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The Brussels Post, 1981-03-25, Page 3THE BRUSSELS POST, MARall 25, 1951 A3 Liberal's Elston keeps seat here Continued from page 1 southern end of the riding by a comfortable margin, however, Mr, Harm) n. a farmer from the Tara area, closed the gap by sweeping polls in Port Elgin and Southamp- ton, With only four polls left to report, the tally showed Mr. Elston holding a slim, 240-vote lead, and a brief cheer went up as he was provisionally declared the winner. However the mood remained restrained as people speculated which polls were still to come, and what they would do to the final count. CELEBRATING As the hall filled, word finally was passed that Mr. Elston had won; and a cheer went up as the final tally was announced showing him with a 324-vote margin. Then the crowd got down to the serious business of celebrating the victory and awaiting the arrival of their member-elect. Later that night Mr. Harron arrived at the hall to congratulate the victor, and Mr. Elston congratulated him on his hard but cleanly fought campaign. Gary Harron who ran for the Progressive Conservatives in Huron-Bruce told his supporters at an election night party Thursday night, they can be proud to be Conservatives. He said Premier William Davis has made tremendous gains in almost every riding and "it'll be our turn in four years in Huron-Bruce." Mr. Harron told about 50 campaign workers and party supporters at the Luck- now District Community Centre that the Skating carnival for the family Brussels is really making use of the ice at the arena these days, what with the recent. Optimist Atom tournament and now a family skating carnival coming up on March 28. One of ,the highlights of this year's costume carnival will be the appearance of Bill Riddell, the stilts skater who wowed the audience with his stunts two years ago. In a story done on him in the Brussels Post at that time, it notes that when he was 10 years old Bill saw a stilts skater perform and that's when he decided he would like to do the same. Bill who • uses 18 inch high blades belonged to the St. Catharines Figure Skating Club when he first became in- terested in stilts skating. Bill lives in London, but Thorold is his home club. Over the years he has skated in places like Buffalo and Montreal as well as at local clubs and skating carnivals. • Another highlight of this year's carnival will be the appearance of • the Clinton Crystals, precision line skaters. Enjoyable entertainment should be pro- vided by all those who will be dressing up in costume which includes everything from the Best Nursery Rhyme Character to Best Native Costume. party will start to paint the riding blue in the next election. "Let's not give up hope yet i said Mr, Harron. "We've come from quite a deficit." Mr. Harron said the Conservatives are knocking on the door in this riding and in four years they are going to do it. The battle with Mr. Harron's chief opponent Murray Elston of the Liberals see-sawed back and forth throughout the night. At one point Mr. Harron's workers had him down by only 100 votes and the results from Port Elgin in Mr. Harron's home terriotry were still to come in. The final report of the night however, showed Mr. Elston leading by 324 votes. Mr. Harron said it was too close a tally to concede and decided to wait for the official ..,results Saturday morning. Mr. Harron remarked that he and his supporters had given the Liberals a good run because they had reduced the Liberal margin from 14,000 votes carried by Murray Gaunt in the last election to a slim 224 votes. One campaign worker commented it would have been easier to lose by 2,000 votes than lose by only 200. "It leaves you wondering which doors you should have knocked on to make the difference.