Shaun Newman Podcast - SNP Archives #9 - Bill Armstrong

Episode Date: November 25, 2020

Born in 1939 in Marsden SK Bill has been a huge part of the Lloydminster community. He has been involved in every sport imaginable most notably football where he served as the coach, manager and at one point the commisioner of the league where the Lloydminster Comprehensive High School Barons played. He also spent 15 years with the Border Kings winning a National Championship and several Western Championships. He has been a pillar of the community for decades and we discuss growing up and life in the community of Lloydminster. Let me know what you think   Text me! 587-217-8500

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school he coached and managed the baron's football squad and was even the league commissioner at one point eventually the school would name the football field after him in hockey He played for the Border Kings for 15 years, winning a national championship and three Western championships. I'm talking about Bill Armstrong. So buckle up, because here we go. Okay, it is October 18th, 2020. I'm sitting across from Mr. Bill Armstrong. So first off, thank you for sitting down with me today.

You bet. Thank you for having me. Yeah, well, it should be fun. I was saying before we started that, uh, your accolades and everything else precede you. So there's a lot there, and you've been involved in this community for a long time. Now, you were born in 1939. So immediately my brain always goes to anyone who was born before World War II,

is if in their younger years they remember anything about those years. I mean, you're awfully young at the time, but... Are you talking about war years? Yes. I certainly remember. We'd go downtown in small town of Marsden, where I'm... I grew up and there weren't candies to be had. Sugar was being rationed around the world.

And I remember the day when the war was declared over, we ran for downtown just to check to see if there might be candies yet. But no, I certainly do remember a lot of things. In fact, I think I can remember experiences when I was about two years old, which is fairly rare for a lot of people, but certainly the war, I certainly remember that and how people were affected.

I remember war heroes coming back, some of them wounded, and celebrations in the small town to honor those people. When they come back to our community, as a young kid, I remember those experiences. Did any of your family,

family fight in the war, anything like that? I had an uncle that was killed and buried at sea. And it really was my mother's brother. It really struck her pretty hard. I remember that, yes. But none of my, of course, my brothers and my dad was really too old to go into the services, and we were too young. So all of my uncles, of course,

served, but yes. You talk about the sugar rationing? Is there anything else that strikes you from back then? Oh, yeah. There was rations on many things, gasoline for vehicles, and, yeah, rations on many types of food in stores, I can remember, yes. You know, we're so far removed from those days. We haven't had around this area anything even remotely similar.

As a kid, did you understand it? Or now as an older man, do you look back at those days and go, gee, I was glad I was young and didn't quite understand what was going on? Well, I understand actually more later looking back because a bit of a history person and studying, you know, why things were the way they needed to be. I remember we all had ration books like our families. And they had to, you know, conserve those ration.

They were little, they were like stamps. And you used them when you went into the store, but you use them sparingly. You know, that's what I recall. And we never seemed to suffer for food or meals because a lot of people were, you know, farm people. They could raise their own chickens and eggs and milk, that sort of thing. Certainly in cities, I think people got hit harder. Now, you grew up in Marsden. Were you on a farm or were you right in Marsden?

No, my folks ran the telephone exchange, which is no longer a thing that happens, but telephone ran the telephone exchange. My mother was the chief operator there. My dad was a line construction, telephone line construction person. And I traveled the country, We got to know people from Neilberg, Marsden, and all the surrounding communities because in those days we had the wooden telephones with dry cell batteries.

Wooden telephones? Oh, yeah, the wooden telephones with a crank, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, sure. And they became quite the souvenirs later when telephones changed. They got taken out. people they're

quite a souvenir of the past I remember burning piles of them in a big bonfire you know getting rid of them

burning piles of these phones wooden telephones that are worth so much today just like old cars that are now becoming very valuable yeah absolutely yeah so

yeah that's that's that's some of the things I remember. And so, yeah, we're like the center of activity for the whole community. You know, if there were long distance, if there was fires, or if there was police reports, it all came through the central office, and we were right there.

We knew what was happening. Now, did you have, let's, you know, back then, did you have running water? Did you have electricity? Yes, there was running water. We ran and got pills full of it when we needed it, running water. No, we didn't have until probably on end of the 1950s before when power came into the rural areas that, you know, the more modern facilities that people could have like pressure systems and that sort of thing to have. to have that. No, it was

wooden coal stoves for heating and, you know, the wooden, or the cook stoves with the, there was a water reservoir on the end, you know, a lot of people will know about what I'm talking about, but that's, those were how you heated your homes and, yeah, it was pioneer life. That's basically what you could call it. I'm always fascinated, you know, it gets lost on even me these days, right?

You grow up with power, you grow up with running water, you want to take a bath, you want to take a shower, it's instantly hot, you just hop in, that's great. But back then, a little different. Maybe once a week. Once a week for a bath. There was a bathtub, yep, and no refrigeration, of course, except wintertime. We had lots of it. Now, were you hauling ice as well? You know, I've heard lots of families talk about having the ice box or digging the hole

and sawdust in there to keep things cold. No, we did not do that ourselves, but many people did. They would go to a lake or a large pond and cut ice and use the sawdust system. Yeah, but we never did that ourselves. When you look back at your parents and your family, What did you guys do for, I don't know, a family night, a fun night? What did you do as a family together? Well, certainly on Saturday nights, the old battery radios,

we listened to NHL, Foster Hewitt, the games, usually involving the Toronto Maple Leafs and somebody. Wait, are you a Toronto Maple Leafs fan? No, not at all. But anyway, yeah, with Saturday, Sunday night, again, radio programs, I remember some of them, the Boston Blackie and the Green Hornet, you know, just to mention a few, but it was, we would lay around and sit around the battery, old battery operated radio, had to save the batteries all week for the weekend Saturday night. It was quite, quite an event then. Yeah, that's right, yeah. And, you know, other activities, my dad was always, he was, you could almost say a naturalist and enjoyed the outdoors, took us out as kids, got a chance to do camping and hunting and fishing. We did a lot of that sort of thing.

