barriers to their success.
“I always noticed that in and around Ontario and this area, they dominate,” says Di Cesare, who has been following their progress over the years. “They’re physically stronger and better trained than any other team. However, whenever they go to competitions in Europe, even as they prepared, you would see a difference. The results would show.”
“We tend to put our (international) opposition up on a pedestal,” Connolly says. “You can’t beat them if you’ve already done that. Rob has taught us to concentrate more on ourselves than on our competition. We’re ready this time.”
For Di Cesare, the first step was setting a cohesive goal for the team.
“Everyone had a different idea of why they were going to Sweden,” he says. “Some of them were going to finish in the top six. Some were going to finish in the top four. Some were going to win a medal. Some were going just to compete.”
Di Cesare encouraged the men to decide on a team goal, and they decided it was to win the world championships. The quest to achieve that goal hasn’t been easy; the team reached a breaking point last month.
“On their way to achieving the gold medal,” he says, “they had to set some smaller goals, and one of them was that in order for the team to go to Sweden, each had to hold their own weight for five minutes by Monday, July 21. If even one of them couldn’t do it, the team wasn’t going, even though they’d already bought their plane tickets, etc. They had three weeks to get to that point.
“In my Friday night session before the deadline, I checked in with the guys and none of them was able to do it. They couldn’t even get past a minute-and-a-half. That night, they suggested they should move the deadline back because the goal was too high. I called them on their backing down and said the deadline wasn’t changing.
“That Monday morning, Matthias tried several times and couldn’t hold it for even a minute-and-a-half. But that night at training, something changed and every single guy held it for at least five minutes. The lowest was 5:09, and the longest was close to nine minutes. Nothing changed physically, but mentally something changed and they made up their minds that they were going to do this.”
Even the casual observer would see the team is focused on their goal; it’s a stark contrast to when Rob Hoffman went to his first world championships in 1996.
“I went over with an all-star team from Ontario, and we weren’t fit to do the laces of the European teams,” Hoffman says. “The following year, Bluewater won the right to represent Canada, and we’ve been doing that for the last 10 years. This is the best team we’ve had.”
“I think there will be a different result this time,” says Di Cesare. “We’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on the Olympics. Stereotypically, Canadians will say they’re there to do their best and to participate. If you asked an American athlete, stereotypically they say they’re there to win a gold medal. Nothing else is acceptable. That’s probably the fundamental reason the Americans do better than Canadians.”
“At this point we’ve trained hard and we’ve been there enough to know we’re as fit as the other teams,” says team captain Ted Hoffman. “Tug of war becomes very mental when you get into the top four and the team that doesn’t give in to the strain and the pain will win.”
“It’s a good feeling to be on top in Ontario or Canada,” says Matthias Metzger, a puller since 1991. “But you always want to do more. We’ve been somewhat successful at the international level, but now it’s time to win a gold medal.”
For more info: http://www.tug-of-war.net.

Crediton hosts a Harvest Family Fun Day September 6 at the park. Lots of entertainment, fun and games, and plenty of good food. Get your tickets for the top prize of $5200 worth of gas in aid of the town’s building fund.

(excerpted from Tom Lessard’s column)

If it is foreseeable, it is preventable.
- Lifesaving Society Canada, Ontario Branch

This is the third year in a row someone has drowned at Grand Bend, and each drowning happened after lifeguards went off duty. To help prevent deaths in the future, Lambton Shores last fall commissioned a Lifesaving Society report, and recently purchased life rings, a measure witnesses believe could have helped save at least one of the victims. The Lifesaving Society has audited the facility, will review policies and procedures, and will interview staff. Their report is due this fall. Typically they recommend lifeguards or rescue equipment. The Grand Bend Strip spoke with Lambton Shores Chief Administrative Officer John Byrne about the situation.

Casey Lessard: I understand you are buying life rings for the beach. What is the status of that?
John Byrne: They went up last Friday (Aug. 1). There are four stations, and we bought a dozen of them in anticipation that some of them will be stolen, and one was stolen that very evening. We’re just replacing them to keep them stocked until we get the report from the Lifesaving Society and can plan for this for future years. It’s an interim measure at this point. They’re about $100 a piece.
The Lifesaving Society was seen as a measure of saying, Okay, let’s do this thoroughly and have professionals come in and objectively look at this and see what can we do to improve things. They were also asked, Look, if there are things that are obvious to you and that we should be doing immediately, please let us know and we’ll do those; don’t wait for the final report. As it turns out, there was a tragic event in tragic circumstances. Certainly a life ring is something people can go to. It’s a lot more difficult than what meets the eye in turns of running to get a life ring and tossing it in time to get it to somebody. I don’t want to say it’s to pacify anybody, but it’s certainly there and we’re going to see if the Lifesaving Society recommends more, less, or different deployment of those or what.
CL: In terms of lifeguards, what is the view of whether they should be working longer?
JB: That’s all part and parcel of the Lifesaving Society. What we’ve done in terms of a protocol was just follow what preexisted pre-amalgamation, and what was going on previously in Grand Bend, and carried that on. We always interview and talk to the lifeguards before and after seasons to figure out what can we do different, and that’s why we’re changing lifeguard stands and we provided new surfboard equipment and so on and so forth. The frustrating thing is that everybody can come in after the fact and suggest this, that and the other thing. As I said, that’s why we wanted this done professionally by the Lifesaving Society and we’re going to go from there.

CL: So, do you see it as a coincidence that each of the last three years, somebody has died after the lifeguards have gone off-duty.
JB: Again, let me ask you the question, what time should they be on in your mind?
CL: My attitude is, if there are people on the beach in a strong enough mass of numbers…
JB: What’s that number for you? Again, these are all subjective things. It’s easy to say, but you come down there, you look around and see that there are no lifeguards sitting in the lifeguard stands. Does that register with you that maybe there are no lifeguards on duty, number one. You look at the water conditions, the high wave activity going, Gee, I’m not sure that’s the safest place to go swimming. Or do you just throw caution to the wind and go running into the lake saying, Let’s see what will happen?
CL: But a lot of people will swim until sundown, and I think sundown is a reasonable…
JB: This isn’t a budgetary thing at all as some people have implied. It’s based on what has happened before. For most people, families and so forth, that’s the dinner hour and they’re less likely to access the beach after hours.

CL: The Lifesaving Society has said they leave it up to the municipality based on the statistics they have…
JB: I haven’t read the report. I haven’t seen the report. I haven’t talked to them either. We’re leaving them free to interview us and I haven’t heard a thing from them in terms of what they’re recommending.
CL: They allow the municipality to decide based on statistics you collect on how much your beach is used, so do you keep track of those stats based on the number of people who are using the parking lots or the number of people that come to the town?
JB: The lifeguards make assessments all the time. That’s why they expand or shrink their coverage areas, and they notify people to move in and deploy their lifeguards accordingly. There’s a certain deployment during the week and at weekends and holiday weekends they ramp up their lifeguard decisions they make. We don’t interfere with how they’re going to be doing it. If the lifeguards came back to us and said, We need to be on until 9 o’clock, we’d present that to council and see whether we can do it.
CL: So what is the turnaround time on that? If they want to be on beyond 5 o’clock any day, do they have to come to council and wait for a council meeting to decide that, or do they have the authority to do that?
JB: Well, again, I couldn’t answer that. You have to think about that. Are you suggesting that we give total attitude to lifeguards to determine their hours of deployment? They try to work with us…
CL: You just said you give them discretion to decide what their deployment is. Who’s deciding their deployment then?
JB: They decide their deployment meaning where they’re dispersed on the beach.
CL: My point is, if there are still 10,000 people on the beach at 5 o’clock, do the lifeguards leave?
JB: The lifeguards will announce on the PA system that they’re done. There are different hours for the weekend.
You could fence the beach off. Tell everybody to get off the beach, lock the gates and walk away. Do you think somebody’s not going to climb that fence after hours and go in swimming? And are we responsible for that? So should we have 24-hour surveillance and security people around there? This is why we’re trying to figure out what’s the reasonable thing to do. Let’s get it right, let’s not fly by the seat of our pants and react to things. Let’s figure out from the professionals what we should be doing.

CL: So what is the municipality’s measure of liability when drownings happen in Lambton Shores water?
JB: There’s always a liability… again… you know, we don’t determine where liability comes. If people want to sue the municipality for something that has occurred, that is their right to do. The courts will sort out and attribute liability. That’s not something we assess. We’re not making decisions based on that. It’s, Are we doing the right things? We think based on past experience, past discussions with lifeguards, the response has been reasonable. You get extreme circumstances. Do the municipality and the council feel terrible about a drowning on the beach? What do you think? (pause) What do you think?
CL: You can tell me.
JB: (sighs) Okay.
CL: I used to be a lifeguard at a pool and we were always on until 8 o’clock.
JB: And what happens if someone climbs the fence at 8:30? We’ve had people drown at pools, too. They jump the fence after hours and so forth. There’s no easy answers to this. There’s no perfect solution. That’s why we’re working with professionals. We’ll see what the report says, and we’re going to implement their recommendations.

CL: Does it not seem like a little too much time goes by between commissioning a report last November and getting a report after this summer?
JB: Does council wish it could be faster? Sure.
CL: You were saying earlier that it’s not a budgetary issue…
JB: It’s not a budgetary issue. This is not a matter where we’re putting people at risk for the sake of the limited amount of dollars that we’re spending on this thing. That’s foolish. Council’s never made such a decision to say, Let’s risk this and cut it back here. They’ve always followed through and that’s why we have these reports from the lifeguards about what’s going on and what we can do to improve.

While Byrne did not have figures on hand, we followed up with an email asking for specifics, and received these responses:
1) Lifeguard hours during the week and on weekends/holiday weekends?
Noon to 5 p.m. Mon.-Thurs. and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fri, Sat, & Sun and holiday Mondays.

2) Start and end date for lifeguard season?
Lifeguards start the 2nd last Friday of June till Labour Day Monday.

3) Peak number of vehicles parked in beachfront lots this summer or last, during lifeguard hours and during off-duty hours?
No data available.

4) Average pay per hour for a lifeguard at Grand Bend?
Wages for lifeguards range between $15.00 to $18.00 per hour.

5) Total income from beachfront parking lots for the year?
We generate approximately $350,000.00 from the parking lots each year depending on weather, but it must be kept in mind that these revenues are not necessarily beach specific as they serve the downtown commercial areas as well. The monies generated go to offset operating costs and retiring of capital debt for the Beach House etc.

6) Current budget for lifeguards per year?
The Beach Patrol Budget is about $48,000.00 annually.

View from the Strip
By Casey Lessard

I didn’t ask Richard and Anna Kovar how much they would be willing to pay to bring their daughter Jule back to life; instead, I’ll put the question to you. If you were able to give money to revive your child, would you pay $20,000, $50,000, $100,000, $1 million?
This is not a budgetary issue, as Lambton Shores CAO John Byrne says (see following interview). If the budget were your family’s, you would find the money, right? And you would find it right now instead of thinking about it and waiting for someone to tell you it’s the right thing to do.
So why is it, then, that Lambton Shores continues to wait for a report from a professional body analyzing the situation at Grand Bend beach before it makes a real move to secure the safety of swimmers at the beach? I’m sorry, but a few life rings are not enough.
The fact is, a life ring is useless if there is no one on the beach to throw it to a person who is drowning. Like the saying about a tree falling in the forest, if someone drowns when the beach is empty, does anybody see?
I’m surprised that no one has the foresight to say, until a report is done this fall, that we will go above and beyond the minimum (life rings) to make sure our residents and guests are safe. I use the word guest because that’s what a tourist is. They’re not strangers who don’t deserve our attention. They are guests whose money we want, yet whose safety we cannot ensure. Worse yet, the guests who we fail the most are those who are most vulnerable: young people like Elizabeth Tse, 20, Jule Kovar, 14, and Ryan Albrecht, 17.
What is the best we can do until the report comes in? In a 2001 United States report called Lifeguard Effectiveness: A Report of the Working Group, commissioned by the National Center for Injury Prevention and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers found that the chance of drowning at a beach patrolled by lifeguards is less than one in 18 million per year. In one example, the study – compiled using statistics from the U.S. Lifesaving Association – noted that in 1990, five people drowned on Memorial Day at American Beach in Nassau County, Florida, one year after lifeguards were removed because of budgetary restraints. A short time later, lifeguards returned and the number of drownings dropped to zero for the eight years leading up to the report’s release.
Grand Bend’s lifeguards are on duty five hours a day during the week and seven hours a day on weekends (12 noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday through Sunday and holiday Mondays). Friday morning, when our cover shot was taken, there were still none on the beach at 9:20, and there were people swimming in very rough conditions. Among them were Jacey Gardner (on cover) and her friend Breanne Johnston, both 14, of Windsor. They were attracted to the waves for “the rush,” Johnston said. “It’s fun because it makes for bigger waves,” Gardner added.
Where would those girls be if Stephanie Donaldson and I were not meeting there that morning? And they weren’t the only ones swimming in the 3’-4’ waves; we also saw a woman with her two young children and a man with his toddler.
Lifeguards are more than rescuers. In fact, their most important role may be to prevent swimmers from putting themselves in danger in the first place. Why do people keep drowning here? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the last three victims have drowned after lifeguards go off duty.
With a season that runs from the end of June to Labour Day in September, the beach patrol costs the municipality $48,000 per year. That’s not much when you consider that the town brings in $350,000 annually from its parking lots. Even a round-the-clock patrol wouldn’t equal the income from people visiting Grand Bend.
If stores were being robbed on Main Street, or pedestrians being stabbed, would the police put a set of handcuffs on the station wall after hours? Surely someone would see a trend and step up patrols. Don’t our beachgoers deserve the same treatment?
The Kovars are waiting for an answer.

