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June 9, 2007
As it has been for 60 years, the annual dinner to honour the recipient of
the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, was both entertaining and enlightening.
The Stephen Leacock Association and the attendees celebrated the diamond
anniversary of the award by presenting the medal to Stuart McLean, author of Secrets
from the Vinyl Cafe.
Leacock himself would, if nothing else, have approved of the setting of
the event. As it has for many year, the dinner was at Geneva Park, on the shores
of the author’s beloved Lake Couchiching. But it’s almost certain that the
great author would have approved of the company at the award dinner as well!
Dr. Richard Johnston, the President of the Leacock Association, gave his
introductory remarks and passed the podium over to the “Mayor of Mariposa”
Dan Needles, who acted as the host for the evening. Dan, who claims to be
“Boswell to our Doctor Johnston,” welcomed the crowd and then turned things
over to Pete McGarvey. A well-known broadcaster and journalist, Mr. McGarvey
attended the very first Leacock Dinner back in 1947 as a nineteen year old cub
reporter and he has missed very few of these events over the years. He liked
what he saw and heard at that first dinner and was determined to become a part
of the Leacock group. [It was largely due to Pete’s determination that the
Leacock home was rescued and turned into an national historic site. But that’s
another story.] Pete’s speech reflected on the initial dinner, the
idiosycracies of Orillia’s relationship with Leacock and that other local hero
Samuel de Champlain and was as funny as any of the notable speakers to come up
onto the stage.
Among the people in the audience for this special anniversary was Dr. Tom
Symons, whose father Harry won the inaugural medal in 1947 for his book Ojibway Melody. Former winners of the award were also in attendance:
Paul Quarrington, Joe Kertes and Will Ferguson. Each of these former winners
stood up and spoke briefly. Paul, who won the award in 1988 for his outstanding
book King Leary, reflected on how he
learned so much about writing while acting as Writer in Residence in Orillia the
year after he’d won the medal. Joe Kertes, winner for Winter Tulips, thanked
the association, claiming that the award “changed his life.” Will Ferguson,
a two-time winner, presented a gift on behalf of Penguin Canada – a new
edition of Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches
of a Little Town, for which Will has written a new introduction.
A highlight of every Leacock dinner is the awarding of the Student Award.
This year’s winner, Andrew McCormick-Johnson, was presented with his cash
prize of $1000, courtesy of Thor Motors in Orillia. Andrew’s story, entitled Wartime
Memoirs of an Anglo-Canadian Windbag, had been
read the evening before at the “Leacock Soiree” held at the Leacock
home.
The main focus of the night was, of course, on this year’s winner
Stuart McLean. Mr. McLean is the third author– along with Donald Jack and
Arthur Black – to win the award three times. Stuart won in 1999 and again in
2001. When summoned to the podium, he immediately launched into one of his
patented “Dave and Morley” stories from his winning book.
In addition, Stuart paid tribute to his writing heroes. From W.O.
Mitchell he claims to have learned about performance and the fact that it is
alright to “like our own writing.” He also loved the work of E.B. White for
showing him how to write simply. Reflecting on having been added – again - to
the list of Leacock winners, he stated how
proud he is to be on a list that contains names like Farley Mowat, Pierre Berton,
Mordecai Richler and W.O. Mitchell. In jest, he stated that he feels like the
“journeyman on a great (literary) ball team.” Stuart thanked the Leacock
Association for “spitting in the wind and honouring humour.” Graciously he
thanked the TD Bank Financial Group for their generous $10 000 cheque, joking
that that was the only reason he came to Geneva Park for the event. He spoke
well of the other nominees for the award, courteously commenting that “there
is no best
book.”
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