And I guess you could say that was one of the entertainments that we really looked forward to as kids. was back in the day going camping and fishing and that kind of thing, all the outdoor stuff? What's that? Sorry, it was just the outdoor things in sports and all of it together. That's kind of where it all started. Well, yeah, of course, camping was with a, if you stayed overnight, it was with a tent. There was no motorhome? Motor homes or no campers of that style.

No, it would be a tent. How far away did you go back? then to go camping? Oh, not very far. There's a park near, I guess you'd see, south of Marsden about 15 miles. Today, no one has Suffern Lake in those days. It was called Fish Lake.

And that would be one of the places we would go and sometimes stay overnight, but usually to go there and catch perch in those days. It's now stocked with trout. both Rainbow and Brook trout. Yeah, we'd go up to the Battle River sometimes to go fishing. And in later years...

How was the fishing in the Battle River? How was it? Yeah. Very... Not very dependable, I'll just say that. No, but it was a place to go. And we would go swimming, of course, there. But in later years, my family then went to Loon Lake.

This would be probably when I was, you know, becoming a teenager. It was an annual event. In August, when the blueberries were pickable, I hated picking them. But we got to do that, but we also got to go fishing. That was the main attraction was to go fishing at Loon Lake. And we did that every year in August. So that was a major outing for us. And did Loon Lake?

How many, like when you went to Loon Lake, was it busy there? Yeah, it was quite busy even back then. Yeah, we would, we would, in the early years, we tented, and then in later years that we went, we would always rent a cabin. So it was really a step up. Just speaking still about your childhood, what, how big of a house did you grow up in? And do you remember it being, you know, I've been told about the old houses that they were cold. Did you have any of that?

Every house was cold. Yeah. I had three brothers, so there was a family of six of us, and we usually had borders. quite a few high school girls around the outside rural areas. After grade 8 in the country schools, they needed to come into town. And my mom would, because she was busy on the switchboard, she would have some of those girls come and stay with us as more or less babysitter, housekeeper people,

and while they attended high school. And then many of them got taught how to run. the telephone office aspect of it so they became that was another part-time job that they were able to have so but our house I forget just how many bedrooms we had but it was a fairly large at the telephone operation house and the switchboard was built right on to it so it was in the middle of the night the alarm system would go if somebody had an emergency call in the night, so the phone would get answered that the telephone office would light up, I guess you could say. So, yeah.

You had a busy house then? We did, yeah. Yeah, we did. How about school for you? You went to school in Marsden? Yes, actually, from grade one to grade 12. I spent right in the elementary, in the high, high school, it was all one school in the early days, right from one to 12, and then later it kind of separated out as an elementary section up to grade eight, and then nine to 12 is another section to it. So do you mean when it was all one school, was there multiple classes in there? Oh, certainly, yeah. How many kids back then were going to Marsda? Oh, it would only be an

estimate, but there might have been, you know, 50 or 60 kids. Okay, okay. So would they combine classes then? Well, yeah. Grades one to four would be probably in the elementary section. Then there'd be grades five to eight, and then from there nine to 12, probably three rooms would handle the, and so the teacher in charge of a classroom, they were a multi-grade teacher. But then I could talk about.

my first experience at teaching, I became a teacher, and I had eight grades in a one-room country school. A cozy nook? That's the one. Yes. So it's a challenge for a teacher. Some of them think they have a tough job now handling a one-grade situation with, you know, but put them into a multi-year. grade situation. It's doable, but the kids learn to need to be working independently. When the teacher is working with a couple of the grades, perhaps, the other people need to be

able to work on their own. It works. It has worked. How many years did you teach for, Bill? Well, I started in the fall of 1958, do the math. What does it come out to 60? 60 plus, I'm just guessing here now. But yeah, I started in that one-room country school in 1958, went back to finish university, of course, in there. Yeah. But overall- You're not still teaching now.

You teach every day. Fair, fair, fair. No, I'm not teaching in a schools. Not actively. You over your teaching career where you were active in the school district, You must have saw, like, that would have been a crazy change. You know, I never really thought about it until now. Oh, absolutely.

The changes you've seen in how we teach our students. Right here in Lloyd Minister, I think was involved, I think, for about 26 years of teaching here at Lloyd Comp. And think about the number of people that I've been exposed to. And every day, every day, I'm in touch. with some of them. And some of them that I haven't seen for a long time, it's always a great pleasure when they walk up and let me know who they are because they change a lot more than I think we as teachers change. And it's always nice to have somebody come up and say, well, Mr. Armstrong, you know, it's kind of nice to have that happen. If you look back over all the years you taught,

though. Was there a year or an advancement maybe that changed teaching or teachers were like, man, that's nice? And maybe it's now instead of having to teach three grades at the same time, now you just get a grade, or maybe it's, I don't know, I'm married to a teacher. I've never really thought about it, but now I'm sitting here across from a guy who's done it for his entire life. You wonder if you hit your 20 and they finally brought something to Lloyd and all of a sudden it was like night and day or just like a nice tool to have to use with students. Yeah, it's a great question you're asking and, you know, maybe things happen so gradually the changes were gradual.

Like we can say, well, here's what we're doing today, oh, 30 years ago, but it was so gradual. I don't know when that might have happened. I just know that for me, the association with young people and seeing them develop, seeing them grow, just means so much to me. And I've had so many of those experiences. It's really gratifying. You were telling me, you know, when we met a couple days ago, you were telling me about the guy who directed you to be, to go out, pursue becoming a teacher.