Although he is a neurologist and she is an attorney, Dr. Richard and Anna Kovar live a modest life in a home in Fort Gratiot, Michigan, a borough of Port Huron, just over the bridge from Sarnia. Their daughter Jule drowned August 8, 2007 just north of the pier at Grand Bend beach.
Casey Lessard traveled to Fort Gratiot the day before the one year anniversary of her death.
“I lived with her every day,” Jule’s brother Russell says. “I’d come home and she was here. I woke up and she was here. The thing I notice the most is when I wake up and go downstairs, and I pass her door. I think what’s there and what used to be there.”

As told to Casey Lessard

Richard Kovar: It was a beautiful, blissful, carefree summer. All the girls were looking forward to ninth grade, going into high school. Everybody was focused on that and enjoying the summer while we still had it.
Anna Kovar: This stopped everybody and everything and brought everybody into a state of shock.
The house is so quiet without Jule. She was so bubbly and effervescent. She couldn’t be here without you knowing she was here. Everything is so sedate and quiet now. It’s not the same house anymore.

Anna: She was a very easy birth. The thing I remember about her from her birth until the time she died, she was a happy, happy girl. She woke up every morning with a smile on her face; a big, bright smile. Good morning, mama. Happy. Singing. She would come out of bed singing and dancing and jumping and leaping. I think what everyone will say that when she was in a room, she was just energy. She was like glitter. She was always there. She had so much energy and happiness.
We moved to Port Huron when Jule was a year and a half, and Russell was three. We avoided buying several of the houses we looked at because they were on water and I didn’t want the kids to drown. Because we lived in a town where there was a lot of water, my husband and I wanted to make sure they were good swimmers, so we took them to the YMCA every year and had them take swim classes until they were really strong. And Jule had tremendous upper body strength. She used to do the monkey bars and try to see how many times she could go back and forth without stopping. It was an incredible amount of times.
Richard: That came from wrestling with her brother, I think. They were very physical. The usual. They loved each other; they were best of friends and worst of enemies sometimes.
Anna: They were both tall and athletic. Jule was 5’8 1/2” and she wasn’t done growing yet. She was an excellent tennis player, as is Russell. She played volleyball, and played travel soccer when she was younger.
Richard: At school, she was smart when she worked at it, and when she was distracted, which was frequently, she had to be kept to task.
Anna: She was a very creative person. If you have ever known people that creative, sometimes it was so easy for her to get distracted by this thing or that thing. She went to Montessori for preschool, and I remember one time I came to pick her up when she was four years old. They used to make these world maps where they would cut out the continents with pins and then paste them on this map and label the continents and oceans. The teacher met me at the door and said, ‘I can’t believe what your daughter did today.’ She started at the beginning and her goal was to finish her world map. She didn’t talk to anybody, she didn’t go to the washroom, she didn’t eat her snack. That was very unusual because she was a social butterfly.
Richard: But she was a detail person at the same time. She used to come up to me with an envelope filled with paper that she had cut into tiny, tiny pieces. She’d look at me really proud. ‘Dad, look what I did!’
Anna: She wanted to be a fashion designer. She had little drawings of fashion design and she was going to start a fashion design company with her friends. She redid her room. I had given her a bedroom set, which was my dream because I grew up poor; it was this antique bedroom set with a white sleigh bed, and she said, ‘Mom, I’m not like that. I’m modern.’ So she redesigned her room with one wall yellow, one wall apricot orange, one wall lime green and the last pink. At first we thought, ugh. But it looks fabulous. She picked out her furniture, which was very modern. She had a great sense of style and she was always dressed in her sense of style, which was always really cool.
Richard: I thought she had a great sense of style. She would dress me.
Anna: She was an artist as well. When she was in 5th grade, she joined an art club and did these detailed drawings of animals, and the art teacher was so impressed with her, she said ‘I would really like to do a summer study with her because she has a lot of talent.’
Richard: I was looking forward to seeing her develop as a person. With all of the creative ideas that she had, we had a hard time containing her creativity and diversity without suppressing her.
Anna: She was an extremely talented tennis player and we were looking forward to her going to high school because the tennis coach promised her a spot on the varsity tennis team. Russell is a state doubles tennis champ, so that’s something we were all excited about.

Typical summer
Richard: She used to tell me, Dad, I live to socialize. That’s what she did. She played volleyball with her friends. She had just finished playing tennis in the Robinson, a big tournament here.
Anna: She was supposed to play in a tournament here the week she went to Grand Bend, but she didn’t want to because her friend, who lives in Sarnia and who she ended up going on this trip with, wanted to do a social thing. Her mother was going to take them shopping in Grand Bend, and so, being a softie mother, I let her get out of the tournament.
Richard: It was just a sleepover. She left Tuesday, slept over in Sarnia and then Wednesday they went to Grand Bend swimming and having fun on the town. They played mini-golf and went back to the beach after.

Waiting for a call
Anna: There was a change in our plans and her friend Lindsey was coming over to stay, so I had to let Jule know that no matter what time she got back Wednesday night, I was going to pick her up from Sarnia. I called and the father was home at five o’clock after work, and he said he didn’t have anyway of getting in touch with them because they didn’t have cell phones. He said they might stay late at the beach, but he would tell them to call when they got home, no matter how late. I was up waiting for the call when the policeman came knocking on the door.
I was the only one home. The police officer came to the door with my neighbour and I could tell from the look on my neighbour’s face that something really awful had happened. The first thought was that my son was in some mischief, but he was at someone’s house, so I thought that’s not possible. Then they told me. My first thought was, not Jule; anything but that. I spent an hour trying to locate Richard.
Richard: I was just in my office working late and it was close to 10:30.
Anna: I didn’t look for you there because you’re never there that late.
Richard: I get a page from the hospital emergency department. I called home and I talked to the officer who answered the phone. He said, just come home. So I was thinking the same thing, it’s Russell.
Anna: And he’s never been in trouble!
Richard: I was just crazy by the time I got home. He met me in the driveway and told me…
Anna: This entire town stopped. Within half an hour, all of my friends were here. I was paralyzed. My friend Lori stayed at my side for a week. My friends were helping me do whatever I needed to do. We ended up driving to the hospital in Exeter.
Richard: We had to see her. We couldn’t just believe somebody that she was dead. We talked to the ER doctor and Officer Finch, who was on duty at the time.
Anna: The mother who was with them was so horribly devastated. Here you are, responsible for someone’s kids and something like this happens. She was in an emotional state that was near hysteria. She was still in her bathing suit at midnight. They didn’t know what our response would be, like would we blame them? It was just something horrible having to see Jule. She was already stiff. You want to hug her, and her body was cold and stiff. It was so horrible to be in that situation.
What happened after we got back was the most amazing thing. The entire house was full of people and food and flowers. The funeral director, who’s been doing this his entire life, said he’d never seen anything like it. There were hundreds of people. The whole funeral home was full of flowers. Over 800 people came to the funeral home and the church service. We kept receiving cards from people for months.
Richard: I think the community had not experienced something like that for a while. It was a shock. Just tragic.

Understanding the tragedy
Anna: I’ve never had a chance to talk to anyone who was there.
Richard: We called Richie Laflamme a few times but he wasn’t there. We still want to talk to him, but we can’t find the number anymore.
Officer Finch told me that she started to get in trouble and Richie was with his date on the pier. He asked her, Do you need help? Are you in trouble? She said no, and then said, Yes! I could see her doing that because she wouldn’t want to cause a problem.
He jumped in to try to help her and the waves were too much. (He had to be rescued himself).
Anna: I’m pretty sure she and her friend started playing in the waves further down where it was safer. We come from Long Island where there’s an ocean, so we know what this is about and she didn’t. The waves kept pushing her closer and closer to the corner.
Richard: Closer and closer to the sea wall. There were 3’ waves, we heard. I went out there on a calm day, waded up to my waist in the sand bar, and I started walking down to the pier. As I got about 15’ from the pier, all of a sudden, it got deeper and deeper until there was nothing under my feet. I started swimming toward the pier and I felt this cold sensation. I tried touching the bottom and couldn’t at that point. I went over to the pier and there were a couple of ladders, but they were very difficult to pick out because they’re rusted like the sea wall. I ended up climbing out using one of the ladders.

On the beach
Anna: I think there’s a need for lifesaving equipment on the pier and on the beach all the time, and I think during the summer tourist months, there should be lifeguards longer hours because kids love to swim. It was still very warm in the evening when she was swimming. Also, there should be some sort of alarm system so that when someone drowns, people respond. I understand there weren’t a lot of people there, and the people who were there would have gladly helped if they could have.
Do you think it’s a coincidence that every year, someone drowns when the lifeguards are off-duty?
Richard: Absolutely not. This is a totally preventable death. Even something as simple as a life ring could have saved our daughter. It’s obvious there’s a strong current there. It’s a highly dangerous spot.
Anna: I think the thing that’s disturbing is that it’s not a danger that you can see.
Richard: It was a warm, beautiful night, and was so inviting. I can totally understand why Jule was attracted to the area, and going out and swimming there. It’s not apparent, and there are no signs that explain how dangerous it is there.

Life without Jule
Anna: She was my future. I was looking forward to living the rest of my life with my daughter. I miss her happiness. She was like the sunshine in my life.
Richard: I’ll miss talking with her and having fun with her. There’s just a black hole in my heart that will never heal.

Story and photo by Casey Lessard

Three years into the Clean Water Now project, Rotary club volunteers and the municipality of Lambton Shores continue to work to make Lake Huron water cleaner.
“We were concerned about pollution and the number of beach postings (due to high bacteria),” says Ron Hunt, chair of the Rotary clean water committee. “We thought, what can we do to ensure fewer postings? We also wanted a cleaner Grand Bend beach.”
The Rotary set aside $5,000 for each of five years, and the Community Health Foundation matched that figure. The municipality of Lambton Shores matched both, so the total figure is $20,000 per year designated for the project.
“We’ve given a lot of that back to Lambton Shores in a number of ways,” Hunt says, including a water measuring device off shore in front of the beachhouse. The equipment measures wave height, water turbidity, temperature, sunlight, and other conditions throughout the day. The information is transmitted to shore and directly to Lambton Shores offices.
Health unit staff and Rotary volunteers do the testing daily, and send water samples to be tested for E. coli. Results come back several days later, so they’re unreliable to make beach-posting decisions, but will be used to predict E. coli levels based on weather and wave conditions. Project funding also goes to the Ausable-Bayfield Conservation Authority to do testing at about 20 sites that feed into the lake.
“They’re still gathering this data,” Hunt says, “and hopefully we can have a model within the next year or so,” to allow decision makers to make the call on whether the water is safe. The information will also help determine why E. coli levels are high and where the bacteria is coming from.
“What will make it worthy,” says volunteer Stephanie Donaldson, “is when we can compile the statistics for the summer and look at three months of daily water testing. That’s when it will come to play. Some days you can look at it and it looks worse than it is.”
“Our objective is to make sure the Grand Bend beach is safe to swim, and keeping it that way. We’ve also been a big promoter of Blue Flag, and we were the ones who recommended the municipality apply for Blue Flag status. Meeting provincial standards 80 per cent of the time is one of the criteria. Last year we met that level, and we don’t know how it will go this year. We’re trying to do the testing and if something needs to be done, we’re going to do it.”

A South Huron man is in stable condition at a London hospital after suffering a gunshot wound to the abdomen. The shooting happened Saturday morning at a residence on Parr Line. Police are still investigating, but say the victim and shooter knew each other. James Gould, 64, of South Huron faces attempted murder and firearm charges and will make a video court appearance Monday morning.

By Casey Lessard

One of this year’s Canadian Idol’s top eight finalists has a close connection to Grand Bend, and his relatives who live here hope you’ll send your votes his way. Mookie Morris has spent many summers in Grand Bend, and he was recently in town for his cousin’s wedding, where he jammed with his relatives.
Mookie has been performing well and CTV’s message boards peg him among the top three finalists.
Most critically, to make it to the top three, he needs votes, so if he’s still standing this week, consider making Mookie your Idol by watching CTV Monday nights at 9 p.m. and Tuesdays at 8 p.m. for the results from each week.
The family will be watching Mookie perform every week at Gables, so if you want to jump on the bandwagon, that’s the place to be each week.

For more information, visit CTV’s Idol website.