- she added. A quiet crowd of about 10 loyal NDP supporters turned out at the United Auto Workers camp, south of Port Thursday night to view the election rejoins with candidate Tony McQuaid!. Arriving at the hall at about,' p.m. Mr. McQuail said he was pleAed with the returns which gave the [SDP about 300 more votes than in 1977 and increased their popular vote to 7.6 per cent from 6.6 in the last election. "I thought we ran a good compaign and were the only party addressing the issues and asking the voters to look at and support our individual policies," he said. "The increase in the vote is larger each election, and although it's a slow process, we ,are making imprpvernents." Len Hope, the Port Elgin co-ordinator for the NDP campaign said this was the most organized and largest campaign the NDP have run in Huron-Bruce. "We went into the campaign without a riding association and ended up with well over 100 people working for us in the last two weeks." he said, "In terms of advertising we have done more in the media than ever before and our door to door canvassing produced a lot' of feedback from residents." Asked about the campaign in Huron- Bruce, Mr. McQuail said it was excellent and a clean one by all three parties. He added that both the Tories and Liberals seemed to shift their thinking at various all-candidates meetings depending on which part of the riding they were in. "In Port Elgin, both Harron and Elston were pushing the proposed waste steam project at BNPD, while at an all-candidates meeting in Lucknow, where the population is skeptical, they were all for further in- vestigation, a full impact hearing, and doubting if it would mix well with the established life in the riding." While being interviewed on CKNX-TV, former MPP Murray Gaunt said McQuail was very bright and ran a good campaign. "He did well at all candidates meeting and on the campaign trail, but unfortunately he has been caught up in the NDP downfall across the province." Mr. Gaunt said. Looking to the future, Mr, McQuail said it Results in the Huron-Bruce riding follows: These are the unofficial results. 78 131 68 22 78A 20 2 1 79 112 73 13 80 128 80 16 391 223 S2 Continued from page 2 once, that we'll see a repeat of the famous newspaper headline in the U.S. that said Thomas Dewey had defeated President Harry Truman when Truman had surprised all prediction and won re- election, but in today's world with the computers predict- ing, it just doesn't happen. 70 SEATS The morning of the elec- tion a Conservative strategist predicted his party would take 70 seats. It sounded like one of those hopeful state- ments made for the benefit of the press, something that might just influence a few will be interesting to see what .Premier Davis does during the next four years with. a majority mandate, The NDP candidate said he would consider running again in the next election, but the decision would depend on his personal situation at the time, 125 134 113 16 126 55 43 7. 127 82 57 12 128 71 38 7 HULLETT TWP. 440 318 57 MCKILLOP TWP. 129 85 53 10 130 69 59 6 131 118 59 9 .132 123 32 10 395 203 35 ADVANCE POLLS 495 545 38 10 31 12,164 11,940 1979 41 27 7 Sugar bush An official opening is 12 being celebrated this week at 13 the Maple Keys Sugar Bush 59. near Molesworth on Saturday, March 28, 16;,, complete with special guests. -9, Guests will include Ken 4 Lantz, Deputy Minister, 29 Ministry of Agriculture and 73 Food Activities get underway at 1:30 p.m. with 116 ' opening ceremonies at 2 p.m. Also included is a 1 5,-,„ pancake and sausage lunch. SAUGEEN 47 TWP. 247 417 kw 45 99 100 101 SOUTHAMPTON TWP. 402 821 77 PORT ELGIN 620 1588 BRUCE TWP. 304 413 TIVERTON 99 214 KINCARDINE 136 53 27 102 103 104- TWP. 377 752 73 KINCARDINE 599 1372 150 GREENOCK 105 TWP. 447 355 55 106 HURON TWP. 498 573 65 RIPLEY 187 128 26 KINLOSS 107 TWP. 243 268 •61 108 LUCKNOW 308 229 61 109 CULROSS 110 TWP. 540 198 61 TEESWATER 302 181 33 CARRICK TWP. 666 239 61 111 IVULDMAY 292 159 40 112 TURNBERRY TWP. 113 Poll Elston Harron McQuail Huron-Bruce Results poll by poll WINGHAM 905 455 80 HOWICK 690 453 138 ASHFIELD 397 280 118 WEST WAWANOSH 126 41 24 98 88 25 79 60 21 303 189 70 EAST WAWANOSH 137 30 14 87 50 15 95 64 20 319 144 49 BLYTH 112 59 133 117 245 176 MORRIS TWP. 100 83 138 93 98 47 96 47 432 270 BRUSSELS 99 58 111 81 66 55 276 194 GREY TWP. 423 266 COLBORNE TWP. 322 317 HULLETT TWP. 124 98 67 Behind the scenes by Keith Roulston votes in the last morning of the election. it was bang on. The party lost a few, won a lot more, blast ed the N.D.P. and got the seats it needed for a majority government. Probably both the N.D.P. and Liberals knew from their polls just what would happen too, but ' didn't want to believe it. A few minutes after the polls had closed, based on a few preliminary polls report- ing with the vast majority of the votes still to be counted, the CBC computer predicted the Conservative majority. There was little suspense left. The computer had prov- ed its prowess in the past. Remember the last federal election when at something like 8:25 the CBC computer predicted a Liberal majority? People were still voting in Alberta and British Columbia but the computer had already decided who was going to win. When the westerners turned on their televisions they were told the election had been decided by com- puter hours earlier. They could only sit hopelessly and hope the computer was wrong and wonder if they really counted any more. I think we can all wonder that these days. Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley Continued from page 2 under their breaths: gossiping venomously about colleagues who are having more fun than they; happily whinning about being underpaid and over-worked; thanking God that it's Friday. A challenging life of dedication and idealism. But both parties have one draw in their ointment, or fly in their throat; or whatever you call it. When a plumber walks in, rubber- booted and faces a floor covered with water, sanitary napkins, toilet tissue, adn semi-dissolved feces, his normally serene mien becotnes one of stony stoicism. And when a teacher finishes a term at school, utterly exhausted, empty of ideals, :drained of dedication, and faces the Marking of about 180 exam papers, his normally corigeni .a1 expression turns into something resembling the agony ex- pressed in a cheap reproduction of the Crucifixion. Nobody looks quite as crucified, stag- gering home with both arms full of exam paperi, as the English teacher. His/her thoughts about Phys. Ed. teachers, shop teachers, business teachers and others who don't haVe formal exaniS are unprintable in a family journal. Their attitudes toward science teachers and gee .graphy teachers, with their true-false exams, are barely less charitable. These rutrtinations, none of them original, recurred to me as I sat serenely during this year's March . break, pursuing the current crop of regurgitations, wild guesses, and hopeful meanderings that consistute the average student's exam. This year, I sat in something resembling a White man's igloo, and Marked my papers in Modsonee. Unperturbed by my grandboys' fighting, crying, challenging Me to a game of chess or clothinoes. walking across my eicam papers with dirty rubber boots, I sat like Solomon, alter- nately bemused, amused, bewildred; and occasionally bewitched, by the outpourings of adolescence. some were Simply stunned. Others were desperate; seeking any port in a storm... Some had a clue, but couldn't solve the case. And very occasionally, there was sheer delight .in seeing a keen, original Mind at work. I mentioned the chore as bringing out the best and the worst in the harassed pedagogue, peering, pencilling, pouting over the papers.. One becomes a philosopher: "Oh, well, what the hell? We can't all be brain surgeons," after reading the efforts of one who has professed the desire for such a profession and spells it "briati surjen." One becomes a philanthropist: "He's flunking badly. But he did clean the blackboards and plug in the record players and said Have a nice holiday, sir', and he's going into the old Man's business because there's nowhere else to go, so give him 10 marks for co-operation and attitude. That'll please the Guidance Department," One is amused. She wrote on the outside of the paper: "I did my best, Mr. Smiley. I hope your in a good mood when you Mark this." I took off a mark because she misspelled "you're." One is appalled. Question: "Use a sentence containing the word morale." Answer: "A hero thinks he is greater khan ordinary morales." Things like this make the young teacher panic and ask self, "What's happening? I'm not getting through to these kids at all." Not to worry. The kid will probably be a good mother. Occasionally, one is enchanted. One of those students who is a wall-flower in class, obviously shy, hiding behind drooping eyelids„, flowers on paper, all inhibitions forgotten in the sheer joy of expression, and turns in a brilliant piece of creative thinking. And the teacher is momentarily elated, realizing he has kindled a flame. Ali n all, an enriching experience, giving the marker a good look at a good cross-Section of youngsters a few good laughs, some self-doubts;, a certain humility, a delightful feeling of playing God, Jr., and the odd flash of sheer satisfaCtion, if not joy.