Could you share that story again? Sure. Well, it just happened that in that Marsden school, while I was in high school, in fact finishing grade 12, there were a couple of young fellows that were teaching in the elementary section. One was, grew up right here in Lloyd Mr. Ron Ferguson was teaching there, but another fellow by the name of Stan Zaluski

and both of these gentlemen did not teach me, but were in the school. And in that community, there was many opportunities to associate with them in playing sports, in ball and hockey. And at one of the ball tournaments, after I had finished, graduated out of grade 12, it was on in August. We were sitting on a side hill at a country ball tournament between games. We were playing in the final game. and Stan and I both grabbed a hamburger and a Coke and we're watching the game, the winner of that we would take on in the finals.

While we're sitting there casually, he said, so what are you doing next year, Bill? And I said, well, I'm probably going to be working with my dad who is now an electrician. And a lot of farm wiring was happening and whatever. And as soon as I said that, he said, oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you. And I said, what? Like nobody had ever talked to me like this before. He said, while you have your study skills, he said, what you should be doing is going on to continuing your education. I said, well, I'm planning to do that next year.

No, he said, if you stay here in this small town, you'll probably be here for the rest of your life. You need to go now. Well, like for me, life was pretty rosy. I was enjoying life. I went home that night and never slept. And what he had offered? He said, I am tied up tomorrow. This was a Sunday afternoon ballgame.

He said, I'm tied up tomorrow. I'll come to your home on Tuesday. And I said, I wouldn't have a clue, you know, if I was going to take further education, what I'd actually do. That's when he suggested me. becoming a teacher and I could never have imagined that. I couldn't. I was too shy to get up in front of the group and I said, well, I don't think so well, just a minute. And then he started telling me what he has observed, that I would have worked and seen me out on the school grounds

helping kids hold a bat properly so they could hit a ball or maybe over on the hockey rink showing kids out to shoot a puck or stick handle or whatever. And I said, started thinking about that and thought, yeah, I really do enjoy working with kids. And anyway, that's kind of where it went from there. And before you knew it, like we're talking in a week or in a couple of weeks, I'd pack my bags, we got registered, and I was off to Teachers College in Saskatoon. And two weeks before that, had no... such idea it was going to happen. It was shockingly happening. But I can just say that that changed

my life for sure, and it was not an easy one. I had homesickness when I'd get a call from home that fall and find out the guys are out hunting geese or, oh yeah, a little later on there, hunting deer and I'm sort of stuck in the concrete jungle of Saskatoon. It was pretty hard to take. but it has been very rewarding and it was certainly the right choice and I can say in my last years of teaching and guidance as a career guidance counselor I've talked to kids about certain careers

who said oh I couldn't possibly do that I have a story to tell them and how you end up changing you become a different person And I have had many occasions, maybe 10 years later at a school reunion that I've been invited to, where kids who would not, you could hardly get a peep out of them in school would come along and slap you on the back. Hey, Army, how's it going?

You know, they're a different person. They mature and get far more confidence and courage and whatever. So, yeah, it's an experience that you could share, certainly. what did your parents say when you came home from this ball tournament said i'm gonna you know you said you didn't sleep all night so you thought about it for it must have been obviously a big decision i mean it was obviously it is what did your parents say when you said i think i want to go to teachers college well i didn't ever say that because i wasn't sure that i wanted to go to teachers, colleagues, but I did say that this conversation had taken place and that Mr.

Saluski was going to come to our home and show us he had some calendars and would talk about this whole thing. And yeah, they were, of course, interested, but it was a shock to them, too, that something was going to be happening. I would be leaving home and, yeah, it's, it was, it was I think a shocker for them as well. And they certainly didn't oppose the idea. And I can say that we were not financially as a family well set. And, you know, everything, you better be doing the right thing because it cost money and it was going to be costing the family some money to send me away.

So, yeah. How much did it cost? back then to go to teachers college? Oh, I'm really ragging your brain? But, you know, there would be a tuition, of course. But then it was the board and rooming and all the other things traveling, getting there and on occasion, hopefully getting home and whatever.

But, you know, it was money we didn't have a lot of. And so those things you seriously. I certainly had to think about before you just jumped in, oh, yeah, we'll just do this or that. You mentioned Mr. Salusky, is that right? Yes. Was he a teacher then in Marsden? He was an elementary school teacher,

not my teacher, but as I said, I had the chance to associate with someone like that in another setting besides being at school every day, but playing sports, hockey and ball and hunting and things like that we did together. It was a camaraderie. with teachers, probably before that, you know, the teachers were way up there to a younger kid, but as you got older, they actually, I think, shared the camaraderie of, you know, sports.

And, you know, if you met them downtown or whatever, they were, they were your friends. And so I have, and unfortunately, with Stan Zuluski, he, has moved away, I believe he's still alive, but, and I've asked about him, attempting to get a phone number, I was so much, you know, like to share with him more things have gone, and a big thank you to him for changing my life around. He could see that needed to happen, and he talked me into it, I guess, you could say. I was saying to you when you first told me that that it's interesting you hear different people's stories

and there's always these moments that just changed the trajectory of where you're going. And maybe you'd stayed in, you know, Marsden and become an electrician and stayed there for the rest of your life or maybe a year later you go to teachers' college too. You just never know, right? That's right. You have no idea.

But for sure, he changed it. That did it. Yeah. And I would assume for him, to sit and have a conversation like that with you, and you didn't think on it that long. You obviously respected the man, because if it had just been old Bob from over the other side,

and he said, you know what, you should get the heck out of here. Maybe you wouldn't have given it two cents, but the fact, he, well, I just think for a young guy to sit and think on that all night, and then to go talk to his parents and money not to be, you know, exactly rolling out of the bed sheets or throwing everywhere, I assume that, you know, that conversation, that guy, there's a lot of respect there,

and obviously it meant a lot for him to suggest something like that to you. You're absolutely right with that. And you'd respect what he had to see, which I certainly did. Now, I went to college for four years, and I lived off of working for Northland College. I was getting paid $5.25 an hour to be the front desk guy at the gymnasium and checked students in and out and whatever else. And that gave me just enough to survive on craft dinner. And, oh, what was the beer choice there? Now I'm forgetting.