Christine’s Marina, Bar & Grill
Port Franks
August 3, 1:30 p.m.
Live entertainment and prizes
Event supports the Northville Fire department.
For more details, contact Christine’s at 519-243-3636.

View from the Strip
By Casey Lessard

Today, we remember the deaths of Bill and Helene Regier in their home one year ago. Our thoughts are with the family and friends of these community leaders, who are dearly missed.
When we asked one of the Regiers’ sons what we should do for the one-year anniversary, we were told last year’s special edition of the Grand Bend Strip was the most fitting tribute. If you have not read our national award winning report, it is available online:
August 1, 2007 edition.

The man accused of murdering the Regiers, Jesse Norman Imeson, faces trial this winter.

By Casey Lessard

Bob Putherbough of the Grand Bend and Area Horticultural Society wrote us to tell us of the Home & Garden Tour’s outstanding success, which far exceeded anyone’s expectations.
“We had about 950 people,” he told the Strip. “We thought if we got up to 300, it would be fantastic.
“We had to cut the advanced sales off at 800, and we had to stop day-of sales just after 10 o’clock. We would have overwhelmed the homeowners if we had allowed any more.”
The July 5 tour featured five houses and eight gardens. Lunch was served at the Caddyshack at Grand Cove.
“Everyone is over the top with the numbers we got. We could only serve food to 800.
“I hired a policeman to be there for four hours; we heard on Sunday that a friend saw him just after he arrived, and she said he was like a deer in the headlights. He actually called in two of his buddies and we had three cruisers at times with flashing lights directing people across the street.”
Proceeds from the event go to the horticultural society’s activities maintaining flowerbeds in Grand Bend. One of the underpromoted aspects of the event was the fact that vendors – including artists and garden centres donating portions of their earnings – would be at some of the locations.
“We’ve learned a lot. We had vendors, but people didn’t know to come with money. The vendors did okay, but not nearly as well as they could have done if we had stressed there would be vendors here.”
The society will decide this week whether to run the event again next year. The success of the tour has to be weighed with the small number of volunteers available to help. Stay tuned for future plans.

The inevitable day has arrived.
I had hoped I would be able to continue to provide the Grand Bend Strip newspaper for free indefinitely, but after thinking long and hard this spring, I realize that the only way for the paper to publish this winter is to ask for your support.
Like you, I value the ability to learn more about the people who live and work in this community. I love meeting you and capturing your memories for the paper. This is what I feel I can bring to this community, and I want to stay here.
I also feel it’s important to bring to light some of the problems that exist here, and the challenges we face in this community. I’m willing to put the work into creating quality journalism here, but I can’t do it alone.
The Strip will continue to be free until the end of the summer, which on most people’s calendar is the Thanksgiving weekend. After that, it will be available only to Strip Club VIP members. Even the website will be restricted to VIPs. I have yet to decide whether the exclusivity will continue next summer.
I promise to make membership worthwhile, and hope you will contribute to surveys to improve the paper, and take advantage of special offers from our advertising clients.
For more information about club membership, please see our subscription page.

More than 60 artists are taking part in the fifth annual Hensall By Design, which runs July 12 to 18 at the Hensall United Church on King Street. Funds raised from the event support local initiatives.
The juried art show and sale attracts artists from across Ontario and the United States. Cash prizes are awarded for all categories, thanks to generous donations from local business and private individuals .
Among the categories are: flatwork; sculpture; fabric; photography/digital art, junior and senior youth categories; and a first-time exhibitors’ category.
To sponsor the event or for more information, call Ann Bayley at 519-262-3500 x208. Admission is $5 daily, with half-price admission for seniors Monday, July 14. The event is open Saturday to Monday and Friday from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., and Tuesday to Thursday from 2 to 9 p.m. The event is wheelchair accessible.

All 1980s grads invited to August 2 reunion

If you attended South Huron District High School during the 1980s, you’re invited to attend a reunion August 2 at the South Huron Recreation Centre.
Tickets are $25, and are on sale at Movie Gallery in Exeter, or by contacting Tim Rowcliffe (timaro -at – yahoo.com). Luncheon will be provided and entertainment is courtesy of Jane’s Rehab. Proceeds from the event are going to Scott and Denise Halpenny to assist in her treatment for MS.
If you attended South Huron and graduated from 1981-1992, we’d love to see you!

The Huron Country Playhouse Guild’s first annual gala was a great success, raising $20,000 for the Playhouse; now the guild moves to its focus to its second major fundraiser for the year, the Dinner for Eight. The dinner is Saturday, September 13, and features a different course from Grand Bend area fine dining establishments at three different homes. Tickets for this draw are $5, with only 500 for sale. To get your ticket or for more information, call Doreen (519-238-5423), Marcia (519-243-3833) or Mary (519-238-5640).

Port Franks resident feeds big cat that left paw prints in his garden

Story and photos by Casey Lessard

Port Franks resident Bob Rutledge is a friend to animals: he feeds 14 squirrels and a couple of raccoons on a regular basis. So it is only natural that another, larger animal would gravitate to him.
“I’ve been putting food out for the raccoons every night,” he says, describing his routine, “and they come around about 10 o’clock. There’s a big one and a small one. They have their feed and leave.
“Then I’ll put out a few more scraps in a pan and usually around 11 or 11:30, I end up with a big black cat there. He’s way too big to be a normal cat. He’s been around seven or eight times. He sits on my well, eats his dinner and disappears.”
Rutledge believes the animal is a cougar, which others in the area say they have sighted over the past year.
“It’s the black one,” he says. “It’s probably about three or three-and-a-half feet in length. One of my neighbours spotted a tan one at the corner of his house. The cougar’s main food is deer, and there have been an awful lot of those around this year, so they’re probably well-fed. They appear to be, because all of the small animals around here haven’t disappeared. ”
To date, no one has proof enough for wildlife authorities to confirm the animal’s identity. Now, Rutledge believes he has proof to confirm what he has seen with his eyes.
“Our daughter is getting married on the 5th of July, so we’re trying to get our yard ready. Saturday night, we put in some new soil and new grass, very loose. Overnight Saturday night, he walked down through the middle of it and we got an excellent set of paw prints. My neighbour Tony Miller came over and made some casts of it.
“It’s certainly a wild animal. It’s about three to four times the size of a domestic cat. The paw prints are five to six inches in length, and the pads were sunk down a good inch into the soft earth.”
Officials have told Rutledge they need DNA or other forensic evidence (hair, blood, saliva) before they can confirm anything, but for now, he is content to enjoy the view – from the safety of his home.
“I watch them from my kitchen window. It’s been interesting to sit and watch them. One day it went past in broad daylight. And it moves very rapidly.”

Summer Company gives Huron teens kick start

Story and photo by Casey Lessard

It’s not easy getting a small business off the ground – and keeping it going – but Huron County youth are getting a hand with the Summer Company program. The entrepreneurship program run by the Huron Business Enterprise Centre and funded by the Ontario government’s Ministry of Small Business and Entrepreneurship gives a $1,500 grant for startup expenses for youth aged 15-29, and another $1,500 upon completion of the program.
Exeter resident Dave Geoffrey, 18, is finishing high school this month, and decided to apply for the program after a representative of the small business centre visited South Huron District High School.
“It kind of stuck in my head,” he says, noting he made a business plan after the visit. “I’ve been doing pressure washing for a couple of years now on the side. I had some experience with my dad’s construction company and thought I’d go solo.”
His business South Huron Pressure Washing offers pressure washing services for homes, decks, driveways, fences, storefronts and industrial spaces, etc. His first job was last month, and he has done three jobs since. He currently has eight jobs on his schedule.
“You make your own hours,” he says of the benefits of working for himself. “I can work as much as I want to and go out with my friends when I want.
“A lot of kids take on low-end jobs, so it’s different to have a high-end job where you’re running your own business like an adult.
The business part is where he leans on the help of the business centre.
“Maintaining a budget, making sure my financial stuff is in place. It’s kind of like doing homework for school. It’s a bit challenging, but it’s fun.”
Plus, the government funding helps.
“I got a lot of stuff paid for through this program. And they’re always there to help you if you need it.”
To learn more about Summer Company, visit www.smallbusinesshuron.ca.
Exeter teen Brad Keys also received funding from the program. To learn more about his 3D video games, visit www.retralevolution.com.
South Huron Pressure Washing owner Dave Geoffrey can be contacted at 519-235-0558.

A Main Street Grand Bend store clerk is shaken but safe after a robbery attempt Friday night.
Three young men, allegedly working together, tried to distract the 19-year old clerk while trying to commit theft.
One of the men allegedly grabbed the clerk and pressed his body against hers inappropriately before she pushed him away.
At the same time, the others caused a commotion at the back of the store, and the clerk left the cash register to investigate.
The third man opened the till and grabbed the store’s cash, but the clerk returned and was able to wrestle the money out of his possession before ordering the three out of the store.
Pedestrians outside apprehended one of the suspects, while two others were apprehended by police later.
Two 17 year old boys and an 18 year old man face charges of Sexual Assault, Robbery, and Flight From Police.

Scott and Denise Halpenny met in 1978 and started dating soon after. 
“She was a bright and fun girl – she still is,” Scott says, “and that’s why I was attracted to her.”
Denise Halpenny, a former laboratory technician at South Huron Hospital, has had multiple sclerosis for 21 years, but the last four years have been the worst. The disease has taken away her mobility, and she is now struggling to preserve the last bastion of her independence: the ability to use her left arm.
“I feel like she’s been short-changed,” Scott, a physical education teacher at South Huron District High School, says. “I wish it could be different, but it can’t. If she loses her left side, then what does she do?
“It’s been tough adapting and realizing it’s probably not going to get any better. No one ever plans for this type of thing and you wonder why it’s happening and how you’re going to deal with it.”
The quick deterioration of Denise’s condition has forced the family to move to Grand Bend, where Paul Pittao of Medway Homes is building them a wheelchair accessible house.
“We just want to enjoy a certain quality of life and enjoy the time we have together, especially now that we’re going to be empty nesters. That’s why we’re building this house, so we can get rid of some of the barriers.”
“In a lot of ways, (MS) has made our relationship stronger,” Scott notes, “but we certainly deal with a lot of frustration, especially with the financial burden. We’ll continue to work together and try to enjoy the years we have together.”
 
As told to Casey Lessard

My first symptom was 21 years ago, when Kendra was a year old. It was September of 1986. I remember it distinctly. I was sitting in the car and Kendra was in the car seat behind us. I turned to look at her and had a sharp pain in my eye. I had no idea what it was about, and it persisted for a week or so. Every time I moved my eye, it was sore in the back of the socket. The eye doctor diagnosed it as optic neuritis, and they sent me to a neurologist because that’s a symptom of MS.
It took about three years until I had my second symptom, which was called L’hermittes Sign. You get an electrical shock in your legs when you drop your head. The only people who get it are people with MS, so they diagnosed me then, and that was June 1989.
I had a pretty uneventful first 10 years. Benign symptoms: sensory kinds of things, tingling, numbness, but no motor symptoms. For about five more years, it was the odd episode of weakness in my right side, and then the last four years have been what they call secondary progressive, where you get ongoing, increasing disability.
When the disease became quite aggressive, I had allergic reactions to the recommended treatments that are available for relapsing MS. There was nothing left for me to try, so I went online looking for research studies and came across a woman in Burlington who was part of a study in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was having incredible results; she had chronic progressive MS, had been in a wheelchair for years and was walking. I phoned her and said, What are you on? She told me it was Zenopax. We hit it off as friends, and she took my medical files to Utah the next time she went. The doctor down there, Dr. John Rose, phoned me and recommended that I try his study. That was it; I went down and got on the drug that I’m currently on. That was in December, 2001.
There were 12 people in the study, and I was the 12th. I asked him why he took me on, and he said he looked at my file and couldn’t believe my bad luck. He thought I would do well on it and that I deserved a chance to get healthy.
I tried the drug and did well. It was extremely expensive. I was not covered under any drug plans down there and because it was an off-label study, I had to pay for it myself. The Exeter community and my family rallied very hard and raised a tremendous amount of money. It was $2,000 American a month, plus my flights, hotels and meals. I went to Utah every 28 days for two years. I stabilized and actually increased my disability scores, and everybody was really happy and excited. But the study ended in 2004 and I wanted to stay on the drug, so I paid for it myself as best I could.
 
