Articles: 2005

Submitted by Wilf Garrah
Transcribed by Dean Snider
Kingston Whig Standard
2005
Tiny island making waves
Amherst Island radio station will broadcast from barn, transmit from silo.
By Annette Phillips
For The Whig-Standard
AMHERST ISLAND
Amherst Island will hit the airwaves next sprig with a five watt FM radio station that will broadcast from a barn, transmit from a silo and feature some well-known media personalities.
The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission has approved an application submitted earlier this year by a volunteer group of island residents planning to launch an English language FM radio station.
Amherst Island Radio Broadcasting Inc. will transmit at 93.7 FM.
“Programming will showcase local musicians and other performing artists, community events, service groups, and the history of Amherst Island.” the CRTC decision states.
“Programs will include ferry schedules, road closures, council proceedings, news and weather, Station volunteers will consist of members from the community.”
The tiny radio station, with an official broadcast reach of 1.6 kilometres, has been spearheaded by Tom Richmond, an electrician who worked as a disc jockey and radio technician in the United States before moving to the island a few years ago.
Richmond said a board of directors was established two years ago to incorporate the broadcast entity and develop programming and volunteer training programs.
The group has been waiting seven months for the CRTC decision, but Richmond was still taken by surprise late Tuesday when, in the middle of a chilly outdoor electrical job, he got a call from the CRTC telling him the license had been approved.
“It was quite a shock to have the government calling me.” Richmond said. “I felt a lot warmer after that call”
The CRTC invited public comment on the application but said in its decision that no interventions were received.
Richmond said the radio group- conducted extensive research before submitting the application and was quite confident of the CRTC approval.
So confident, in fact, that Richmond has been shopping – mostly on ebay – for commercial equipment for more than a year. He’s been stockpiling the radio station gear in his house.
Last week, Richmond climbed a silo in the village of Stella to install a transmission tower and the associated cables before winter weather set in.
“I said if we received this license in January I was not climbing that tower.” Richmond said.
The new radio station will operate from a revamped milk house attached to a former dairy barn in the village of Stella. The transmission tower is attached to an adjacent silo. One community member has donated $3,000 in building material to construct the studio, Richmond said.
Other community volunteers – such as well –known television broadcaster Peter Trueman, journalist Terry Culbert and Harold Redekopp, a retired CBC executive – will host some of the programs that will be aired in 126 hours of programming each week, Richmond said.
Richmond said 93.7 will feature 28 hours a week of live morning, afternoon and evening programs that will be taped and repeated. Station volunteers will also keep islanders up to date on ferry repairs and changes in schedule, Richmond said.
Amherst Island Radio Broadcasting still has a number of regulatory hoops to jump through before it receives it licence, Richmond said.
He expects to see Amherst Island on the air in roughly three months.