But it was a meager diet. Was your diet similar to that back in teachers' college? Well, you know what? because probably my parents probably thought I wouldn't survive, but it was a board and room situation, and the meals were very good, the lady in it, and she kept boarders for the teacher's college. Her home was near it,

and tried to keep her prices down, you know. And so it was affordable, but I didn't have to. have to prepare meals. So, like you hear, I know all about the craft dinners. Well, the craft dinner, I mean, geez, you can get it for like 49 cents a box. That'll feed you, all right? Throwing a few pieces of wiener.

Yeah, you got a, you got, yeah. All the food groups. Great. Moving to Saskatoon back then. What was maybe the biggest thing you remember of like, wow, they got, I don't know what, but going from small town, Saskatchewan. to big town Saskatchewan. What was one of the things that sticks out to you back then?

This might sound unbelievable in today's world, but the traffic. I would stand on a street corner and watch car after car after car, and I'm thinking about all the fuel that was burning up, all the oil in the transmissions. It's a thing kids probably wouldn't think about today, but I thought, holy, how does it? our world supply all these vehicles with all this and now we've got all these debates about pipelines and oil production and of course Lloydminster being farming and petroleum industry that's what

we're about anyway that's a thought that went through my mind the huge number of vehicles using up this fuel and and the traffic yeah that's that's that's what we're one of the big things that I remember. I don't know just what else I could see about it, but it was Saskatoon isn't looked on as a big, huge city today, but to me it was huge. Well, Marsden to Saskatoon, that's a pretty big jump. That's right.

In my day, I went from Hillman, Saskatchewan to, wow, I guess by then I was in Lloyd, but I went and lived in Darden, Ontario, and that was 10,000 people just shy up. And Hillam onto that, pretty big jump, too. Exactly. You know what? You can. I remember going over and overpass underpass and thinking, wow, they got an over and underpass.

That's pretty cool. That's not even thought of anymore these days. Although it'd be nice if Floyd had an overpass or an underpass underpass under that railway. That's right. They're going to hear a lot of that on the archives. Somewhere there's a city guy shaking his head at me. Now, you mentioned the Cozy Nook teaching there for your first year. You taught there for a year?

Yep, one year. One year. Yep. Did you have power there? We did have power. You did have power. Yep. There was a teachery, which I lived in.

And, yeah, we had power, and we had, I guess it was a fuel oil furnace in the school. so there was no the old furnace downstairs with the wooden coal. We didn't have that. Okay. There was a tank, a large tank, piped in with diesel fuel,

I guess it did, or burning fuel. And the same thing in the teach reach itself. So pretty modern, actually. What sticks out to you about your time there for a year? You'd mentioned teaching eight grades. I'm assuming that. That was a bit of a culture shock for you? A little bit of stress, maybe day one.

It was. When I look back on it, I can just say the kids were so able to work independently. And we did multiple grade teaching. Sometimes a grade four to eight level would do a subject. But most of it, a lot of it in science and social studies and so on, was done dual grades. like grade 7 and 8 would take the same course one year and then it would flip over to another course the next year. And then the grade 5 and 6 would go together

so multiple teaching situation. It's probably the most difficult year of teaching of my life because I hadn't learned to cut corners on marking papers where you could mark them right in class. I marked every one and spent hours and hours of doing it. I had something happen here a year ago that a little girl by the name of Jill in grade one of that year, and 60 years later, finds me at coffee one day in Arby's, found out that I go there, and I had a teacher by that name. She showed up.

She was a little cutie, little blonde cutie in grade one. She's still a blonde cutie at 66. I have a picture of her. We had a great visit. And now she's old enough to say, well, Mr. Armstrong, you were what, maybe 17, 18 years of age teaching in this school with eight grades, 22 kids.

Like, how could you do that? My answer was to her. I said, Jill, you know what? I think I did a lot more learning than you kids did. And that kind of sums it up. It was, again, great experience again to see this young lady. And now, as I see, a 66-year-old. But she was now able to say, well, we never thought of it back then,

but, you know, how did you even do this? but it actually worked out very well. And again, any one of those kids from whatever area, I run into some of the kids that I taught in Edmonton and every day run across people here in Lloydminster that I had the opportunity to be involved with, and it's always a pleasure to see them. I just thoroughly enjoy that.

Well, you're wearing the Barron's gold, not yellow, and purple. Absolutely, it's gold. What, you were the first year of the Lloydminster Comprehensive? I was there in the opening, the fall opening of Lloyd Mr. Combe. Yeah, in 1968, that's right. So did you work for? multiple schools before you got to the comp, or was it Cozy No, from Cozy Nook, I taught for two years in Marshall, Saskatchewan. And then, then at that point, went back to U of A in Edmonton to

complete my education degree. And I guess on the way to that, I had some teaching experience, you know, substitute teaching and whatever. and then taught for, what did they teach for another three or four years. I had about, I think about seven years of teaching experience in by the time I came to Lloyd Comp. Well, because you were living in Eminton playing for the Border Kings. Yeah, commute it. Wait a second. Well, let's put a pin in the comp for a second.

Let's talk about hockey, you know, staring around this room, this guy likes a little bit of hockey. I can see that, yes. Let's rewind the clock. Let's go back to when you're in high school. were you playing for Marsden's hockey team or who are you playing? Because, I mean, if there's anything people in Lloyd know about Bill Armstrong, it's your involvement, A, teaching, but B, or maybe 1A, I don't know, is your involvement in sports.

I mean, you got a field named after you. You're pretty much any sport, you name it, and you've played it, coached it, chaired it, something, right? Right. So in your early years, were you playing everything in Marsden, or were different communities, or how did that work? In, I guess you could say, beginning hockey, Pee-wee, whatever level up to about age 14, we played sports, hockey, it was one of the big ones.

