Newsmaker of the year

Mercury male newsmaker of 2008

Tony Saxon
tsaxon@guelphmercury.com

GUELPH — It would be easy for Dave Scott-Thomas to have a bit of an ego.
The phenomenally successful University of Guelph cross-country and track coach saw his teams capture four Canadian university championships this year — the only four won by the school.
He also coached two of his Speed River Track and Field Club runners — Eric Gillis and Taylor Milne — to Olympic berths, helped organized five community charity runs and for the second straight year hosted an impeccably-ran Canadian Cross Country Championships.
Yet the Guelph Mercury’s male Newsmaker of the Year remains almost terminally humble.
“I’m really proud to be part of this town,” said Scott-Thomas, 44, who at the recent Canadian Cross Country Championships spent a chunk of his day delivering pizza and drinks to volunteers on remote parts of the course.
“There’s a nice ethos here. It’s a real healthy vibe.”
It is a vibe Scott-Thomas has helped create. He formed the Speed River Track and Field Club 11 years ago. That club now boasts 100 members and runs The Running Series of community races throughout the year that attract hundreds of runners. His athletes train alongside masters runners and can be found amidst the throngs at the annual Thanksgiving Day Races. They also run the Lunch on the Run program, aimed at introducing elementary school children to running.
“He’s definitely helped make Guelph a great running community, particularly at the elite end,” said longtime local runner and running columnist John Marsden. “It’s a real achievement that the post-secondary school runners stick around and come here from other places.”
Marsden said Scott-Thomas has done an “amazing job” of helping create a running culture in the city.
Born in Vancouver but raised in Sudbury, by his own admission Scott-Thomas was not much of a runner himself. Soccer was his sport.
He came to the U of G to study, not run, then landed on the cross-country team while chasing a girl he had a crush on at the time.
“I had medium talent, but a strong work ethic,” he said. “But I got to be on the bus all the time with Margot.”
Margot eventually went out with Scott-Thomas’s buddy. But the die had been cast for a future in coaching.
After graduation he worked as a marine biologist on the Great Lakes. He eventually taught high school and adult education in Kingston, where he met his wife Brenda, a former all-Canadian runner at the University of Manitoba.
He also started coaching locally in Kingston and that eventually led him to the National Coaching Institute in Vancouver. In 1997 he came to Guelph.
“Brenda and I decided to chase a dream and give it three years,” Scott-Thomas said. “I told (then director of athletics) Dave Copp ‘give me three years. If I can get the cross-country teams in the top five in the country, then I’d ask for more money.”
The entire budget for both the track and cross-country squads that year was $10,000, which included Scott-Thomas’s $3,000 salary.
The exotic road trip that first year was packing 30 athletes into three hotel rooms in Windsor. A milk crate full of rusty shot puts was bought for $50, sandblasted and painted. Two recruits from British Columbia slept on the Scott-Thomases’ floor and sofa.
But the rest, as they say, is history. Scott-Thomas has built Guelph into arguably the premier distance running centre in the country. High performance athletes flock here to work under his tutelage, which has garnered him 15 Canadian university coach of the year trophies over the years.
“Dave makes such a great coach because he combines knowledge of the sport from a science perspective in combination with the ability to motivate and connect with his athletes,” says Reid Coolsaet, one of Canada’s top distance runners who came to Guelph 10 years ago and never left. “He still manages to keep things fun and progressive, which is very important for longevity and improvement in running.”
Scott-Thomas has had numerous offers to leave Guelph for more financially lucrative jobs, be it with private clubs or universities on both sides of the border.
“All the time. They still come in. I used to get three or four a year. Now it’s about one a year,” he said. “They offer me more money. Better facilities. But I’d never get the same feeling I’ve got here in Guelph. We built this thing up from nothing. I’m not going anywhere. My home is Guelph now.”
The son of a mathematics professor, Scott-Thomas lived in 18 different places the first 18 years of his life and he, wife Brenda, who owns a physiotherapy clinic, and their three young daughters enjoy the stability Guelph gives them.
Besides, being a well-liked coach of two university teams and the Speed River Track and Field Club has its advantages.
“We have 100 awesome babysitters.”