Submitted by Wilf Garrah
Transcribed by Dean Snider
Kingston Whig Standard
2005?
A sense of the sublime
The Kingston Whig-Standard, column written by Terence Cottrell.
I find that sense at the empty tomb of a young soldier who died fighting for the British Empire.
The FALL OF THE LEAF MARKS AN emotive time of year for me. For in the run-up to Remembrance Day, I attend several memorials, such as the one at the grave of Bruce Carruthers, founder of the first school of military signalling in the British empire, and there I feel moved. But the feeling is more reverence than sorrow, even though the Kingston Boer War hero was felled by tuberculosis long before his time.
At the Cenotaph or Nov 11. I feel moved in a different way. "Cenotaph" means "empty tomb." And though at the hero's grave in Cataraqui Cemetery, the Joint Signal Regiment honours a specific man struck by a lingering death while in the service of Canada, the enormity of the loss of life symbolized by the empty tomb lifts us to the sublime: a realm where words are not enough.
And at the Cenotaph we are not honouring "heroism" - or thinking of "cowardice," either, for that matter - although we are honouring high achievement, because the benefits of being Canadian we enjoy, among them freedom and democracy, are the gifts of those symbolized by the empty grave. but even while giving thanks, we are overwhelmed by the sublime.
What do I mean by that? "Sublime" literally means "awe", "lofty feeling" or "veneration". Poets and artists have tried to define it for 2,500 years, and it's true that great art includes that sense of sublimity, whether among the pyramids of Egypt, on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, or in the symphonies of Mahler. But no one has expressed that spiritual sense of awe so well as Rudolf Otto did in his book The Sense of the Holy (1917). He called it the "numinous" which is taken from the Roman word for the spirits of house, home, temple and grove. He said it was the human basis of all religious experience.
Macaulay gets close to it in his poem about Horatius at the bridge defending Rome. "And how can man die better/ Than facing fearful odds,/ For the ashes of his fathers/ And the temples of his gods?" That idea, of course , is irrational. but that's the terrible beauty of it. Edmund Burke said that it was the thing that excites the idea of pain and danger.
Otto wrote at the height of the First World War: "It has its wild and demonic forms and can sink to an almost grisly horror and shuddering. It has its crude, barbaric antecedents, and again, it may be something beautiful, pure and glorious. It may become the hushed, trembling humility of the creature in the presence of - whom or what?"
It's the cruel beauty of Christ upon the cross.
I find sublimity in the empty tomb of a specific young soldier, corporal Ed Filson, Royal Canadian Dragoons, who was killed in south Africa at the Battle of Leliefontein in 1900. His empty tomb is the statue of Concordia, the roman goddess of peace and harmony. It stands among trees in the churchyard of St. Paul's Presbyterian Church on Amherst Island. and the combination of the noble stone church, the traditional burying ground, the sense of timelessness lent by the graves of early Upper Canadian settlers and the repeated names of the same families that surround it bring to me the sense of the numinous. For here I find "the ashes of his fathers and the temple of this gods." and that's what the young trooper went with his regiment to the Transvaal to fight and die for.
Strangely, the Filson Monument is not as personal as the Carruthers grave, nor as universal as the Kingston Cross of Sacrifice. It's a blend of both.
On Nov 7, 1900, 95 men of the royal Canadian Dragoons were hard pressed by 300 charging men of the Ermelo and Carolina Boer commandoes. The Boers were after two 12-pounder guns of D Battery, royal field Artillery, on order to use a store of British ammunition they'd already captured. The rearguard action, covering the withdrawal of a British column, lasted five hours.
when it was over, Boer general Fourie and Commandant Prinsloo lay dead, their men were in flight and many horses had been mangled and killed. Three dragoons won the Victoria Cross, the empire's highest award for gallantry. A corporal won the Distinguished Conduct Medal. The gunner officer got the Distinguished Service Order. Three Canadians died, 23 year-old Cpl. Ed Filson among them. He was buried at Belfast, Transvaal, the next day.
The Kingston Chapter of the royal Canadian Dragoon Association will hold its annual Filson Memorial parade at 11 a.m. on Sunday at St. Paul's Presbyterian, Amherst Island. Everyone is welcome. Headdress and medals are in Order. Ferries leave Millhaven at 9:30a.m. and 10:30a.m. Car-pooling is recommended.
NOTE: Terence Cottrell is a Kingston free-lance writer and a former member of The Whig-Standard's Community Editorial Board.

Kingston Whig Standard
Two killed in crashes on Wolfe Island
By Jennifer Pritchett
Local News - Friday, June 17, 2005 @ 07:00
The father of a survivor of a crash that killed a man on Wolfe Island on Wednesday night says the driver of the car had been drinking.
“My son accepted a lift from someone who had been drinking,” Graham Radford of Kingston told The Whig-Standard.
Christian Radford, 22, was a passenger in a single-vehicle crash on Highway 95 about two kilometres south of Marysville at 11:05 p.m. on Wednesday.
The crash took the life of another passenger in the car, Thomas E. Tibbett, 22, of Kingston.
About an hour later, about five kilometres away, another crash killed Christopher Sutton, 27, of Kingston. He was the only occupant in the vehicle.
Both accidents are being investigated as alcohol and speed-related.
Both involved occupants getting ejected from their vehicles.
Yesterday, Graham Radford said his son told him that he had hesitated before getting into the vehicle, but decided to accept the lift in order to get back to Kingston.
“He was apprehensive about getting in the car and then when he got in, he put his seatbelt on,” Graham Radford said, adding the seatbelt probably saved his son’s life.
“You could see on his body that if he hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt he would have been dead,” he said.
“The seatbelt left prominent marks around his pelvic area and his shoulder and chest. He has a very painful leg with a gash in it.
“He said he’ll never ever let anybody [who is intoxicated] drive him again.”
Christian Radford was the front-seat passenger in a Mazda that had been travelling southbound around a turn on Highway 95 when the driver lost control of the vehicle. The car flipped several times and struck a tree.
Tibbett, who died, and the driver, Milan Mallory Walsh, 23, of Kingston, were both ejected from the car.
Radford was the only one wearing a seatbelt.
Fatal crashes rarely occur on the quiet, sparsely populated island. Eyewitnesses said Tibbett was found lying on his back in tall grass on the opposite side of the road, more than 40 metres from the crash site.
Case de Ruiter, a cattle farmer, lives in one of only two houses in the immediate area of the crash. He ran out of his house onto Highway 95 after the screech and thud noises woke him.
He called the island’s volunteer fire department for help.
He said people at the scene, who included several other neighbours, thought there were only two people injured until roughly 45 minutes later when they found Tibbett.
“There was one kid laying beside the car and one in the car with his foot hanging out,” de Ruiter said. “Then we got questioning these kids and then everybody starting walking along both sides of the fence in the grass to see how many people were actually in the car.”
He said the two men were injured and weren’t speaking clearly so it took some time to find Tibbett.
By then, the Wolfe Island volunteer fire department and ambulance had arrived and everyone joined in the search.
Tibbett was found shortly afterward, but by then it was too late.
“He was lying there just like he was asleep on his back, just white,” said de Ruiter. “The paramedics went over and he was dead.”
De Ruiter said the Mazda was mangled and debris from the car was strewn all along the highway.
Yesterday, the road sign the car hit and dragged with it before smashing into the tree was still lying in the grass. The bark was also torn from the tree by the impact.
Walsh and Radford were taken to Kingston General Hospital and were released early yesterday morning.
De Ruiter said a handful of OPP officers, who are based out of Gananoque, travelled to Wolfe Island after the crash and remained at the scene until early yesterday morning.
He said that the fire department got the call about the second accident just before midnight, while they were still at the scene of the first crash.
About five kilometres away, Sutton had been travelling eastbound on Highway 96 at 11th Line Road when he failed to make a curve. The silver Alero he was driving went off the road, rolled several times before stopping in the tall grass on the north side of the highway.
He was thrown from the vehicle and later pronounced dead.
Yesterday, debris from the car was still scattered in the grass near the site.
A broken windshield, car mat, part of a rear-view mirror and various other pieces of metal and plastic remained. Several CDs, including a Soul Asylum disc, lay on the side of 11th Line Road.
Around 11:30 a.m. a two-man crew in a pickup truck arrived to replace a sign knocked down in the crash.
OPP Const. Sandra Barr said investigators will be able to determine the cause of both crashes after the autopsies are completed.
Both were scheduled to be conducted yesterday.

