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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2015-06-04, Page 1CitizenTh e $1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, June 4, 2015 Volume 31 No. 22 SPORTS - Pg. 8 Tigers, Brewers start Huron Fastball season ARENA - Pg. 2 Community Centre seeks nominations for project Publications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0 INSIDE THIS WEEK: Munro Festival June 4-7 In line The Brussels Cadet Corp held its annual year-end inspection and awards ceremony last week with a number of Cadets participating. The weather was nice, so the members showed off their skills outdoors with the help of the Municipality of Huron East, which closed the road for them. Lieutenant Commander Neil Martin, Deputy Commanding Officer of Blackdown Cadet Training Centre was on hand to conduct the inspection. (Vicky Bremner photo) Faces of Fury brings story of S.S. Wexford to life Blyth’s Memorial Hall played host to a special event last Tuesday evening as the S.S. Wexford, as well as all the ships lost during The Great Storm of 1913, were paid tribute to. The event, called Faces of the Fury, featured music, presentations and a sneak peek at Fury, a fictional play premiering at the Blyth Festival this season that takes place on the Wexford. The storm had dire effects on four of the Great Lakes and claimed 19 ships, stranded 19 others and is the most destructive natural disaster to occur on the bodies of water. Put on as a collaboration between the Blyth Festival and the Great Lakes Storm of 1913 Remembrance committee, the event brought together descendants of the sailors on the S.S. Wexford from home and abroad, the St. Anne’s Catholic Secondary School’s award-winning band to perform a three-piece song about the storm, and members of the Blyth Festival and Fury to help mark the important place the Wexford plays in Huron’s history. The evening began with the St. Anne’s choir playing “Songs of the Karegnondi”, a three-movement piece composed by Jeff Christmas that was produced specifically for the band. Fresh off a provincial win for its musical prowess, the group took to the stage and played the complex piece which featured the tones of calmer nautical songs, a sea-chanty and a movement focused on the rage of the storm that sank the S.S. Wexford as well as many other ships, claiming nearly 300 seamen. Fury composer, music director and sound designer Samuel Sholdice, who was part of the show, said it was an amazing piece to see performed by high school students. He also said that, having been in a local concert band himself when he went to high school at Central Huron Secondary School, it was impressive to see the group on stage and performing so well. The second part of the evening featured a special presentation by the Great Lakes Storm of 1913 Remembrance committee. Blyth Festival Artistic Director Gil Garratt emceed the show and introduced the various acts. Prior to introducing the committee, he said he was glad the Festival could help with the event, pointing to the fact that part of the mandate of the theatre group is to tell the stories of not just from Canada, but from the local area. He said there have been many plays about the area as far as agriculture and rural life is concerned, but the lake is often forgotten and there are many tales to tell. He then introduced the Great Lakes Storm of 1913 Remembrance committee, that told people the tale of the S.S. Wexford, whose wreckage was discovered south of Goderich 15 years ago. The committee includes historians Paul Carroll, who recently penned a novel about the S.S. Wexford and the storm, David Yates, Kathy Pletsch, and Colleen Maguire. Maguire gave an overview of the history of the S.S. Wexford, detailing its crew. Carroll spoke in depth about the ship’s construction, modifications and how it came to be in Lake Huron. Yates focused on the events of the storm and of the aftermath, highlighting several sailors whose stories were impressive. Pletsch dealt with the more human aspect of the story, focusing on the lives of the sailors and those they left behind when they died in the Great Storm of 1913. Following the presentation, Peter Smith, playwright and lyricist for Fury and Sholdice took to the stage. Sholdice performed two pieces from the play which bookended a reading of the play by Smith. Sholdice said that in the creation of Fury, he was treated to entire lore with which he was unfamiliar. He said that Garratt, in saying that the lake is sometimes forgotten in the history of Huron County, was accurate. “The Blyth Festival, being this rural theatre, does so many shows A special exhibit to honour the 100th anniversary of the birth of St. Augustine-born author Harry J. Boyle was opened at the North Huron Museum on Saturday. The museum was filled with visitors for the opening ceremony including Boyle’s brother Norman, of London and his daughter Patricia and son Michael, MP Ben Lobb, MPP Lisa Thompson, Huron County Warden Paul Gowing and North Huron Reeve Neil Vincent. Vincent said he grew up within two miles of St. Augustine and in elementary school literature, studied Boyle’s Mostly In Clover, one of a number of humorous books written about growing up in Huron County in the 1920s and 1930s. Boyle, Vincent said, always carried with him the values he learned growing up in Huron, whether to his career at CBC radio where he helped start the National Farm Radio Forum or as chair of the Canadian Radio-Television Commission (CRTC). Thompson, who said her forebears came from St. Augustine, said Boyle “Put an exclamation point on the type of people who come from Huron County.” Lobb touched on the same point saying he is always struck by the remarkable people who have come from the county. When Boyle went to CBC in the 1940s, he joined at a time when the network was building the same unifying bonds across the nation that the railways had done a half-century earlier, Lobb said. During Boyle’s time at the CRTC the commission was establishing The recently-rebranded Alice Munro Festival of the Short Story has undergone some major changes and is now ready to be one of the top literary festivals and attractions in the country. Now under the auspices of Festival Director Kate Johnston, who also works with The Livery in Goderich, the festival has expanded to become a county-wide event, featuring events in its natural home of Wingham, as well as Clinton and Bayfield. The sweeping changes also mean a new date for the festival, which had historically been held in the fall, but will now be held between Thursday, June 4 and Sunday, June 7. The rebranding of the festival, Johnston says, was really done to try and make it more of a tourism attraction and an experience, rather than simply a handful of workshops. The festival was first created in 2003 before being rebranded as the Alice Munro Readers and Writers The Citizen Celebrating 30 Years 1985~2015 Museum honours ‘Clover’ author By Keith Roulston The Citizen Continued on page 10 By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen Continued on page 14 By Denny Scott The Citizen Continued on page 20