And a town next to us, Nielberg, they were the enemy. Track and field, it doesn't matter whether we're talking bowl, hockey. Anyway, they were the enemy, but at about 14 or 15, they got a covered arena there in Nielberg, and the Nielberg Monarch Hockey Team, their senior team, I got invited while my next brother in age was playing with the Nielberg Monarch hockey team, and I got invited to go, well, that was quite an honor to move up to a game, maybe it was just an exhibition game or a one-shot thing where they're short-handed, but boy, to suit up with the next town and eventually became a regular member with the Nielberg Monarchs and playing in a league with Lashburn, Maidstone, E-Dam, I think,

probably Battleford. Anyway, as a result of that, yeah, you got playing hockey there, but then, after going away to teachers college and got teaching in Marshall, I was boarding with my brother and his wife in Lloydminster and commuting out to teach in Marshall. Well, that I was living in Lloydminster, in those days it was the Lloyd Chevy's that my brother was playing with, and so it was a natural for me to join the Lloyd Chevy's team. So that kind of got me started in Lloydminster,

and then when I went away to go to university, somewhere in there, the team changed the name to Border Kings. Instead of having a local GM or GM sponsorship of the Chevys, which was RJR Noyes sponsored, they became more of a community sponsored team, and they were looking for a name, and the name Lloyd Minister, Border Kings came up. Do you remember why Border Kings was chosen?

Did you ever hear this is why that was? I guess it was among the best of the names. Maybe they were even called, or some of the names suggested, might have been the Lloydminster Oilers because we had a refinery here, you know, but I think among all the names this became probably most people agreed would be we're a border city. That's a great name. They're a great jersey, too, I mean.

Yes. Over the years. Yeah, that's right. They weren't always as colorful as this. I can tell you it was as picturesque as this jersey, but I wore some of the old originals for sure. So I've got to go back just a hair. You mentioned Neilberg gets a covered rink. I didn't really give it much thought.

Up until that point, are you playing majority? your games outside then? I remember I was probably in about grade nine or 10 and we had high school hockey going on and we played a game in Maidstone. Lashburn didn't have a covered drink in the last days. Nealberg didn't. We played outdoor hockey and we got to go to Maidstone and we were we were indoors and we spent most of the game I think looking up at that roof we'd never been under a roof before

and I think we got shellacked in that game and a year later that in high school hockey we played there and we shillacked them by about the same score so no it was quite a novelty to play inside an arena in that era but yeah

I go back to you know over a lot of lifetime of playing hockey, the different advancements you see. And I mean, obviously, a covering would be a game changer for, I grew up in the day of natural ice. And so then all of a sudden, coming into town and having artificial ice and you could start skating whenever you want, it is a pretty big improvement. Or Hillman now having artificial ice, and you can just flick a switch and within a week you got ice. That's pretty cool. Because I grew up in the day and age of going down with that and flooding it by hand. Not that I'd flood it by hand. I always got to skate. It was lovely

times. You rode on the slough before that. Well, that's true. That's true. Absolutely. The pond hockey. What did you think of playing with the men at 14, 15? You mentioned Neilberg Monarchs. That's, I mean, I've played a lot of years as seniors. I can't, or senior, I can't imagine a 14-year-old being on the ice with us.

Oh, it was, it was just a great honor, just a thrill. And probably didn't get on the ice that much, but got out for a shift. or two and probably got knocked down. But, no, it was quite a thing to go back to school the next day. And wow, I played with the Monarchs. Well, you know, yeah, you certainly had that going for you. It was quite a thrill. Fast forward to U of A.

You're now pursuing your education degree. Why are you driving all the way back to Lloyd to stay playing with the Border Kings? I'm sure there had to have been a team or two, on your door around Eminton to go play with them. Yeah, actually I trade out for, well, I skated thinking that I would play with the university team, Bears hockey, but I found out where I was living and again lacking money just to get to the practices. And all it meant, I had a chance to make some money. And I was invited while I was attending university to play in Vermilion,

toward the end of the season, they were loading up their team a little. They had my brother come from Lloyd Minster, and they invited me to come. They already had two carloads of players leaving Edmonton to come out to their games, and I was to ride along with one of those carloads. and there was money to be at. Does that make you a professional? I don't know. We weren't getting paid that much.

And then that continued. There was an era that a lot of local people who remember when a Max Bentley played here in Lloydminster as player coach. At that very time, I was playing with Vermillion and played against Max Bentley. And he was a dipsy-doodler, hockey player if those people

will remember and did not like getting checked and that was my job people would ask me so how many goals did you get last night well I guess I didn't get any but I think I stopped about them

about 27 that they would have scored maybe if I didn't do my job oh people don't think that it's all you know offense offense but anyway I remember playing with Vermillion at that time, but before long I got enticed back to play here in Lloyd, and so traveled.

Now, I also started teaching school in Edmonton, and I can compare commuting out to Lloyd Minster as a school teacher in Edmonton compared to going to university as a commuting player, far easier to be going to university, because I had one guy to take care of. in school I had several

classes of kids now you're working right well there's a responsibility a big responsibility as a teacher so it was far easier to go to school and you could when assignments were coming up and you knew

you're going to be playing hockey you could adjust your times and my actually it's another thing I've told parents even as a career guidance counselor. For me, they would say, well, I don't know if my boys should be playing football because we want him to have better marks. I said, you know what? I can tell you my experience,

my marks improved at university when I started playing hockey. Out of town. I got on my assignments immediately, spent more, put far more effort into my work, and my marks just started to get way better as a result. It's just budgeting of the time. it can be done. With the Border Kings, you guys were a pretty darn good team. You won Westerns, you won a national championship? Yes, we did.