Financial burden
It became a huge burden financially, so after six or seven months, I decided to try going off it to see if I could stay healthy. I went off it for seven months and went from walking with a cane to needing a walker.
Scott and I decided that I had to go back on it, no matter what. We tried to handle the finances and did so for another year and a half, two years. But the debt load was getting huge and Dr. Rose and I decided maybe we would try one drug that was still available that I hadn’t tried up here. He thought it was a long shot that I would do well on it, but because of the finances, we went for it. Went off the Zenopax and decided to try Copaxone. You need to be off Zenopax for a month and a half before you can try a new drug, but within two and a half months of being on Copaxone, I had a huge allergic reaction and then a big MS episode. I went from the walker to the wheelchair.
At that point, you go back on the Zenopax. You can’t do anything else. I had to. Now, I can’t go off it.
Dr. Rose has tried to see if Roche will pay for the drug, but because I’m Canadian, it doesn’t fall under their jurisdiction; he’s still working on that. I had approached the drug company earlier and they wouldn’t help. They showed some interest in giving me some compassionate help, and then they stopped. They wouldn’t call back and dropped any interest whatsoever.
I started asking for help from the government and applied for a Section 8 (Ontario’s special coverage of a non-listed drug product mechanism). They turned me down. I had an interview with Health Minister George Smitherman. The drug is in phase two of research, and after phase three they apply for approval, so we’re about three years away from approval. You can get the drug here, but it’s not approved for MS.
Someone from the government called me and told me to appeal my Section 8, and I had to collect all these letters from my doctors saying this was the only drug I could take. They said I would get my 2006 and 2007 money back.
We heard nothing, heard nothing, heard nothing. Finally, my doctor here, Dr. Milne, phoned me and said it wasn’t approved for exactly the same reason as the first time: that the pharmaceutical company had never applied to have this drug approved for MS.
Then I got quite angry and the letters started going back and forth. Finally, someone else from the ministry phoned me and told me they should never have recommended I appeal it; I will never get approval as long as Roche has not applied. This was in March.
Now, an insurance company in London has set up a fund to help with the costs. The health ministry won’t help me and the drug company says I do not qualify for their compassionate subsidy. They don’t feel accountable at all, even though people volunteer to test the drug, and they’re going to make a lot of money. That’s pretty immoral.

Facing challenges
At 28, when you have one baby, a husband and a fabulous life and your future ahead of you, you don’t think anything lousy is going to happen.
Today, I have a pretty amazing life. I’m not complaining. We have three great kids and a pretty good lifestyle. I just didn’t think things would be this hard. I spent the last two years fighting for drugs to keep me healthy. I didn’t think I’d have to build a barrier free home and have no programs available to help me with some of those costs. I didn’t realize that when you get sick, there would be so little out there to help you with that.
We have an incredible group of friends – the ones that did stick by us – that have been there through thick and thin.
The hardest part of a disability isn’t the loss of the use of your limbs. That part has been probably the easiest. The hardest part is dealing with the change in people, and the change in the things you have to fight for to stay living normal and your kids well-adjusted. I don’t mind being in a wheelchair as much as I mind the way it affects my family.

A sense of loss
You grieve what you lost. It’s not that I think it’s my fault, but I think what it would be like for Scott if I didn’t have MS. His day should not have to revolve around me. Right now he does everything twice – once for me and once for him – and then worries about me all day long. I can’t even brush my own teeth right now. In the new house, the only thing Scott will have to do for me is put me in bed and get me out.
Before I had the allergic reaction to Copaxone, I was having difficulty walking up and down the stairs. Within three weeks, I was unable to do stairs at all. All of a sudden, my kids or my husband had to carry me to bed every night and downstairs in the morning. I can no longer get in or out of the house independently, go to the washroom independently, use the shower independently, and can’t use my kitchen or laundry room. I literally am carried down in the morning, put in this easy chair, and am carried up at night. That’s my entire independence lost within one month. That was a big adjustment.
I went from being an independent person who could drive, who did her own shopping and cooking, took care of her kids and worked, and all of a sudden, I was completely dependent.
My goal, when we move into our new house, is to not get in this chair in the morning. I’m going to stay in my power chair and do laundry and have coffee with a friend, get my own breakfast, and have my life back. What would really make it nice is if we didn’t have a huge financial fear every month with this $2,000 burden. If I have to go off this drug because we built this house, I don’t know if I’m going to be well enough to stay in the house. That’s the catch-22. Scott’s afraid to take the chance. We’re not sure what to do.

165 Exeter businesses surveyed
44% are 100% inaccessible by wheelchair
Only 1/5 have wheelchair parking
1 in 5 has a powered door opener
Exeter’s average mark (on Strip survey): 40%

Criteria and results

We assessed 165 core businesses in Exeter, from the Exeter Pentecostal Tabernacle in the south, to RONA Cashway in the north, plus stores in the plaza ending in Canadian Tire in the east.
Our eight equally weighted criteria for assessment were as follows:
1 – Does the facility offer wheelchair parking on site?
2 – Is there a level entry to the building? If there was a step, the business automatically received zero on the assessment.
3 – Can the entry door accommodate a motorized wheelchair? Our standard was 36” wide.
4 – Does the door have assistive power, where a person can press a button to open the door or it opens automatically?
5 – Can a person sitting in a wheelchair see over the counter?
6 – Are aisles easy to navigate through the entire store?
7 – Can someone in a motorized wheelchair use the washroom?
8 – If tables are offered, are they high enough to accommodate a person using a wheelchair?

Dr. Klein & Dr. Bardecki (Optometrist)
11 Huron Street East
519-235-2433
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 50% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.
Front door entry is difficult for motorized wheelchair to cross, and mat caused difficulty upon exit.

Hensall District Co-op (Gasoline)
51 Main Street North
519-235-0444
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom.

Gar’s (Bar)
58 Main Street North
519-235-2773
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable. 50% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.
Entry through right side of main doors. When assessed, washroom was inaccessible because it was full of cleaning supplies.

Little, Masson & Reid (Lawyer)
71 Main Street North
519-235-0670
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door.
Unable to assess completely.

Pinder, Taylor, McNeilly, Godkin (Accounting)
71 Main Street North
519-235-0101
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door.
Unable to assess completely.

Stu Homuth (Accounting)
71 Main Street North
519-235-3863

The Beer Store (Beer)
78 Main Street North
519-235-0544
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

MacLeans (Hardware)
110 Main Street North
519-235-0800
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.
Some areas of store are inaccessible by wheelchair.

Heartland Credit Union (Bank)
118 Main Street North
519-235-3356
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Shell (Gasoline)
119 Main Street North
519-235-0119

Exeter Chrysler (Automotive)
136 Main Street North
519-235-1525
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Tim Horton’s (Dining)
153 Main Street North
519-235-4540
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Eric Campbell Ford Lincoln (Automotive)
165 Main Street North
519-235-1380
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

BDM Motor Cars (Automotive)
207 Main Street North
519-235-3698
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door.
Unable to assess completely.

Partners Paint & Paper (Home)
210 Main Street North
519-235-0181
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.
Entry door faces wrong direction for wheelchair access. Can only navigate part of store.

Subway (Dining)
210 Main Street North
519-235-1273
Pop machine obstructs entry to restaurant.

Donuts Now (Dining)
217 Main Street North
519-235-1838

Movie Gallery (Video Rentals)
220 Main Street North
519-235-3880
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

KFC (Dining)
227 Main Street North
519-235-2424

Exeter Toyota (Automotive)
242 Main Street North
519-235-2353
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable.
Small bump at entry. Did not assess washrooms.

OPP (Police)
245 Main Street North
519-235-1300

Algoma Tire (Automotive)
246 Main Street North
519-235-0330

McDonald’s (Dining)
261 Main Street North
519-235-4227
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

RONA Cashway (Building)
265 Main Street North
519-235-2081
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

ETM Television (Cable Television)
41 Main Street South

Belongers (Worship)
63 Main Street South

TJ’s Billiards & Eatery (Dining)
63 Main Street South
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.
Did not assess washrooms.

Caven Presbyterian Church (Worship)
68 Main Street South
519-235-2784

South Huron Office Solutions (Office Supplies)
92 Main Street South
519-235-1840

Drs. David and Geoff Hann (Chiropractors)
105 Main Street South

Royal Lepage Heartland (Real Estate)
109 Main Street South

The Ridge (Dining)
125 Main Street South
519-235-3333
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable. 50% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.
Main bar is inaccessible. To access back part of restaurant, one must access a back door.

Huron Family Restaurant (Dining)
134 Main Street South
519-235-4623
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.
Ramp leads to one room only, with no access to main counter or washrooms.

Stratford Memorials (Graves)
141 Main Street South
519-235-3958
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

LCBO (Liquor)
146 Main Street South
519-235-1942
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Mark McLlwain Insurance & Financial Services (Financial)
183 Main Street South
519-235-1344
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.
One area inaccessible.

Thames Insurance (Insurance)
186 Main Street South
519-235-2211

Becker’s/Mac’s (Variety)
190 Main Street South
519-235-2503
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Dairy Queen (Ice Cream)
190 Main Street South
519-235-2253
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

SAAN (Clothing)
193 Main Street South
519-235-2552
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Barry’s Barbershop (Barber)
213 Main Street South
519-235-0451
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.
Did not assess washrooms.

Harvey Bierling (Income Tax)
221 Main Street South
519-235-1424

Royal Bank (Bank)
226 Main Street South
519-235-2111
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Foodland (Grocery)
227 Main Street South
519-235-0212
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Sharon’s Hairstyling (Hair Salon)
249 Main Street South
519-235-2696

Trivitt Memorial Anglican Church (Worship)
264 Main Street South
519-235-2565
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door.
Unable to assess completely.

New Orleans Pizza (Pizza)
277 Main Street South
519-235-0188

Scotiabank (Bank)
280 Main Street South
519-235-1142
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Gaiser Kneale Insurance (Insurance)
284 Main Street South
519-235-2420
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Quilts & Calicos Teaching Cottage (Crafts)
287 Main Street South
519-235-4084
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Selah Books (Books)
291 Main Street South
519-235-0571

Noah’s Ark (Thrift)
293 Main Street South
519-235-3744

Seasonals (Crafts)
294 Main Street South
519-235-4611
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.
Many obstacles, but it is possible to get in. Motorized wheelchairs may have slight difficulty getting out.

Exeter Lawn Bowling Club (Sports Club)
298 Main Street South

Curves (Fitness)
301 Main Street South
519-235-0414
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.
Did not assess washrooms.

ReelTime Video (Video Rentals)
309 Main Street South
519-235-4877
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable.

Ellison Travel (Travel)
311 Main Street South
519-235-2000
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable.

Burkley Restaurant (Dining)
312 Main Street South
519-235-1730

Olde Town Hall (Municipal)
322 Main Street South
519-235-0310
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom.
Could attend council meetings, but could not sit in mayor’s position.

Library (Library)
330 Main Street South
519-235-1890
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.
Excellent facility with computer access using tables that can rise or lower.

Exeter Cleaning Centre (Laundry)
342 Main Street South
519-235-4101
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 50% accessible washroom.

Exeter Music Centre (Music)
342 Main Street South
519-235-1263

Tasty Bites (Dining)
345 Main Street South
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Mane Event (Hair Salon)
346 Main Street South
519-235-0410

The Centre for Employment & Learning (Services)
349 Main Street South
519-235-0471
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Co-operators (Insurance)
350 Main Street South
519-235-1109
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

The Purple Turtle (Clothing)
355 Main Street South
519-235-1500
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

In Style with Michelle (Hair Salon)
359 Main Street South
519-235-4665

TKO Computers (Computers)
360 Main Street South
519-235-0996
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Katch A Ray Tanning Salon (Tanning)
362 Main Street South
519-235-2243
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable.
Unable to assess completely.

Cuts Plus (Hair Salon)
363 Main Street South
519-235-2887

Flames (Dining)
365 Main Street South
519-235-4443

John AM Norris (Accounting)
370 Main Street South
519-235-3240
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door.
Unable to assess completely.

Wuerth’s Shoes (Footwear)
371 Main Street South
519-235-0611
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable.

Brigitte’s Fashions (Clothing)
373 Main Street South
519-235-0442
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Thomas H (Clothing)
373 Main Street South
519-235-0442
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Discover Health Centre (Medical)
374 Main Street South
519-235-2225

Injoy (Clothing)
375 Main Street South
519-235-1865
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

The Critter Barn (Pets)
378 Main Street South
519-235-3335

Turnips Children & Maternity (Clothing)
379 Main Street South
519-235-3500

The Jewellery Box (Jewellery)
382 Main Street South
519-235-4200

Big Reds/RSD Authentics (Clothing)
383 Main Street South
519-235-1314

Sew Fine (Sewing Supplies)
385 Main Street South
519-235-4023

Raymond & McLean (Lawyer)
387 Main Street South
519-235-2234

Licence Office (Government)
388 Main Street South
519-235-4578
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable.

Ontario Mortgage Action Centre (Mortgage)
388 Main Street South
519-235-0020
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Home & Company (Home)
390 Main Street South
519-235-4663
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Village Vines (Florist)
391 Main Street South
519-235-0009
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Quilts & Calicos (Crafts)
392 Main Street South
519-235-4084

Otterbein’s Barbershop (Barber)
394 Main Street South
519-235-0559

Sugar & Spice (Chocolates)
395 Main Street South
519-235-1211

Re/Max Dave Youmans (Real Estate)
396 Main Street South
519-235-3777

Designers (Clothing)
397 Main Street South
519-235-3035
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Bank of Montreal (Bank)
400 Main Street South
519-235-2860
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Greeting Card World (Stationery)
401 Main Street South
519-235-1019

The European Addition (Clothing)
403 Main Street South
519-235-1795

Shipping Store (Stationery)
405 Main Street South
519-235-0892

Coldwell Banker (Real Estate)
407 Main Street South
519-235-1449

Take Two (Hair Salon)
409 Main Street South
519-235-4879

Four Seasons Wholesale (Jewellery)
411 Main Street South
519-235-2666

Collins Barrow (Accounting)
412 Main Street South
519-235-0345
Level entry or ramp.

