Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on January 5, 2013

January:

JAN. 8 -- Bill Martin-Viscount, 61. He was a ballet dancer. He was born in Manitoba and lived in Libau. He began taking dance lessons in Selkirk when he was 11, and two years later he received a scholarship to the Royal Winnipeg Ballet under Arnold Spohr, later studying in England, Denmark and Russia. He was the RWB's principal dancer for 11 years. He formed a professional school in 1972. He was the first Western choreographer to be invited by the Chinese Ministry of Culture to stage several productions.

JAN. 11 -- Michael Byrne. He specialized in pensions. He was an actuary who worked in the insurance industry and specialized in the group and pension fields. He was vice-president of Monarch Life, Manulife and North American Life. He left the insurance industry to become the first Warren Chair in Actuarial Science at the University of Manitoba as well as being a professor there. He retired from the university in 2004, but in 2010 he rejoined the Asper School as executive-in-residence. He was a chairman of the Manitoba Pension Commission and longtime member and chairman of the Society for Manitobans with Disabilities' pension committee.

JAN. 12 -- Hugh Laughlin, 93. He was an aviator and member of a prominent political family. He enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force before the Second World War and trained pilots from across the Commonwealth once war broke out. He retired as head of search and rescue for Western Canada. He was the grandson of MLA Andrew Laughlin, the son of MLA John Bell Laughlin, the father of MLA Linda McIntosh and grandfather of Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen.

JAN. 15 -- Olive Gory, 92. She grew very early tomatoes. You wouldn't recognize her name, but you'd recognize her photo holding ripe tomatoes. She was an award-winning gardener who, in the 1990s, became the face of Kozy-Coats, the family business of selling water-filled frost covers to give tomato plants and other plants help in the spring.

JAN. 16 -- Hal Sigurdson, 79. He wrote about sports. He joined the Winnipeg Free Press as a copy boy and worked his way up to covering the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. He was sports editor at the Calgary Albertan and assistant sports editor at the Vancouver Sun before becoming Free Press sports editor from 1976 to 1989, and sports columnist until his retirement in 1996. He was inducted into the media wings of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame, Winnipeg Football Club Media Roll of Honour, and the Manitoba Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.

JAN. 19 -- Mary Andree, 85. She helped generations of Transcona students. She grew up in the North End and moved to Transcona after she married. She was a trustee and chairwoman of the Transcona-Springfield and then the River East School Divisions for 43 years. She was a founding director of the Transcona-Springfield Education Foundation. She also volunteered with the Girl Guides as a Brown Owl for 18 years. She was honoured with the Queen's Golden Jubilee medal.

JAN. 26 -- Doug MacIver, 58. He bolstered the Winnipeg Blue Bombers' defence. He played for the University of Manitoba Bisons before being a draft pick of the Blue Bombers in 1975. He played for the Toronto Argonauts from 1976 to 1978, then the Saskatchewan Roughriders before coming back to the Bombers. He was part of the Bombers' 1984 Grey Cup championship team.

JAN. 21 -- George Dalgleish. He helped people fix their homes. He worked in the renovation business for several years. He then went on to host his own television show on CKND-TV showing homeowners how they could do household, building and repair jobs. The show was syndicated to other stations in Canada. He was also an author and radio phone-in host.

February:

Read the original here:
An indelible mark

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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