I didn't, I got to be honest, I didn't realize, I thought, the guys I grew up watching, I mentioned Morgan Mervon here a couple times, they've actually been on the podcast, is the first national championship to Lloyd. I thought that, but I didn't realize that you guys had done it previous. Yeah, that's what we've, I guess, I guess to play in a national championship,

what had to happen, not only did you win your provincials, You then played interprovincial, like for us and Lloyd Minster. It's usually winning the Alberta. Then we would play an Alberta-B-C. champion. We'd have to get by a Paul River or a Quinell or wherever, like New Westminster. In several different years, we played a lot of the teams from out there. Prince George was another one we played for Interprovincial. Then we had to play a Western Canadian.

This is, and we'd have to then take on the Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Western Ontario champion. And then to win that, then you get a chance to go on to the nationals. And we did go into nationals about three times, I believe, winning one in 67, and I think it was 69 when we went to Latu, Quebec, and lost there. But there were a lot of factors you could use as excuses. but they had a very good team and they beat us three straight, some close games. But anyway, yeah, no, over those years we did have some very good teams. One year, just as an example, one year we didn't have a league to play in. Nobody, the teams around didn't want to play, we were too strong a team for them.

So we had to play exhibition, and we played most of the, dubbed team, the Western Canada junior teams like Brandon Wheat Kings, Saskatoon, Blades, Regina Pats, you name it, we played them. And we never lost a game to one of those junior teams. So we had that caliber of a team. We did lose a game to, I think it was the Edmonton,

where the Nuggets at the time they were a senior team with quite a few pro hockey players. We did lose a game, I think, three to one to them here. A lot of those games were played on an exhibition game and were of a lot of interest to the fans because those teams were coming in and were advertised and it would fill the rink. But we did have that caliber of a team to compete.

So, yeah. Going back to your national championships, now is that an Allen Cup or is that just a national senior champion? No, we were an intermediate, the AAA top intermediate level. In those days, senior teams, what would constitute a senior team? There was Lacombe Rockets,

Drumhiller Miners, I think had a senior team. Saskatoon Quakers, to give you an idea, Edmonton Monarchs were a senior team at that time. but yeah or Edmonton Flyers so you know we were we were rated as an but we played pretty well the same teams

as they are now playing for the Allen Cup or I'm not even sure if the Ellen Cup is still operating but well and this year Bill I don't know if anything is going to happen right with all the shutdowns and you know when Morg and Merv man were playing they had a they won their first allen cup and they had bill hunter the famous bill hunter here his guest speaker at a testimonial dinner and he told the boys he says i have been involved in big time hockey all my life and he said we never had a team come close to winning an allen cup or yeah an allen cup he says i know what's involved and for you to have a team and to have accomplished that

playing the teams you had to play across Canada and come back with the Allen Cup, you are certainly to be congratulated here. So I have the picture with Bill Hunter, the Allen Cup, and I think Merv is the captain of the team when they won it, and he and Bill Hunter with the Allen Cup. So, yeah, it's quite an accomplishment. And our Border Kings did it twice, of the Allen Cup.

But in many of the teams or areas representing the areas were kind of similar to what we had to play back in our provincial and then Western and then national championships back in that day were much the same teams. I was reading that you guys played for a time in the North Lake, Senior League. Is that right? Yes. I'm always fascinated by this. What is the North Lake, Senior League?

What teams would have that involved? Well, let's see. I guess it's, would it be similar to the eastern Alberta? Like I'm thinking of Cold Lake, Bonneville, St. Paul, Vagerville, Vermillion. I don't think we had Wainwright in it, no. Lloyd Minster, I think that would be the That was the team. Yeah.

Or that was the league, sorry. Yeah. What kept you playing, you played senior for 15 years? Yeah, about 15, yes. What kept you, like, what year did you retire from senior then? You would have been 35 somewhere in there? Yeah, about that. Yeah, well, let's see, old-timer hockey came into being.

That's another thing. you know why at one time we actually I heard a talk by Ron Harris Jr. here and he talked about it was the thing. The rinks were filled because it really wasn't anything else. We didn't have that participation movement yet. We didn't have participation hockey or old time or hockey or whatever. But all the timer hockey came in. So we had a lot of people start to get involved in other things. And so it took away fans for senior hockey like the Border Kings. But anyway, at one time, as I say, we filled her right into the rafters. There was that kind of hockey being put. People actually sitting in the rafters.

Well, hanging from the rafters, they weren't sitting out there, but the stands were filled. Let's just say that. And there was rivalry between towns. Everybody wanted to beat Lloydminster. Who was your big enemy back then when you were playing for the king? Usually for a million. Yeah. For million.

And were they the tigers then? Yeah, for million tigers. Yeah. That's who they were. and yeah we had some great battles and what kept me into it well I just so thoroughly enjoyed it and I guess I guess

you know we talked about 1967 winning the Canadian championship we had some great guys to play with and and then on the executive of the Border Kings, we had my future principal in this new school that was opening up, inviting me to come to Lloyd Minster to play hockey. You wouldn't have to be traveling all the way down from Edmonton on that road trip.

You could be here. And I knew that we were gonna have a pretty good team for a while. And so I took a look at this new school being constructed and made a decision to make a decision to make a good team to move my young family. We had one daughter just born at that time. And some pretty good things were happening in the school situation for me in Edmonton at the time.

And I was being put into some supervisory positions and whatever. But hockey was still pretty important in my life and got such an enjoyment out of it that made that decision to come to Lloyd. I always see, did I come here to teach or did I come to play hockey? and I think it's certainly both. And we've never, ever regretted moving to Lloyd Minster. It's just the, I think, is the right-sized community for our kids to grow up and some great people out here.