Photo by Ryan Pfeiffer, Guelph Mercury

Mercury female newsmaker 2008

Magda Konieczna
mkonieczna@guelphmercury.com

GUELPH — Alison Lall had lovely, flowing red hair and a beautiful smile. She always remembered the special occasions, showing up with homemade cupcakes to celebrate a friend’s daughter’s birthday. And she had three lovely, lively daughters of her own.
Alison was found dead in her Calgary home in May, killed, along with two of her daughters and a tenant, by her husband, Joshua Lall.
It’s hard to imagine what the family went through. But now Alison’s mother, Sheila Fisher, seems collected. She’s focused on telling her daughter’s story, and on finding some small good in the tragedy that rocked a Calgary suburb and family and friends at home in and around Guelph, where both Alison and Joshua were raised.
More than six months later, Fisher says little about her grief during an interview at the Mercury, only that she did such a good job putting away the photographs — she had a hard time looking at them after all that happened — that she’s had trouble finding them.
Much has been said and written about the role of mental illness in the tragedy. It’s a difficult topic in the best of times. But if any small good is to come of the deaths, Fisher hopes it is an increased awareness of the dangers of undiagnosed mental illness.
“We’re just hoping somewhere along the line, someone will want to put this together as a case study,” she said. “It’s important not to dismiss the signs.”
The family has created a scholarship in Alison’s name at McMaster University, hoping it might fund ongoing research into mental health.
Fisher said she agreed to tell Alison’s story to a newspaper because she wants to honour her daughter.
“I want to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else. Maybe that’s too much to ask.”

•••••••••••

Alison was the second of four children — three girls and a boy — who grew up on a farm just north of Guelph. They were close in age — five years between the youngest and eldest — and the family remains closely knit, Sheila said.
Alison’s younger brother, Tim Fisher, attributes that to the relative isolation of the farm, where the kids spent their days playing outside, building forts, skating and cross-country skiing on the property.
“That environment, where you didn’t necessarily have a neighbourhood with a subdivision and lots of kids around your age, meant we were closer friends,” he said. “We grew up together and were very close friends and siblings all the way through. We’re more like friends than other siblings are.”
Tim and Alison both attended McMaster University, and in Tim’s third year they lived together.
“In retrospect I’m so glad I had that year there, not knowing of course that she’d be gone so early in life.”

•••••••••••

Alison attended the former Marden Public School and St. Margaret’s School for Girls in Elora, then went to Guelph Collegiate for high school.
“She was always a very enthusiastic learner, right from babyhood,” Sheila said.
Alison worked at the library, at retirement homes, and was a candystriper at St. Joseph’s Health Centre from the time she was 12. That led her to study gerontology at McMaster University, her mother said.
She always had lots of friends and was involved in the youth group at Dublin Street United Church, attended and then was a counsellor at a local summer camp, and always excelled at school.
“Her jobs, activities around the family and candy-striping filled her days,” her mother said.
Alison earned degrees in gerontology and occupational therapy at McMaster, and met Joshua while they were both working at Freeport Health Centre in Kitchener. She had considered furthering her education, but they were married in 2000 and soon after moved to Calgary. Joshua wanted to study architecture, to combine it with his previous career in occupational therapy.
Alison’s parents — Sheila and husband, Norm — went out west often, to visit their daughter and son-in-law, and, later, a growing number of grandchildren.
“I was very happy when WestJet had a direct flight to Calgary” from the airport near Breslau, Sheila said.
And Alison often came home to Guelph to visit. She had planned to come in June with the girls, to give Joshua time to study for his architecture exams.
“She had a long list (of people to see), because someone was in Niagara Falls, someone in Toronto, and it was hard to get all the visits in,” Sheila said. “Many of her friends have been in touch with me — it’s a mutual keeping each other’s spirits up.”

•••••••••••

Alison’s daughters — Kristen, 5, Rochelle, 3, and one-year-old Anna — were “beautiful girls,” “full of life,” “full of fun and loving their cousins,” Sheila said.
Two of the girls died in the tragedy. The youngest survived.
“It’s hardest to choke out the fact that you’ve lost two grandchildren,” Sheila said.
The family wants to keep Anna away from the public eye, to give her a childhood far from the painful story of her past. Sheila said only that Anna is with family, and doing well.
The girls shared their mother’s warm, welcoming spirit, Tim said.
“Her kind and gentle spirit was really modelled to her children, and the way her children interacted with each other and with others was kind and caring,” he said. “It certainly was a very loving home and a warm home, a home where the children came first.”
That was epitomized by the advertisement Alison published for a part-time nanny when she went back to work after her most recent maternity leave. “One of the only elements of the job description said ‘light housekeeping duties will play a secondary role to the children,’ ” Tim said.
And it was that tremendous warmth that her siblings remember most about her.
“Alison loved, lived life to its fullest, and made a difference,” her sister, Julie Madott, wrote in remembrance. “My admiration for her has only grown stronger. I am proud of her and miss her dearly. But she is with me every day, and will always be my most special, red-headed sister.”
“Alison was certainly somebody who was accomplished as an individual, always excelled in school. But the things I’ll remember Alison for most have to do with her strength of character,” Tim said.
He called her “endlessly hospitable,” a “gentle spirit,” an “amazing listener.”
He recalled sitting in her busy living room, with lots of children running around.
“Yet she was always right there and engaged in the conversation. She was very present as an individual. That’s a trait I don’t think a lot of people have.
“She was always putting a hand on your shoulder and saying ‘I’m so proud of my little brother,’ even well into my 20s.”
One of Tim’s last memories with Alison is from autumn 2007, when he accompanied the Lalls to Banff. Joshua and the older girls went to the hot springs. “Alison and I stayed in the lower restaurant with the youngest child and had such a good conversation for hours,” Tim said. “Alison really put people at ease.
“The things that stick out are the everyday aspects of life and how much a joy it was to have someone like that in your life. She was a good friend — not just a sister, a good and close friend.
“Alison is missed by everybody around her. She was just so gentle and caring and present in your life that it’s a hole that’s not easily or really ever filled.”