Ranch House Motel & Inn (Motel)
414 Main Street South
519-235-3141
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. 50% accessible washroom.
Toilets are fine, but sinks and tubs are not accessible.

South Huron Chamber of Commerce (Chamber)
414 Main Street South
519-235-4520
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable.

BPS Enterprises (Fundraising)
415 Main Street South
519-235-2520
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Custom Covers (Home)
415 Main Street South
519-235-2444
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Robert J. Deane (Lawyer)
417 Main Street South
519-235-0440

Bakelaar (Jewellery)
421 Main Street South
519-235-2720
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Four Seasons (Jewellery)
423 Main Street South
519-235-2666

Times Advocate (Newspaper)
424 Main Street South
519-235-1331

Godbolt, Ciufo Insurance & Financial Services (Financial)
425 Main Street South
519-235-2740
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Greg Hodgins Dolphin Insurance (Insurance)
425 Main Street South
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Best Computers (Computers)
429 Main Street South
519-235-3430

South Huron Window Centre (Home)
432 Main Street South
519-235-4502

SK Convenience (Variety)
433 Main Street South
519-235-1661
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.
Deserves special mention for wide aisles and low shelving.

Edward Jones – Mark Hartman (Financial)
436 Main Street South
519-235-3881
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Upper Class Pawn Brokers (Pawn Brokers)
437 Main Street South

Bio-Connections (Medical)
438 Main Street South
519-235-3154

Golden City Chinese Restaurant (Dining)
439 Main Street South
519-235-0464

IDA Huron Apothecary (Pharmacy)
440 Main Street South
519-235-1982

To Dye For (Hair Salon)
441 Main Street South
519-235-2394

McBrydes Rentals (Party Rentals)
443 Main Street South
519-229-6151

Mirror Image (Hair Salon)
445 Main Street South
519-235-4030

Unusual Finds Dollar & Discount (Discount)
456 Main Street South
519-235-2632
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Floors First (Building)
457 Main Street South
519-235-4401

Huron Dental Centre (Medical)
466 Main Street South
519-235-0601
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom.
Entry at back door

Dinney’s Fine Furniture (Furniture)
467 Main Street South
519-235-0173
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door.
Poor access to all of building. Products obstruct all aisles.

Dashwood Lock & Key (Security)
472 Main Street South
519-235-3931

BDO Dunwoody (Financial)
476 Main Street South
519-235-4776

Dale’s Barbershop (Barber)
476 Main Street South
519-235-2801

Dr. Lui Redigonda (Orthodontist)
476 Main Street South
519-235-0400

Jane & Company (Income Tax)
476 Main Street South
519-235-3595

PACE Home Care (Medical)
476 Main Street South

Bridal Elegance (Clothing)
483 Main Street South
519-235-0858

Digisplint (Medical)
489 Main Street South
888-775-4687

Freedom 55 Rob Tait (Financial)
489 Main Street South

G. Marr State Farm Insurance (Real Estate)
490 Main Street South
519-235-0434

Aldea Spa (Spa)
496 Main Street South
519-235-0835

Has back entrance ramp, but door is locked and went unanswered on our visit.

H&R Block (Income Tax)
506 Main Street South
519-235-1153

Usborne & Hibbert Mutual Fire Insurance (Insurance)
507 Main Street South
519-235-0350
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.
Entry through side door

Exeter Flowers (Florist)
509 Main Street South
519-235-0111

Godfather’s Pizza (Pizza)
518 Main Street South
519-235-4235
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Eddington’s (Dining)
527 Main Street South
519-235-3030

Esso (Fuel)
544 Main Street South
519-235-2244
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 50% accessible washroom.
Washroom is tough to access, but possible. No grab bars within.

Country Corners (Equipment Rentals)
586 Main Street South
519-235-3456
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.
Entry through one door, which was locked when we visited during business hours

Brander Steel Industries (Industry)
593 Main Street South
519-235-1462
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door.
Entry through bay doors. Unable to assess further.

Enterprise Rent a Car (Car Rental)
593 Main Street South
519-235-2333

Vincent Farm Equipment (Agricultural)
615 Main Street South
519-235-2121
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Huron Motor Products (Automotive)
640 Main Street South
519-235-0363
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Exeter Pentecostal Tabernacle (Worship)
70670 Main Street South/London Road
519-235-2991
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door.
Unable to assess completely.

Exeter Animal Hospital (Veterinary)
70676 Main Street South/London Road
519-235-2662

Becker Power & Leisure Products (Small Engine)
70740 Main Street South/London Road
519-235-2757

Moving to new location in July.

Gary Bean Securities (Financial)
70778 Main Street South/London Road
519-235-4099
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door.
Unable to assess completely.

South Huron Automotive (Automotive)
70782 Main Street South/London Road
519-235-2277
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door.
Entry through bay doors. Unable to assess completely.

AIM Health Care (Medical)
26 Thames Road East
519-235-4892
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom.

Shoppers Drug Mart (Pharmacy)
38 Thames Road East
519-235-1570
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

CIBC (Bank)
44 Thames Road East
519-235-1050
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Eclipse Hairstyling (Hair Salon)
50 Thames Road East
519-235-1880
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Pet Valu (Pets)
54 Thames Road East
519-235-6124
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Hansen’s Independent (Grocery)
62 Thames Road East
519-235-6131
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Canadian Tire (Hardware)
100 Thames Road East
519-235-0160
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.
People in wheelchairs require assistance to get in through gate once inside door; staff must press a button to open gate, making independent entry impossible.

Herbal Magic (Personal)
8 Wellington Street West
519-235-3088
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

M&M Meat Shops (Grocery)
8 Wellington Street West
519-235-2682
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

First Choice Haircutters (Hair Salon)
10 Wellington Street West
519-235-3580
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.
Looks like washroom was previously accessible, but is not today.

Exeter Variety (Variety)
14 Wellington Street West
519-235-3523
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.
Many aisles are inaccessible.

Scotty’s Pizza (Pizza)
14 Wellington Street West
519-235-1234
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Story by Casey Lessard

It’s not easy to find wheelchair accessible buildings in this area, but it was a challenge Lisa Grady knew she had to overcome for her business, Sport-Med.
“Accessibility is hard to find,” says Grady, whose store sells aids for people with mobility issues. “We manufacture orthotics, orthopedic products, and we sell aids for daily living – walkers, wheelchairs, bathroom aids. People who require those items usually have some sort of disability, and need help getting around. Plus, our clientele are mostly in their retirement years. They need space to get in and out, and they have to have railings to hold on to things.”
Grady notes that many commercial buildings in Grand Bend used to be homes, and therefore it’s harder to find one with a level entry or wide doors.
“I get people almost daily complaining that they can’t get into someone’s store,” she says. “We have an aging population. We have a large retirement community here. These elderly people are going to require these services. You just have to deal with it.”
Being able to allow a customer to maintain their dignity is another good reason to make a business accessible.
“They don’t necessarily want to come in and ask for help. It’s bad enough for them that they have to use the aids,” she says.
For people who can’t come to the store, as with other store owners, Grady offers in-home service.
“If they require a rental, like a bath bench or clamp-on grab bar, we’ll take the product to them. A lot of the time, it’s a person who has had a knee replacement or hip replacement. They need a walker, raised toilet seat, and bath or shower bench,” installed before they get home from surgery, she notes.
If you need ideas on how to make your home or business more accessible, Grady’s store is located at 38 Ontario Street South.

The old saying about getting your foot in the door is bitter irony for people who don’t have the ability to walk through that door. Inaccessible workplaces make finding work much harder for people with disabilities. But it doesn’t have to be so hard, says Jeff Withers of Strathroy’s LEADS Employment Services.
“It all depends on the person,” Withers says. “Our services are individualized. We don’t have a magic door of jobs waiting. We look where a person’s skill set lies and match that to an employer. What does this person have to offer an employer, and then we go out and target those particular employers.”
This philosophy presumes that people with disabilities have skills as useful as those without disabilities, and Withers’ job is to convince employers of that fact.
“We do a lot of education to employers to dispel some myths about people with disabilities,” he says. “When you say disability, a lot of time people think it’s someone who is in a wheelchair or a physical limitation. Sometimes it’s a person who has a mental health issue but their medication has it under control. A disability could be someone who has tennis elbow, or who played football in high school and has bad knees.”
Simple solutions are often all that are necessary to make a workplace accessible.
“We talk about accommodations in the workplace. For people who are hearing impaired, instead of a bell going off at the break or lunch hour, there are lights that may flash. For someone who is in a wheelchair, it doesn’t have to be a big thing. Maybe it’s as simple as raising it up on wood or bricks so that person is higher.”
Plus, LEADS does much of the work for the employer, including training and screening to determine suitability for a job.
“We try to help them get to a point where they’re ready to go out and work.”
For more: http://www.leadsservices.com/

Accentual Hair & Spa owner Tina Davey asked us to reevaluate her business for wheelchair accessibility as we noticed a large front step and no sign saying access at the back. For most businesses, we did look around the back, but overlooked a back entry.
Upon reevaluation, here are our results: Partially level entry at back, which would be difficult for an independent wheelchair user to get across. Doors can accommodate wheelchairs. Counters and aisles are accessible. Washroom is not labeled accessible, but is large enough to accommodate wheelchair; no grab bars for toilet.

Grand Bend Strip – June 11, 2008 – SHDHS Prom 1545

Originally uploaded by CaseyLessard

Lauren Haberer of Zurich and Marcus Haccius of Shipka were named South Huron District High School’s 2008 Students of the Year at the June 6 prom, held at the school’s small gym. For more about the winners and nominees, see:

Katie Anderson
Lauren Haberer
Janita Pfaff
Carly Schroeder

Dimitris Fragiskatos
Marcus Haccius
Bryce Halpenny
Kurt Van Osch

Community groups and local businesses are rallying around a Dashwood woman and her grandson, victims of a fire three weeks ago. Dale Schwartzentruber and Skyler, 7, lost everything in the fire at their rental home, and are staying with a friend until they can find an apartment.
Dale and Skyler need help with financial donations, clothing (size 14-15 women’s, size 7-8 boy’s), food, books (e.g. activity books, crosswords), toys, smaller household items and eventually furniture.

Where you can donate:
Blessings Community Store
45 Main St. W., Zurich – 519-236-4376
Financial donations and small and large items.

Godbolt, Ciufo Insurance & Financial Services
425 Main St. S., Exeter – 519-235-2740
Financial donations and small items. Drop off during business hours (Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.)

TD Canada Trust
Crescent Street, Grand Bend
Financial donations only. Can assist in getting other donations to the Schwartzentruber family. Drop off during following hours: Monday to Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; or Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Grand Bend Burgerfest, a fundraiser for the Optimist Club, returns to the beach this weekend, June 13 to 15.
This year’s event revives favourites from ages past: bed races and the Ms./Mr. Burgerfest competition.

Friday, June 13
12 p.m. – Business Luncheon
5 p.m. – Admission opens to the public
8 p.m. – Entertainment with “Rumblefish”

Saturday, June 14
11 a.m. – Bed races on main beach road
1 p.m. – Music with Yeager, Murray Andrews, Brian Dale and Lance Bedard
5 p.m. – Ms./Mr. Burgerfest competition
8 p.m. – The Pat Waterfield Rock & Soul Review

Sunday, June 15
2 to 5 p.m. – Jazz and blues artists Denise Pelley and Cheryl Lescomb
3 p.m. – Parachute jump on main beach

Admission – $5; all proceeds to the Grand Bend Optimist Club
http://www.grandbendtourism.com
http://www.visitgrandbend.com
http://www.grandbend.com

By Casey Lessard

It’s appropriate to raise a glass to Twin Pines Orchards and Cider House (left), who we featured for their winery last fall, and to one of our favourite farms, Sunnivue of Ailsa Craig. Both won regional awards for the Ontario government’s Premier’s Agri-Food Innovation Excellence awards. Each won $5,000 for their innovation; Twin Pines won for making their farm a destination and offering more than just fruit for sale. The farm offers school tours in addition to the winery, which creates apple wine and apple cider. Sunnivue Organic Farm, outside of Ailsa Craig, is a not-for-profit land trust that produces and sells organic milk, beef, veal, chicken, pork, and a large variety of fruits and vegetables.