And a great hockey team. Yes, and a great hockey team to be associated with. You know, sticking with hockey, you became a never sweat. You know, and if there's another, you think, in Lloyd, junior hockey has its place, you know. The Border Kings certainly have its place. And the Never Sweets is another team that certainly has its place in town

and has a bit of lore to it and everything else. Were you in the room when they created that team? You mentioned the movement of participation hockey and old-timer hockey. Were you in the room when they were creating that squad? Absolutely. It was in, we call it Jim Hill's basement meeting. People around that were of this age that might be interested in joining a team because it's already been happening.

I think the Battle River Buffalo team out of Wainwright was probably one of the first teams to try this old time or hockey and we seem to be having a lot of fun. and we're going to tournaments, Maidstone jets, old-timers. They did some traveling, went to a tournament in Japan, and they got going, and we got thinking, well, we got players out of Lloyd going to Wainwright, and players out of Lloyd going to Maidstone just a minute. We've got many, many players here,

so that's how we got started with the idea of having our own old-timer hockey team. and of course what would be the name and who all would play on it. All these decisions had to be made. So a major meeting was called, and it was in what's now Jack and Diane Hills Acreege Home, just on Airport Road, just west of Lloyd. In that basement, we had about 35 people discussing the possibility of forming the team

and what color our uniforms might be and how we might get sponsorship, like the whole business of organizing. And yeah, so as a result of that, a team did get organized and it's become pretty famous. The name came from what used to be the old Lloydminster High School threw together a name,

hey, there's no sweat for us boys here. We'll call ourselves the Never Sweets. Well, that name has continued on. It originated out of a high school hockey team out of Lloydminster High School. So they were the Lloydminster Never Sweets in High School hockey? Yes, yes. I have even pictures of some of the guys, business people, older men in town. Some of them are no longer with us that have these jerseys on and it actually says never sweats on it.

And was it the turtle as well? No. Turtle came after. The turtle came after. El Doran's daughter actually designed that or had the idea. We're not as fast as we used to be here. So the turtle became the emblem. That's right.

And it's become almost famous. It's traveled the world. It certainly has. Yes. Well, like I say, in Lloyd Minster, when you mentioned, hockey teams, the never sweats for each age group and what it does. And I think we've talked about it before. It's more than just a hockey team. It's a service group of sorts. It's a service group. I guess it's a social group because we try to involve wives at various social. We have a Christmas

social banquet. We have a wind-up golf tournament. Usually wives and guests attend family members. So it's a social group. We've raised money from tournaments and, you know, helped out with arena projects, maybe completing a dressing room or whatever. We've tried to donate to those kinds of causes. So it's been a service club as well as a,

and I guess in any of this kind of hockey, what goes on in the dressing room is very enjoyable. It's just a very fun group. It's like going to a coffee group at one of the local establishments. A lot of, there's not always truths that get told here, but lots of lies, I guess, but just a fun time. It's a social outing as well as the fun on the ice. Well, I can't speak for all sports, but I can speak for hockey. When guys retire or move away or, you know, are finished with their career, whether that's at 18 or whether that's at 40, the thing guys miss the most, you know, like obviously the camaraderie, the compete, sure. But the dressing room is a number one.

Like sitting around after a hard-fought game or whatever and cracking a cold one and having a BS and just enjoying something, there's something in that. room that is just enjoyable. I don't know how it's going with this COVID-19 here, but I'm hearing that players aren't supposed to be in the dressing room a very limited time before, and you've got to be out so many minutes after, and I'm not even sure if they're allowing, showering or whatever, but if that's all the case, I think it would take a lot of away from the sociability that can be had. That's absolutely right. Well, the playing of it is fun. I've actually gone through the hoops of the COVID-19 guidelines.

So in the beginning, it was 10 minutes before, 10 minutes after, no showers. And two of the guys who came, because you're only allowed so many in the dressing room, had to have come in their equipment. So it was like back to when I was like five years old, showing up my equipment and riding home in my equipment, but whatever. Still got on the ice, still had some fun. Now it's 20 minutes before, 20 minutes after, and then you allowed to shower. So they're just to open it up a little bit.

That's right. But yeah, I mean, the dressing room, that's, you know, for those who've never got to experience, I really, you know, that's what you get enticed by. You get in there and the dressing room is just such a fun place to be. When, I guess when you finally see you're retiring from, that's the hardest part that you're going to miss, is that the fun time in the dressing room with,

with all the guys, that's for sure. Well, let's talk about Barron's football for a little bit because, I mean, you have a field named after you. You've been president of that league, coach of that team, you won, I don't know how many championships. What was it? I don't know, and maybe I miss this.

Did you grow up playing football? Not at all. Okay. No, not at all. In the small town, of course, we did not have gymnasiums, so we didn't have the gymnasium sports. It was outdoor sports, but we had no equipment, tackle, football, or whatever.

We did play a form of football with tackle. It was called smear. We kept that school grounds in Mars and patted down all winter. There was, and we played every recess before school, through the noon hour, but we never did have organized tackle football. And it wasn't until I was in university

that I took a football course that I really got more involved in the knowledge of the game. When I accepted the challenge of coming to Lloyd Minster, I didn't realize that I was going to become a football coach. And I said, yes, I would certainly take on this position in this new school and Hugh Morel, who was vice principal and in charge of athletics when we first met after it accepted this position, he said, okay, you're going to be head football coach. He started listing all the things I'd be coaching and attending meetings and

all the things. I started, oh my goodness, what did I get myself into here? But what I didn't know about football, I guess I had the experience of playing sports and I knew what it would take to be a winner. And I fortunately had other people who knew the game pretty well. Like I can mention Ross Richards was at the time assistant coach. I like to think of us as co-coaches. That's the way I like to operate. And what I could do to fire the team up, he could. He could. could help organize the practice sessions and we became in this Wheatland Football League, we had never won a championship before this time in our first year not ever having seen one of the players like we were both completely new to the community and we organized and