Editor's note: This story was to appear in Mercury's print edition Dec. 30. The newspaper's male newsmaker of 2008 will appear Wednesday.

CP names Team of the Year

THE CANADIAN PRESS
Canada’s junior hockey team won The Canadian Press Team of the Year award like it captured the gold medal at the 2008 world junior championship.
It came right down to the wire.
The Canadians beat Sweden 3-2 in overtime Jan. 5 in Pardubice, Czech Republic, to win a fourth straight gold medal for their country.
In a survey of sports editors and broadcasters across the country, the junior squad trailed the men’s Olympic eight rowing crew for Team of the Year honours until a late surge.
Although the gold-medal winning rowers finished with 36 first-place votes and the junior team with 25, the hockey team was bolstered by more second- and third-place votes.
The hockey team finished with 141 points to the rowers’ 139 in a tight race. The Grey Cup-champion Calgary Stampeders were third with 102 points a year after the Grey Cup-champion Saskatchewan Roughriders won the award.
“A toss-up for us on a number of fronts — could have easily picked 10 teams for these top three positions,” said Al Coates, sports editor of the Waterloo Region Record.
Wheelchair racer Chantal Petitclerc claimed female athlete of the year honours Friday while Minnesota Twins first baseman Justin Morneau captured the male award Sunday.
The junior team was young with an average age of just under 19 for what is considered a showcase of the world’s best 19-year-old players.

CP chooses PM

The Canadian Press

Captain Canada or the Grinch Who Prorogued Parliament?

However you see Stephen Harper, there is no denying the prime minister was a news heavyweight in 2008.

Harper was the runaway choice as Newsmaker of the Year in the annual survey of news organizations by The Canadian Press.

Nun better

From Rupinder Kaur:
"Sister Christine should be the Newsmaker of the Year. Her hard work and dedication to the community made her a recipient of the Order of Canada."
PHOTO: Guelph Mercury

A new contender?

There's lots of talk about naming the horse Somebeachsomewhere Canada's athlete of the year. So maybe we should be considering this horse for our Newsmaker of the Year.(Guelph resident Paul MacDonell is the man lucky enough to "be along for the ride" as the horse's driver.)
A horse initially purchased for $40,000 has now won all nine of his career races, for earnings of roughly $1.6 million.
PHOTO: Tony Saxon, Guelph Mercury

2008 contenders

Here are some of the people we're considering for the 2008 Newsmakers of the Year.

Female: Gloria Kovach, Karen Farbridge, Mary Swan, Brenda Chamberlain, Linda Hasenfratz, Anne-Marie Zajdlik

Male: Frank Valeriote, Mike Nagy, Drew Doughty, Joshua Lall, Hans Loewig

We hope to have many more names in the mix in the days to come, brought forward by staff and readers alike. Send suggestions to editor@guelphmercury.com or comment below.

Who's your Newsmaker of the Year?

Since 2005, Steven Truscott, Michael Chong, Linda Hasenfratz, Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik, Gloria Kovach and the late Nicholas Lambden have received this distinction.

Who should it be this year?

Indicate your choice by commenting at this blog.

You can also e-mail us, fax us, or send us a letter.

E-mailed suggestions should be sent to editor@guelphmercury.com. Faxes can be sent to 519-767-1681. Our mailing/drop-off address is 8-14 Macdonell St., N1H 6P7.

Feel free to support your nomination with an argument supporting your choice.

Since 2005, Steven Truscott, Michael Chong, Linda Hasenfratz, Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik, Gloria Kovach and the late Nicholas Lambden have received this distinction.

Who should it be this year?

Indicate your choice by commenting at this blog.

You can also e-mail us, fax us, or send us a letter.

E-mailed suggestions should be sent to editor@guelphmercury.com. Faxes can be sent to 519-767-1681. Our mailing/drop-off address is 8-14 Macdonell St., N1H 6P7.

Feel free to support your nomination with an argument supporting your choice.

Newsmakers 2007 — female

Gloria Kovach

Newsmakers 2007 — male

Nicholas Lambden