Two new art ventures are launching this month in the same building as the River Road Gallery.
Sunset Arts is hosting an open house Friday, June 20 from 6 to 9 p.m. at the 63 River Road gallery space. The new gallery is a venture by artists Ana Mattos (wax), Bill Nieuwland (acrylic), Catherine Weber (pastel and watercolour), Debra Bailey (acrylic and watercolour), Fran Roelands (watercolour), Helga Ottan (acrylic), Mary Vener (oil and acrylic), Renata Kolarova (mosaic) and Susan Garrington (watercolour and acrylic). For more information, call 519-238-6914.
Meanwhile, artist Teresa Marie is seeking members for a new Art Centre, which will provide a space for art and photography classes, or any other creative endeavours suitable to the space. The centre is seeking members ($50 with benefits such as discounts for classes, local restaurants and for framing at Baillie’s), sponsors of all levels (from $200 to $5000 or more), teachers, and any other supporters. Charitable tax receipts will be given for qualifying donations. Several artists have offered to teach classes at the centre, including David Bannister (photography), Teresa Marie (drawing, oil painting, portraiture), Debra Bailey (watercolour), Mary-Lynn Fluter (portrait photography), and Suzanne Terry (painting). To become a charter member, contact Teresa Marie at 519-238-8978.

Story by Casey Lessard

Being able to notice subtle details is the key to appreciating My Fair Lady, Huron Country Playhouse’s 2008 season opener, playing until June 21. The musical follows the progress of Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney street flower girl, as linguist Henry Higgins takes up Colonel Pickering’s challenge to prove that class status can be modified by modifying a person’s accent.
Most obviously, viewers will notice the subtle progression in Mairi Babb’s Eliza Doolittle’s Cockney accent as it transitions to a more refined upper-class accent.
“The trick is to make the subtle changes so it’s not just overnight,” Babb says. “By The Rain in Spain, she has a little bit of class and a little bit of put-togetherness. You have to be able to do both accents really well.”
Babb pulls it off well, and her accent progresses appropriately.
“I was born in England, so I did have an accent until I was five,” Babb says. “My mom and I moved to Canada, so I had to get rid of it pretty quickly. But I’ve had to do it in other shows. Actors learn accents through CDs and dialect coaches. Every dialect has a different placement in the mouth.”
Babb also has to walk the walk, modifying her physical behaviour as much as her voice.
“She has a very much Cockney walk, she has her legs apart, but I try to bring them closer together every time she sits subsequently.”
At first, it seems there is nothing subtle about Henry Higgins, played by Douglas E. Hughes.
“I’d describe him as a monomaniac,” Hughes says. “There’s a clue in one of the first things he says when he talks about phonetics, he says, that’s my profession, and also my hobby. Anybody whose profession is also their hobby, it screams, Buddy, get a life. He doesn’t have anything outside of that.”
Then Eliza comes into his life, and challenges him to realize he must have feelings and relate to a person as something other than a laboratory rat for his research.
“He ends up being the person he believes he is at the beginning of the play,” Hughes says, “and she makes that happen.”
While the actors are excellent, and perform well, Stratford veteran Keith Dinicol says it’s an easy job when the text is great.
“When you’re dealing with the words of a great playwright like George Bernard Shaw,” Dinicol says, “you’re in pretty good hands. It’s so well written, the lyrics are so good, the melodies are good. If you follow the instructions of what’s on the page, you’re okay.”
That said, the performers still need to shine, and Playhouse newcomer Sheldon Bergstrom steals the stage when he comes on. Large and imposing, Bergstrom is light on his feet and brings a smile to faces throughout the auditorium.
“We have so much fun together that you feel it on stage. It’s important to have fun and hope the audience is willing to go along for the ride.”
Still, there’s an important lesson about the male-female relationship in this story, which transcends its time to show the value of equality.
“I don’t think we’ve given (the audience) a love story,” Babb says. “We’ve given them something more equal and challenging than a love story. (Director Susan Ferley) wanted to show we were equals and we were going forward. There is no concession given.”
“In Pygmalion,” Hughes notes, “Eliza leaves with Freddy, but maintains a connection with Higgins and Pickering. All we see at the end of this play is that she comes back. It’s up to the audience to decide what happens after this.”
To figure out what happens, get a seat at this show by calling 519-238-6000 or visiting http://www.huroncountryplayhouse.com/. My Fair Lady runs until June 21.

My Fair Lady
Book by Alan Jay Lerner, Music by Frederick Loewe
Performed by Roger Dunn and Lynne Griffin
Directed by Susan Ferley
Choreographed by Gino Berti
Drayton Entertainment Production
Huron Country Playhouse, Grand Bend
June 3 to June 21, 2008

Live! On Stage!
Review by Mary Alderson

Summer’s officially arrived with the season opener at Grand Bend’s Huron Country Playhouse. It’s like meeting an old friend back at the ‘Bend – the Playhouse has dusted off the cobwebs, and sure enough, over 600 of your good friends are there.
Seeing My Fair Lady in Grand Bend is like catching up with an old friend, too. The Lerner and Loewe musical first appeared on Broadway in 1956 and was made into a movie in1964. It played at Huron Country Playhouse in the mid-90s and has been on the Festival Stage in Stratford in recent years, too.
My Fair Lady is the ever-popular story of a Cockney girl selling flowers on the streets of London about 100 years ago. Based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, My Fair Lady tells how linguistic Professor Henry Higgins accepts a challenge from his colleague Colonel Pickering to rid the flower girl of her Cockney accent and make her speak like a true English lady. Eliza Doolittle becomes the guinea pig in their experiment – they must correct her enunciation and grammar, teach her etiquette, and pass her off as a lady at the upcoming Embassy ball.
In the meantime, Eliza’s unemployed, alcoholic father shows up, wanting to be paid for whatever they are doing to her. Higgins is a male chauvinist, treating Eliza as chattel. Fortunately, Pickering is kinder and models better behaviour for her. And somehow, in all of this, the professor and the project end up happily ever after.
Douglas E. Hughes is excellent as Professor Henry Higgins. He plays the role with just the right amount of attitude. Although arrogant, abrupt and too busy for niceties, we can still see the good slowly emerge. Unless this difficult role is handled properly, Higgins could become very dislikeable. While Hughes shows us Higgins’s despicable side, like his mother, we know that he’s still a decent person. Hughes handles the songs like “Why Can’t the English?” “The Rain in Spain,” and “A Hymn to Him” expertly.
Mairi Babb is back at the Playhouse as Eliza Doolittle this time – she was Laurey in Oklahoma! two years ago. This role gives her greater opportunity to show her comedic talent. She is brilliant in the hilarious scene where Higgins and Pickering take Eliza to the Ascot Races to test her ability to mingle with the upper class. But while her enunciation is impeccable, she is still using street slang. Babb pulls it off delightfully, keeping a stiff upper lip while describing her aunt’s death. Then she slips back into her Cockney when she yells at her horse to “move your bloomin’ arse!” While Babb’s aptitude for comedy is impressive and her singing voice above average, sometimes her animation slows while she was singing. The song “I Could Have Danced All Night” is a pivotal moment in the story – she needs to completely convince the audience that she has fallen in love with this somewhat dislikeable man, and I don’t think she demonstrated that passion. My Fair Lady is a long show with many songs, and it’s important to keep energy up during the musical numbers.
Keith Dinicol, with many years experience at the Stratford Festival, is perfect as Colonel Pickering. He dithers just enough to be funny without losing credibility. He and Hughes have excellent rapport, playing the two characters off each other.
Gail Hakala plays the staid and proper Mrs. Pearce flawlessly, and Lorraine Foreman is charming as the long-suffering Mrs. Higgins, refusing to be embarrassed by her rude son. Graham Coffeng as the besotted Freddy Enysford-Hill gives an enjoyable rendition of “On The Street Where You Live”.
Barrie Wood is disappointing as Alfred P. Doolittle. This character has some of the funniest lines in the show, but the humour did not come across. Without a consistent Cockney accent these lines fall flat. Wood does, however, show some excellent dancing, along with the company, in “Get Me to the Church on Time.”
The rest of the cast very capably fills numerous roles from street urchins to servants to glitterati at the ball. Excellent costumes and quick changes keep the audience enthralled. The sets are well done, from the inside of Higgins’ library, to the outside of Wimpole Street, from the Ballroom to Mrs. Higgins’ garden. Some of the changes were a little slow on opening night, but they will become faster.
In its treatment of Eliza, My Fair Lady probably reflects more about the era in which it was written, rather than the time it represents. In the1950s, every girl’s goal was to get a husband, and suddenly that becomes Eliza’s goal, even though her original intention was to get a job in a flower shop. There is also too much talk of hitting, striking and even using a belt on Eliza, which should make today’s audience very uncomfortable. Thankfully, at the end of this production, Eliza didn’t stoop to put the slippers on Henry’s feet. Director Susan Ferley has Eliza perch on the edge of the desk next to Henry, giving him a hip bump – an excellent show of equality – and a good ending to a very good production.
My Fair Lady continues with eight shows a week until June 21 at Huron Country Playhouse, Grand Bend. Tickets are available at the Huron Country Playhouse box office at (519) 238-6000, Drayton Entertainment at 1-888-449-4463, or check out http://www.draytonentertainment.com

Mary Alderson offers her view of area theatre in this column on a regular basis. As well as being a fan of live theatre, she is a former journalist who is currently employed with the Ontario Association of Community Futures Development Corporations.

Student of the Year nominees
Biographies and photographs submitted

Katie Anderson
Katie Anderson has had four memorable years at South Huron District High School.
Academically, Katie has been on the honor roll every year. This year as part of her biology class she was able to participate in the Envirothon, and after winning Huron Perth, went on with her team to take part in the provincial competition.
Katie joined the intermediate band in grade nine and has continued to play the tenor sax in the concert and black jazz bands, and wind ensemble. In grade ten she was able to travel with the band to Ottawa, and then to Cleveland in grade eleven.
This year Katie was co-head of SHDHS chapter of Habitat for Humanity. She helped put on two coffee houses, which allowed performers to showcase their talents and raise money for Habitat all at the same time.
Katie’s fondest memories of high school will be her participation in sports. For all of her four years, she was a member of the cross-country, soccer and track teams. This year, she placed sixth at OFSAA for cross-country and is heading to Hamilton this weekend for OFSAA track. In grade ten and twelve, Katie was also a member of the badminton team and placed third this year at Huron Perth in mixed doubles.
Next year Katie is heading to McMaster… where she will hopefully run faster, and pursue a career in science.

Dimitris Fragiskatos
Dimitris Fragiskatos has been attending SHDHS for the past four years. He would like to thank his fellow classmates for his nomination for student of the year.
Dimitris has been involved in many sports at South Huron including badminton (where he quickly learned it was not a sissy sport), tennis, cross-country, basketball and his favourite, soccer. His soccer team, this year, has been especially successful moving on to WOSSA and hopefully OFSAA. Dimitris feels sports have largely influenced his amazing time at South Huron. The coaches of his teams have helped him learn many new skills that he has been able to apply on and off the field. He also enjoyed many quotes from coach Henry Bonsma, including, “ If you want to play like a baby you deserve to be on the bench in your cradle”. Everyone loves the ‘intensity coach’. Dimitris also tried to give something back to the school community and the community at large by being involved with student council and participating in community events. Relay for Life being the favourite.
Another contributing factor to the great time Dimitris has had at South Huron has been his peers. Over the years as he matured and watched his peers mature they continue to share many laughs and enjoy high fives/pounds from each other. His peers have created so many great memories from the start of high school all the way to the near end. He enjoys being able to look back together with these people and consider some of the foolish acts they’ve done and say “Hey it’s cool, it makes a good memory”.
Many great teachers have also contributed to positive memorable moments! Dimitris is happy he can say that even though he sometimes did not focus on his academic work as much as he should have he was still able to create a relationship with his teachers. Relationships that allowed him to visit them during their spare time and have talks and a laugh or two. Dimitris would like to thank all of the great ladies in the office for sharing time with him. He could happily call these moments in the office “bonding moments” rather than “detentions”.
Dimitris is currently working at his family’s restaurant, Kate’s Station, and he also works at Gregus Millworks where the employees there have interesting thoughts on Dimitris’ new haircut.
Dimitris plans to attend Fanshawe College in the fall where he will be taking the Construction Engineering Technology course. Dimitris is the proud son of Jayne and Nick Fragiskatos and he is also proud to be a resident of Hensall.
Dimitris will always remember how South Huron was a great school. Great because of the people he saw everyday, and he wishes the best of luck to all of these people.

Lauren Haberer
Lauren is honoured to have been nominated for Student of the Year this year. Throughout high school, Lauren has taken advantage of many aspects of the “SHDHS experience”. She was a proud panther on the field hockey, volleyball, badminton, and rugby teams, and was especially honoured to travel to OFSAA for field hockey in grade 9. Lauren has been an active member of Student Council, the school bands, the Relay for Life Committee, the Habitat for Humanity Committee, and the Peer Tutoring program.
Next year, Lauren will be attending the University of Ottawa for political science. Looking back over the past four years, Lauren realizes that taking part in these activities has really influenced who she is today. Lauren will miss the friends, teachers, coaches, and extra-curricular activities at South Huron, but is looking forward to beginning a new adventure next year.

