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Something
is wrong here. The evening has been exemplary. The lights stayed on. The air
conditioning system hummed steadily. Nobody ‘rushed’ the podium to present
flowers to the Award recipient. No one paraded nude outside the panoramic
windows across the dining room of the Geneva Park Conference Centre.
Think
of the tremendous loss of ‘face’ for the Stephen Leacock Association last
June 13, and the Dinner Committee responsible for planning the sixty-second
presentation of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour and its accompanying TD
Bank Financial Group Cash Award, a record $15,000. For years, the evening could
be depended upon for some unexpected interference, an inebriated or lost soul
interposing upon the proceedings, or Mother Nature impacting the carefully
orchestrated programme. People would purchase tickets to the Award Dinner on the
conjecture that something out-of-the-ordinary would occur at some point in the
evening. Guests who were included on the podium lineup would prepare not only
the commentary for which they were invited, but also an alternate in the event
of the annual catastrophe.
How
unfortunate then, that, after anticipating something – what, not known, most
of Nature’s bag of tricks having been exposed – nothing would occur! A room
filled with dinner guests: an entire evening of carefully arranged proceedings
smoothly dispatched.
Imagine!
It
couldn’t have been anything that emcee Drew Hayden Taylor did or did not do.
Himself a published writer and playwright, Taylor skillfully kept the spotlight on special guests and Guest of Honour while
weaving related anecdotes from his own experiences.
Dan
Needles, a Leacock Award recipient and Mayor of Mariposa, concluded: “…we
really have to get together like this more often.”
Actually,
the remark is drawn from a larger context. As he concluded his report on the
state of things in Mariposa, Dan said: “I find myself seeking out, more and
more, the voices of Mariposa. If we are getting any one message from the evening
news and the daily paper these days, it is that we really have to get together
like this more often.” (to which report emcee Taylor declared, “He shall be officially known as ‘Dances With Sheep’.”).
Perhaps
part of the success enjoyed by this year’s Award recipient, Mark Leiren-Young
(Never Shoot A Stampede Queen), is due to his life-long dedication to creating
the voices of Mariposa. This dedication became apparent during Mark’s
acceptance speech to the dinner guests.
“When
I was a kid,” Mark revealed, “I would pick up the Vancouver Province to read the funniest person in the world, Eric Nicol,…” Nicol was a
three-time Leacock Award recipient. Mark found inspiration in the works of many
more who received the Leacock Award: Paul Quarrington, Pierre Berton, Mordecai
Richler, Bill Richardson, and the Ferguson brothers, among others.
Mark
told the long version of his odyssey to the Award Dinner, about his agreements
with, in turn, Ian and Will Ferguson who, unable to attend the Award
Announcement luncheons in the years their books were nominated, asked Mark to do
so for them. His repeated trips to Orillia in their behalf made the Sunshine
City a favourite for him. “Every time I visit, there’s a prize!” “I
wrote for a very long time before anyone awarded me any prizes,” he remarked
to the audience.
Mark,
a fan of Bill Richardson, another Vancouver writer, realized, after Richardson
received his Leacock Award in 1994 (Bachelor Brothers Bed and Breakfast), that
the Award could be a possibility for him, too.
“It
was after he won that I added ‘win the Leacock medal’ to my lifetime wish
list.”
Mark
was further inspired by Dan Needles’ play, Letters From Wingfield Farm, to get
his own stories into print. Never Shoot A Stampede Queen grew from that.
Mark
received the silver Stephen Leacock Medal from the Association and the $15,000
TD Bank Financial Group Cash Award, presented by Jamie Collins, District Vice
President for TD Canada Trust.
Mark’s
publisher, Rodger Touchie of Heritage House Publishing Co. Ltd., brought
greetings and congratulations to Mark and to the Leacock Association. “I
applaud you greatly for what you have done over 60 years. I applaud TD Bank; the
amount of money is a significant statement.”
Touchie
said Mark Leiren-Young came to his attention only a few years ago, when Heritage
House took options on a manuscript about the seniors’ protest group, ‘the
Raging Grannies’.
Danielle
Shachar, of Newtonbrook Secondary School in Toronto , received the Student Award for Humour,
Leacock
Association member Betty Stewart of Orillia , received a ‘Lifetime Membership’ in appreciation of contributions to the
work of the Association by she and her husband, Board Member, the late Jack
Stewart.
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