The Rural Voice, 1993-06, Page 30No sad songs as Centralia grads honoured
1993 graduation has lighter touch despite the gloom
There were tears in the eyes of
many in the audience as the guest
speaker at the 1993 Centralia College
of Agricultural Technology gradua-
tion ceremony spoke on May 20. The
tears, however, had nothing to do
with the gloom that is hanging over
the college these days because of the
announced closing on May 1, 1994.
Under the circumstances director
Cathy Biondi could hardly have
chosen a better speaker than Dan
Needles. The playwright is author of
a series of plays on the experiences of
Walt Wingfield, a Toronto
stockbroker who takes up farming in
Persephone township. His humourous
stories about his own farming
experience on a sheep farm near
Collingwood had many in the
audience laughing so hard they had to
wipe tears from their eyes. He
AGRIC JLSItZlR L
BUS INESS
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Dawn K. Martin
Durham
pointed out the main sources of
income on the farm he shares with his
wife and children is "sheep rental and
wolf damage". He talked about taking
on work for the sheep marketing
board to promote more consumption
of lamb by not making lambs seem so
cute and cuddly. He was writing a
new fairy tale, he said, in which the
lamb was a terrible character that
everyone was glad to see eaten at the
end.
He got his best laugh of the
afternoon, however, when he talked
about his neighbour who operated a
slaughterhouse for sheep but, not
wanting to offend people, they called
it a "sheep outplacement centre". It
may have had a touch of black
humour for the staff members at the
college who will be looking for work
themselves as the college moves
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toward closing.
Needles also made the only
reference to the closing of the
college. He said he had been talking
to someone who remembered another
time when the college had been
threatened years ago and William
Stewart, the former Minister of
Agriculture who had been
instrumental in the college being
started, had said the college would
close "over my dead body".
Ironically, Needles noted, Stewart
had died a little over a year ago.
Needles, a former executive assistant
to a cabinet minister himself, told the
graduates not to try to make sense out
of the decisions of government.
There were 23 graduates in the
Agricultural Business Management
(ABM) course, 35 in the Veterinary
Technology (VT) program and 14 in
Wendy Yvonne Erb Frederick D. Hinz
Wellesley Mitchell
Todd K. W. Leifso
Elmwood
Adam W. Lockhart
Singhampton
John A. McCulloch John C. McLachlan David W. Paff
Paisley Clinton Gadshill
Donald M. Paff
Gadshill
Adriaan P. Pennings
Durham
Steven A. Rintoul
Lucknow
James G. Roney
Owen Sound
Brian C. Switzer
St. Marys
Phillip J. Woodhouse Jeffrey J. Zondag
Kimberley Bayfield
Jason P. Zondervan
Goderich
26 THE RURAL VOICE