Marcus Haccius
Marcus is honored to have been nominated for Student of the Year when South Huron has so many awesome students to choose from. Carpe Diem is one of his favourite phrases and translated means ‘Seize the Day’. Marcus tries to live each day to the fullest by trying new things and new ideas. High school has been an incredible experience for him, and he has enjoyed every minute spent inside South Huron walls.
Many of his fond high school memories will be of the Panther sports teams. Rugby was a new game for Marcus, and he enjoyed learning the rules and slowly reducing the amount of pain he felt after each game. Playing badminton for the school team was a wonderful contrast to rugby, mostly because it placed a net between Marcus and his opponents. He also learned many things through his Reach for the Top experiences, both junior and senior level.
Being on Student’s Council always kept Marcus busy around the school. In the past four years he hasn’t missed many Panther activities, either by organizing or participating in them. These include Terry Fox Runs, Thirty Hour Famines, PAWS Days, gaming tournaments, dances, and many other happening events.
Marcus’ fondest memories revolve around South Huron’s drama program. He enjoyed four years of playing major roles in four different school productions, and is extremely grateful to all the other thespians for making his drama experience a treat.
Next year, Marcus has been accepted into the Beal Musical Theatre Program, and will study there full time. After Beal he plans to attend University, then to pursue a career in dramatic arts.
Marcus thanks all Panthers for four amazing years.

Bryce Halpenny
Being the youngest of three kids, Bryce watched a sister thoroughly enjoy the arts and a brother that thoroughly enjoyed athletics. Bryce decided that he would try to participate in as much school life that South Huron had to offer while maintaining a strong academic standing. This ultimately led to his participation in five bands throughout his high school career. His talent and passion for music was proven when he was asked to play senior band in his second year of high school and lead trumpet in his last two years.
Athletically Bryce has participated in volleyball and badminton and has won four awards in grade 10 and 11. He also participated in a London competitive volleyball league. He has also volunteered at an elementary school volleyball camp for four years held at South Huron. Bryce has been a team player and a competitive athlete each year and athletics has been an important part of his high school life.
Bryce’s extra-curricular activities have made high school life fun and interesting but they never interfered with his academic performance. He maintained honours every year and was top male student one year. Being part of a variety of activities throughout the school has aloud him to have a wide social circle and he is proud of the close friends that he has made in high school. Bryce will be going on next year to the University of Western Ontario for engineering.

Janita Pfaff
Janita Pfaff is happy to be nominated by her peers for Student of the Year. As a panther, she has a diverse profile. Academically, Janita is proud of the honour roll status she has achieved all four years at South Huron District High School. She was an avid member of both the field hockey and rugby teams throughout her high school career, and had the honour of being co-captain of the field hockey team this year. Janita has been an enthusiastic member of the Students’ Council as grade representative in grades nine and ten, as well as Deputy Premier and Formal Chair this year. Janita has also played major roles in the school’s drama productions in grades nine and twelve, as well as sang and played guitar in the Variety Show in grade eleven. She participated on the Envirothon Team that placed first in the Huron-Perth division in her senior year. Outside of school, Janita enjoyed being a member of the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Youth Band. She is proud to be employed at the Exeter Villa for over two years. This experience will help her in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at Western-Fanshawe this fall. Janita would like to thank the staff, her coaches, and peers at South Huron, as well as her parents, Dennis and Marian, for helping her get the fullest experience at S.H.D.H.S.

Carly Schroeder
Carly is honoured to be nominated for Student of the Year by her peers. Through the years, she has been involved in South Huron’s many activities and clubs. She enjoyed a short stint in rugby, soccer, and OSAID. Carly has contributed to two school productions, “Return to Eden” and “The Variety Show.” She was chosen to attend both the Ontario Educational Leadership Centre and the Rotary’s Seminar for Tomorrow’s Leaders. Throughout her 4 years, Carly has been dedicated to South Huron’s field hockey team, giving her the opportunity to go to OFSAA 1 year, and WOSSA 4 years. Along with this, Carly has earned a place on the Honour Roll and the top mark in music for the past 3 years. Music has dominated Carly’s life all through her time at South Huron. She has been a part of the music program for 4 years, in which she participated in 8 different ensembles/bands, including both concert and jazz bands, the percussion ensemble and the saxophone quartet. Along with this, Carly earned a spot in the National Concert Band, in which she was proud to represent South Huron, working with 53 other young musicians from across Canada. Also at the Nationals in Ottawa, she received an honour award while competing with the school’s concert bans. Carly is continuing her education in music this fall, at the University of Western Ontario. Carly would like to thank her parents, Steve and Brenda Schroeder of Dashwood, for all their love and support.

Kurt Van Osch
In his four years at SHDHS, Kurt Van Osch has been extremely active on many sports teams. In grades 9 and 10, Kurt played on the volleyball, basketball and soccer teams. In grade 10, Kurt also joined the track and field team. Some of his accomplishments included winning a bronze medal at WOSSA volleyball, competing in triple jump and shot put at WOSSA and winning Huron Perth in soccer. Furthermore, Kurt made the Honour Roll in grade 9 and received Junior Athlete of the Year in grade 10. In grade 11, Kurt played on the volleyball, soccer, track and field, hockey and badminton teams. Kurt made a WOSSA appearance in shot put. At the end of the year, Kurt was awarded the Team Leader Award in hockey, Most Offensive Player in soccer, Rookie of the Year for badminton, and also Senior Athlete of the Year. This year Kurt was on many successful teams. He played on the golf, volleyball, hockey, badminton, and currently the soccer team. The volleyball and hockey teams were able to make a WOSSA appearance; winning a WOSSA gold medal in hockey, allowing Kurt the amazing experience of competing at OFSAA. Kurt also won third place at Huron Perth badminton. Presently, Kurt is helping his soccer team compete at WOSSA, in the hopes to go to OFSAA once again. In his spare time, Kurt attends classes, and through his marks, was able to receive acceptance to the University of Guelph for Business Agriculture. He also participates in school activities such as the Terry Fox Run, Relay for Life, and many others. Kurt has enjoyed every minute of his high school career and will always have great memories of his time spent and the people he has met at SHDHS.

View from the Strip
By Casey Lessard

“We’re only open two months, so…”
“We don’t get a lot of people in wheelchairs, so…”
“It’s an old building, so…”
These are only three of the reasons Rick Lewcock and I heard from business owners about why their businesses weren’t wheelchair friendly. We made a journey through Grand Bend to examine the town’s accessibility and the findings of our study – which is as comprehensive as possible in the time we had – are included in the next few pages.
The results are disturbing, but should surprise few. Our rural communities are old, with some buildings erected more than 100 years ago. Many have one or several steps before you can access the door. These steps are instant barriers to accessing a business, a legacy our ancestors handed down that stops many from shopping in our stores, eating in our restaurants, playing our games, and enjoying our culture.
It’s true that some people will risk the business lost by sticking to the theory that they don’t get a lot of people in wheelchairs, but do you ever wonder why people in wheelchairs aren’t customers? They can’t get through the front door! Shockingly, many of the businesses with steps cater to older customers, the same people who are more likely to have mobility issues. Maintain a “don’t get many” attitude, and you’ll notice you have fewer customers with mobility every year.
I do realize Grand Bend is a beach town. Yes, it has a short season for the businesses on the main strip. Maybe it’s time to change that. I have been an supporter of moves to make Grand Bend’s main street work year-round since my return to the area last year, and I know there are many who would like to see the same change happen. Businesses on Highway 21 seem to be able to stay open year-round. How can those businesses stay open, while the Main Street ones can’t? One way is to change your market to the people who live here (and who, by the way, have money, too).
We’ve all heard a lot about the community plan and proposed changes that will cost taxpayer money to make the town more pedestrian friendly and attractive.
One of the first steps in that progress was this month’s opening of the beach house elevator. That’s where I met Rick Lewcock, who lost the ability to use most of his body in a car crash 17 years ago. He was excited to be able to see the view from the beach house roof. But the elevator is more than the key to a nice view. It is a way to remove a barrier to access. It’s a small step toward giving equal access to one location in our community we all take for granted.
I wanted to see what Rick could and couldn’t access – on his own and without any assistance from anyone – wherever the sidewalk could take him in Grand Bend (I assessed Parkhill independently and will assess Exeter for a future issue).
Our journey through the streets opened both of our eyes to the empirical evidence about what is and what is not accessible. Rick was reminded of places he has never been able to access, but was pleasantly surprised to find he could access others.
Our study is not intended to embarrass you or your business. Perhaps you are not aware of the way the construction of your building limits access for your customers. If a change needs to be made, perhaps it is as simple as moving some clothing racks or boxes on the floor, changing the way a door swings, or pouring a little bit of cement. For others, major changes are needed, and perhaps it’s not feasible for you right now.
That said, whatever business you are in, you have until 2025 to make your building meet Ontario building code requirements for accessibility, and standards must also be met for the customer service, communications, transportation and employment. The rules will affect you eventually, so now’s a good time to think about how your business sets limits to access.
I can see why the community plan so heavily favours accessibility. It’s going to take time and money to make change happen, but it is a good reason to change. I may not agree with all of the details (e.g. the bridge through the yacht club confuses me), but the overall plan makes sense when you look at how our community is changing.
Change is happening, and it is a good thing (for the most part). The question you need to ask: Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?

By Casey Lessard with Rick Lewcock, member of Lambton Shores accessibility committee

166 Grand Bend businesses surveyed
40% are 100% inaccessible by wheelchair
Only 1/3 have wheelchair parking
1 in 5 has a powered door opener
Grand Bend’s average mark (on Strip survey): 47%
Full results: Grand Bend wheelchair accessibility

53 Parkhill core businesses surveyed
41% are 100% inaccessible by wheelchair
Only 4 locations have wheelchair parking
Seven have a powered door opener
Parkhill downtown’s average mark (on Strip survey): 42%
Full results: Parkhill wheelchair accessibility

We assessed 166 businesses in Grand Bend, from the beach in the west, to the Grand Bend Community Health Centre in the east, to Oakwood Inn in the north and G.B. Posh in the south. We also included some major tourist attractions just outside of town, including the Huron Country Playhouse, Grand Bend Motorplex, and Pinery Antique Flea and Farmers’ Market.

Our eight criteria for assessment were as follows, each with equal weight (if a business did not offer the facility for its walking customers, we did not assess that criterion):
1 – Does the facility offer wheelchair parking on site?
2 – Is there a level entry to the building? If there was a step, the business automatically received zero on the assessment.
3 – Can the entry door accommodate a motorized wheelchair? Our standard was 36” wide.
4 – Does the door have assistive power, where a person can press a button to open the door or it opens automatically?
5 – Can a person sitting in a wheelchair see over the counter?
6 – Are aisles easy to navigate through the entire store?
7 – Can someone in a motorized wheelchair use the washroom?
8 – If tables are offered, are they high enough to accommodate a person using a wheelchair?

Downtown

Colonial (Restaurant/Bar)
1 Main Street West
519-238-2371
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable. 75% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.
Parking in back is better than parking in front (front spots are too steep). Rod & Gun entry bump is too high to maneouver safely. Some obstructions between restaurant and bar on our visit.

Gables (Bar)
5 Main Street West
519-238-2371
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Honey Milk (Retail)
8 Main Street West

Huckleberries (Café)
10 Main Street West
519-238-5740
Level entry or ramp. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.
Patio Seating only

Bikini Bob’s (Bar)
11 Main Street West
519-238-2235

Café aux Sables (Café)
13 Main Street West
519-238-2224

Pura Vida (Clothing)
13 Main Street West
519-238-2224

Beauty & the Beach (Hair Salon)
14 Main Street West
519-238-6520
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Grand Bend Heating Plus (Heating & Cooling)
14 Main Street West
519-238-6707
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

BJ’s Diner (Diner)
15 Main Street West
519-878-6666
Level entry or ramp. Counters are at reachable height. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Knockout Fashions (Clothing)
16 Main Street West
519-238-2903

Tender Spot (Variety)
20 Main Street West
519-238-2512
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height.
Enter through exit only. Once in, no aisles are passable.

Beer Wear (Clothing)
23 Main Street West
519-238-5402
Wheelchair Parking.

J Dee’s (Restaurant)
23 Main Street West
519-238-5402
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Kieswetter Interiors (Design Studio)
3 Queen Street Place
519-238-2157
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door.

Mike Dilts (Goldsmith)
4 Queen Street Place
519-238-5967
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Hemptations (Retail)
6 Queen Street Place
519-238-5845
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Grand Bend United Church (Worship)
25 Main Street West
519-238-2402
Wheelchair Parking.
Can park, but can’t get into church. Some worship is outside on lawn.

Grand Bend Hardware (Hardware)
28 Main Street West
519-238-2552

Bum Bum (Clothing)
29 Main Street West
519-238-5881

Sea Jewels (Accessories)
30 Main Street West
519-238-6883
Small bump at side door – could easily accommodate ramp.

Jalapeños (Mexican food)
32 Main Street West
519-238-2632
Level entry or ramp. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Fawn & Brindle (Clothing)
33 Main Street West

Magic Girl (Clothing)
33 Main Street West
519-238-1323

Eat a Pita/Eat za Pizza (Takeout)
35 Main Street West
Level entry or ramp. Counters are at reachable height.