Kingston Whig Standard
Aug 2005
Submitted by Wilf Garrah
Transcribed by Dean Snider
2005 Senior of the Year Award
Presented on Wolfe Island
Wolfe Island resident Mrs. Joan O’Shea was the recipient of the 2005 Frontenac Islands Senior of the Year Award. Mayor Jim Vanden Hoek presented the framed certificate to Mrs. O’Shea on the steps of the Wolfe Island Town Hall where family and friends had gathered. In honouring Joan, who was nominated for the award by the Wolfe Island Women’s Institute, the Mayor said he knew of no one more deserving.
Throughout her life as wife to John, mother, grandmother, teacher (during which time she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree Queens’s in 1985) she has been a active member of the Sacred Heart of Mary Catholic women’s League (50 years) and the Frontenac District Women’s Institute (Life Member) and an active participant in the community serving on many committees.
In accepting the award Mrs. O’Shea noted her roots in Frontenace Islands run deep with her great great grandfather John Ledford coming to Wolfe Island from England in 1840 and marrying islander Catherine Lyons. Their son George lived on Howe Island and married Anna Marie Mahoney. “The islands set a tone of neighbourliness and hospitality which has carried on over the years. I am proud to accept this award on behalf of Frontenac Islands.” she said.
The Senior of the Year Award was established in 1994 to give each municipality in Ontario the opportunity to honour one outstanding local senior who after age 65, enriched the social, cultural or civic life of the community, without thought of personal or financial gain.

Kingston Whig Standard
Aug 2005
Submitted by Wilf Garrah
Transcribed by Dean Snider
Howe Island’s Year of the Veteran Project
The Canadian government declared 2005 the Year of the Veteran. To Honor our veterans in this 60th anniversary of the end of the 2nd World War, an attempt is being made to compile a complete list of all veterans from Howe Island who served or may have died in the defence of Canada during past wars or as Peace Keepers in any one of the many areas of the world where Canada has served through the years.
“This seems an appropriate project for us to be undertaking,” according to Joan Fawcett who, along with Earl Prior, a life time resident of Howe Island, who is coordinating the project.
“We already have 20 names on our list but I am sure there are many more. We started the list last year but want to complete it before this special year for Veterans ends” Joan said, “But we need some help from the public.”
The names to date include:
Ignatius Driscoll
Charles Driscoll
Francis Lachance
John Dowling
Germain Guindon
Joyce Dowling
Frances Garrah
Junior Marshall
Fabian Garrah
Leonard Foley
Michael Driscoll
Harry Rothwell
William (Billy) Prior
Charles Leavis
Harold (Bud) Goodfriend
Daniel Kane
Dr. Edmund Melville
Bert Prior
Fred Welsh
Francis Dwyre
Anyone who has knowledge of other Howe Island veterans who should be included in this list is asked to please call Joan Fawcett at 613-5462307 or Earl Prior at 613-5424895. The act of remembrance may be expressed in many ways. On Howe Island the Verterans list will be prominently displayed at the Howe Island township Building.

The Islands: Articles: 2005