Frosty Stone Creamery (Ice Cream)
37 Main Street West

Static (Clothing)
39 Main Street West
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Island Beach Co. (Clothing)
40 Main Street West
519-238-1234

Bluenotes (Clothing)
41 Main Street West

Archie’s Emporium (Candy)
42 Main Street West

Grand Bend Clothing Co. (Clothing)
47 Main Street West
519-238-2358

Ripples (Clothing)
48 Main Street West
519-238-2875
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Village Green (Mini-golf)
48 Main Street West
519-238-2428
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height.
Wheelchair user can get through gate, but playing a round would be impossible.

Holiday Plaza (Arcade)
50 Main Street West
519-238-5731

Perfect Image (Tattoo Parlour)
51 Main Street West
519-238-1649

Archie’s (Clothing)
55 Main Street West
519-238-2720

OPP (Police)
58 Main Street West
519-238-2345
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Little Gino’s (Takeout)
61 Main Street West
519-615-5454

Coco’s (Bar)
62 Main Street West
519-238-5140

Bangkok Pad Thai (Takeout)
63 Main Street West
Level entry or ramp. Counters are at reachable height.

Chameleon (Accessories)
63 Main Street West
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Spud Shack (French Fries)
63 Main Street West
Level entry or ramp. Counters are at reachable height.

Bikiniland (Clothing)
67 Main Street West
519-238-6754
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Batting Cages (Batting Cages)
68 Main Street West
519-615-5454
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height.

Yögen Früz (Frozen Yogurt)
68 Main Street West
519-615-5454
Level entry or ramp. Counters are at reachable height. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Cheryl Ann (Ice Cream)
71 Main Street West
519-238-1092
Level entry or ramp. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Mini-Putt (Mini-golf)
72 Main Street West
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.
A wheelchair user can navigate most of course, but would not be able to complete any holes.

Splash (Clothing)
72 Main Street West
519-238-8430
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Missy’s (Ice Cream)
75 Main Street West
Level entry or ramp. Counters are at reachable height.

Dairy Dip (Ice Cream)
76 Main Street West
519-238-6408
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Dairy Queen (Ice Cream)
77 Main Street West
519-238-6952
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height.

Jiggy (Clothing)
77 Main Street West

Time for a Break (Juice Bar)
77 Main Street West
519-238-6237
Level entry or ramp. Aisles are passable.

Twisted Sisters (Hair Salon)
77 Main Street West
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable.

Kazwear (Clothing)
80 Main Street West
519-238-8126
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Tropical Trends (Clothing)
82 Main Street West
519-238-5624

Apropos (Clothing)
83 Main Street West
519-238-2511

Ripples (Clothing)
84 Main Street West
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height.

Lakeview Café (Restaurant)
85 Main Street West
519-238-2622
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 75% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.
Washroom in back restaurant only, where hours are different. Must ask for assistance to get access to them.

Growling Gator (Restaurant)
86 Main Street West
519-238-1300
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Beach House (Municipal)
1 Government Road
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. 100% accessible washroom.

Bonnie Doone Manor on the Beach (Accommodation)
16 Government Road
519-238-2236
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 50% accessible washroom.
Can access rooms only, but registration desk is inaccessible by wheelchair.

River Road

Grand Bend Yacht Club (Private Club)
55 River Road
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. 75% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Public Washroom (Washroom)
56 River Road
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. 25% accessible washroom.

Purdy’s Fish & Chips (Restaurant)
59 River Road
519-238-8044
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

River Road Gallery (Art Gallery)
63 River Road
519-238-6874
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable.

Canada Border Services Agency (Government)
91 River Road
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. 50% accessible washroom.

Dockage (Municipal)
91 River Road
519-238-6676
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable. 50% accessible washroom.

Laundromat (Laundry)
91 River Road
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable. 50% accessible washroom.

North of Downtown (Highway 21/Ontario Street North)

Grand Bend Youth Centre (Community)
16 Municipal Drive
519-238-1155
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. 100% accessible washroom.
Assessment incomplete

Royal Canadian Legion (Service Club)
20 Municipal Drive
519-238-2120
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Lambton Shores Municipal Office (Municipal)
4 Ontario Street North
519-238-8461
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom.
Assessment incomplete

Bank of Montreal (Banking)
6 Ontario Street North
519-238-2475
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

The Beer Store (Beer)
21 Ontario Street North
519-238-2356
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Sutton Realty (Real Estate)
26 Ontario Street North
519-238-8000

Back ‘n Time (Diner)
31 Ontario Street North
519-238-1955
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Mac’s Convenience (Variety)
31 Ontario Street North
519-238-5664
Wheelchair Parking.
Garbage can obstructs business access for wheelchair users. Could be fixed by moving can to opposite side of door.

Royal Lepage Heartland (Real Estate)
31 Ontario Street North
519-238-1800
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Subway (Restaurant)
32 Ontario Street North
519-238-6771

Grandpa Jimmy’s Scottish Bakery (Bakery)
34 Ontario Street North
519-238-5055
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Grand Bend Fitness Centre (Health)
37 Ontario Street North
519-238-3488
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Tim Horton’s (Café)
39 Ontario Street North
519-238-1488
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Desjardine Wealth Management
45 Ontario Street North
519-238-6399

Waypoint Financial Group – Brian Hall (Financial)
45 Ontario Street North
519-238-8892

Accents Hair and Gift Studio (Hair Salon)
47 Ontario Street North
519-238-1010

ELS & Company
47 Ontario Street North
519-238-2199

Grand Bend Veterinary Services (Veterinary)
47 Ontario Street North
519-238-5055

Angie’s Laundromat (Laundry)
48 Ontario Street North

Farm Gate Outlet (Food)
48 Ontario Street North
519-238-5761
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Salon 8180 (Hair Salon)
48 Ontario Street North
519-238-8180
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

The Co-operators – Chuck Hall (Insurance)
48 Ontario Street North
519-238-8651
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door.

Green Haven Trailer Park
56 Ontario Street North
519-238-7275

Lakeshore Advance (Newspaper)
58 Ontario Street North
519-238-5383

Robert Q Travel (Travel Agent)
58 Ontario Street North
519-238-6666

William Kennedy (Lawyer)
58 Ontario Street North

Oakwood Inn Office (Accommodation)
Highway 21 North
519-238-2324
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.
Front door inaccessible by wheelchair; to register, wheelchair users must use conference room entrance, which is inaccessible when conference room is in use.

Oakwood Inn Pub (Pub)
Highway 21 North
519-238-2324
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

East of Downtown

Grand Bend Chamber of Commerce (Chamber)
1 81 Crescent
519-238-2001
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom.

Gaiser Kneale (Insurance)
2 81 Crescent
519-238-8484
Assessment incomplete

RBC Dominion Securities (Financial)
2 81 Crescent
519-238-1100
Assessment incomplete

House of Fashions (Clothing)
15 Sauble Road
519-238-1077
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Steve’s Automotive (Automotive)
16 81 Crescent
519-238-2475
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Schoolhouse Restaurant (Restaurant)
19 81 Crescent
519-238-5515
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Canada Post (Post Office)
20 81 Crescent
519-238-8080
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Baillie’s Picture Framing (Art)
22 81 Crescent
519-238-1472
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door.
Ramp leads to back of store; no access to gallery and cash register.

TD Canada Trust (Banking)
24 81 Crescent
519-238-8435
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

HMS Insurance (Insurance)
30 81 Crescent
519-238-2692
Wheelchair Parking.

The Fisher Corporation (Accountants)
30 81 Crescent
519-238-6095
Wheelchair Parking.

Church of God (Worship)
8 Gill Road
519-238-2142
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door.

Grand Bend Public School (Education)
15 Gill Road
519-238-2091
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Patio Motel (Accommodation)
40 Main Street East
519-238-2431

Grand Bend Optometry Clinic (Optical)
43 Main Street East
519-238-6086
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Sobey’s (Grocery)
55 Main Street East
519-238-8944
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Movie Gallery (Video Rentals)
63 Main Street East
519-238-1161
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Shoppers Drug Mart (Pharmacy)
65 Main Street East
519-238-8540
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Grand Bend Community Health Centre (Medical)
69 Main Street East
519-238-1556
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Grand Cove Estates Sales Office (Real Estate)
Highway 81
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Huron Country Playhouse (Theatre)
B Line
519-238-6000
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Grand Bend Motorplex (Attraction)
Highway 81
519-238-7223
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. 100% accessible washroom.
Assessment incomplete

South of Downtown

Garden Gate (Florist)
15 Ontario Street South
519-238-1701
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

New Orleans (Pizza)
15 Ontario Street South
519-238-6868

Cranbury Lane (Retail)
20 Ontario Street South
519-238-1120

Gilpin Visitation and Cremation Centre (Funeral)
22 Ontario Street South
519-296-4964
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable.
Assessment incomplete

Coldwell Banker (Real Estate)
25 Ontario Street South
519-238-7355

Riverbend Bar & Grill (Bar)
26 Ontario Street South
519-238-6919

Salon 21 (Hair Salon)
27 Ontario Street South
519-933-3376

Jeffrey Hudson Hair Design (Hair Salon)
28 Ontario Street South
519-238-4247

Wags Pet Grooming (Pet Care)
28 Ontario Street South
519-238-3647

Small Wonders (Clothing)
30 Ontario Street South
519-238-6726

The Grapevine (Wine)
30 Ontario Street South
519-238-9463

G.L. Barclay Insurance (Insurance)
34 Ontario Street South
519-238-6790

Century 21 (Real Estate)
38 Ontario Street South
519-238-8321
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.
Wheelchair parking across Highway 21.

Hair Bend’rs (Hair Salon)
38 Ontario Street South
519-238-8822
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.
Wheelchair parking across Highway 21.

Sport-Med (Health)
38 Ontario Street South
519-238-1444
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom.
Wheelchair parking across Highway 21.

The Co-operators – MacDermid & Associates (Insurance)
38 Ontario Street South
519-238-1781
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.
Wheelchair parking across Highway 21.

F.I.N.E A Restaurant (Restaurant)
42 Ontario Street South
519-238-6224
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.
Nicest washroom in town.

Mortgage Intelligence (Financial)
45 Ontario Street South
519-238-4663

Benjamin Moore (Paint)
46 Ontario Street South
519-238-0181
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Jud Bumstead (Financial)
46 Ontario Street South
519-238-4729
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Re/Max (Real Estate)
46 Ontario Street South
519-238-5700
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Apropos After Five (Clothing)
47 Ontario Street South
519-238-6776
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Grand Bend Convenience/Esso (Variety/Gasoline)
48 Ontario Street South
519-238-5706

Sharen GMAC (Real Estate)
51 Ontario Street South
519-238-2303
Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.
Proprieter is planning a wheelchair ramp to match current porch upgrade.

Grand Bend Chiropractic Health Centre (Health)
54 Ontario Street South
519-238-1111

Twigs Floral Co. (Florist)
54 Ontario Street South
519-238-1262
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Pro Hardware (Hardware)
57 Ontario Street South
519-238-5500
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Gospel Hall (Worship)
64 Ontario Street South
519-238-2820

Peckitt’s Men’s Wear (Clothing)
78 Ontario Street South
519-238-6165

Jennifer Tully (Massage Therapy)
82 Ontario Street South

Michael Forrester (Lawyer)
82 Ontario Street South
519-238-5297

Denny’s Drive-in (Ice Cream)
86 Ontario Street South

Havasu/Jackson Construction (Construction)
98 Ontario Street South
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.
Only half of store is accessible

House of Flags (Flags and Banners)
98 Ontario Street South
519-238-3524
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.
Only half of store is accessible

No Frills (Grocery)
98 Ontario Street South
519-238-6211
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom.

Green Bucks (Discount Store)
99 Ontario Street South
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Greene’s Optical (Optical)
99 Ontario Street South
519-238-3937
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

LCBO (Liquor)
99 Ontario Street South
519-238-2191
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Pizza Delight (Restaurant)
99 Ontario Street South
519-238-8330
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.

Pine Dale Motor Inn (Accommodation)
107 Ontario Street South
519-238-2231
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Aisles are passable.
Wheelchair users can stay the night, but can’t register or access washrooms.

Bluewater Motel (Accommodation)
121 Ontario Street South
519-238-2014

Aunt Gussie’s (Restaurant)
135 Ontario Street South
519-238-6786
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 50% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.
Men’s washroom inaccessible for motorized wheelchair, but accessible for manual chairs. Women’s washroom is fully accessible.

GB Posh (Retail)
139 Ontario Street South
519-238-7674

Best’s Ice Cream (Ice Cream)
Highway 21 South
519-238-6196

Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church (Worship)
Highway 21 South
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Powered door.

Lakeshore Laundry (Laundry)
Highway 21 South
Level entry or ramp. Wheelchairs can get through door. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable.

Pinery Antique Flea Market (Flea Market)
Highway 21 South
519-238-8382
Wheelchair Parking. Level entry or ramp. Counters are at reachable height. Aisles are passable. 100% accessible washroom. Tables can accommodate wheelchairs.
One area of one building is not accessible (ramps are too steep).