won the championship in the first year. and our biggest rivalry in football was you named it for a million. Wainwright Commandos had won the championship, I think, four years in a row prior to us starting that year. So, yeah, I guess I can say there was a challenge, but a great deal of accomplishment or feeling of accomplishment when we won that first championship away from Wainwright knowing that they had won it in all these years. Anyway, yeah, football became, for me, just a big issue. Working with the guys that we had out,

the dedication that they put into it, and many of them, I start to think of stories, but many of them were already pretty accomplished. ball themselves but when we started in Ross and I we told every kid we had a whole room full of none of you we don't care where you played we don't know you guys and you don't know how we operate every position is open for every one of you just because you played a particular position last year no you you show us what you got and we'll decide if that's where you play this year that's where it

started. And right away, we started talking like we thought on a chalkboard will lay out the various positions we're looking for. And when we mentioned this one defensive center, well, that's where Greg Ingram plays. We said, well, just a minute. Where's Greg Ingram here? Well, he's not here right now. He's on a trip over to Europe, but he'll be back. Greg plays that position. We said, no, not necessarily. We have to see Greg Ingram and see him what he can show us, we'll decide. And then on the practice field, the same thing, we're all right, no, you saw it on the chalkboard, we'll set you guys in these positions.

Here's what we're looking for. If you think you can play this position, then you show us what you get. Well, that's where Greg Ingram plays. Well, we said, no, Greg Ingram's not here. and he's not he doesn't have this well it turned out about a week later there's a knock at my door on Monday morning I open the door and I see this huge hand come in the door and then I start looking up at this huge guy with a smile and he says coach Armstrong I'm Greg Ingram and he says you're on the team you can play anywhere you want so that's a that's a little story he was just a huge we

in the league he is known as tiny. He could reach out both sides, cover everything on that line. Nobody got by Greg Ingram. I got to make sure I'm hearing this correct, though. You're telling me, you never played the game. You took one class in college, university. And then you get given the head coach,

co-coach job, and you win the championship your first year. What did you guys? do that first year because I mean I know I'm not saying you hadn't seen football played obviously we've all you know you're mentioning you played football every day um at school in marston but I mean you start like did you just have so much talent that you guys wonder did you guys implement certain things or was it a huge learning curve it's just that's a pretty cool story to go from never winning anything you've come your first year but you're not football guys And all of a sudden you step out there, you run some practices, you got the right guys,

and all of a sudden you win a championship. Like, you must have thought, geez, it's kind of easy. Yeah, nothing to this. Well, as I see, I give my fellow coaches that knew the designing of plays. I have to give them a lot of credit. I think that I had the ability to psych the boys, I guess you could see, into what it would take to win. And what was necessary from them, day to day, we worked on this until we got into our first game. And I think those guys bought into it.

I think they were convinced that what needed to happen. We had to get ourselves into condition, and you didn't allow yourself to be beat in any position. And I think I had the ability to get those ideas across. Before we, when we got suited up and we were ready to step out on that field, they'd have gone through a brick wall, I think, if they needed to, they were ready to go. And I think, yeah, I think that had quite a bit to do with it. I'm sure that first year that championship means a lot to you because I mean the first one stepping into a new school,

coaching football for the first time. Out of the handful you guys did end up winning in your tenor, was there one that sticks out that you go like, man, that was a fun year? That was a fun group of guys. Or were they all just fun groups of guys? Yeah, I can't really say, I can't really pick out. Like to me, every day was important and everything we did.

I think for the Barron's football team winning their first provincial championship, and at that time I wasn't coaching. I was sort of involved as a manager. I was sort of in my retirement years. and we had other coaches like a Larry Sauer come in and take over. But I remember if you want to talk about satisfaction in one particular game, I guess we're playing in Sedgwick. And there were alumni football players were the referees.

Now, who do you think they wanted to win? We're playing a bigger city of Lloyd Minster team. and the local boys are on the field. At half time, we were down 17 to 1, and Larry Sauer was in his first year of coaching, and I told Larry, you might be taken over the team because I can't handle what's going on on the field, and I'm going to let them know right now.

Half-time whistle it blowing, and they kind of gathered at center field. And what was happening, every call that was being made was against us, and they were allowing their offensive players to tackle their defensive guys like there was stuff going on that was just absolutely unbelievable

and I kind of let them know about it I didn't get thrown out of the game Hugh Marell was an assistant official he did a lot of officiating after this incident I asked him back in Lloyd I said, would you have thrown me out of the game for some of the things I had to say to the official? He says, absolutely.

But anyway, the rest of the game was officiated on a more they started to realize that, I guess we aren't calling it fairly. So we were down 17 to 1. We won that game 2717. They never got another point. and we were allowed to play football in the second half. And I think that was a pretty satisfactory win for us. I know hockey holds a special place in your heart. Obviously, you moved to town, and that was a big chunk of it,

and you played all over the world with, you know, whether it was the Border Kings or the Never Sweets and so on. What was it about football that drew in and kept? empty in there because I mean you want to be the president of the league and everything else. What was it about football that you enjoyed so much? Well, having never played the sport myself, I got to realize that this particular sport is a real developer of young men. It was a tough sport.

It was almost, you could almost say grueling to stay with the practice program. And I always see this for kids who may not have been a, may not be successful as a team. They may lose whatever it is. But the fact that you went out there and tried says something about your kids. character. And certainly in football I saw that to stay with the rigorous practice programs that were necessary to be in shape and then to handle the tough going. Just recently I talked to a young fellow while he's an older gentleman now who said he was a scrawny little guy. We had a thing in football called the gauntlet, running the gauntlet, where the other guys all had blocked.

and of course you're suited up with your all your equipment but you had to run through there and everybody took shots at you and you get he said I came I came out the other end he says I just had her and then coach sour says to me now if that was tough going it's going to be twice as tough when you get in the game so get ready to go through there again you know so it was like that it was grueling and if you said after a couple of practice oh I don't need this or you stayed with it and you worked harder. I remember running wind sprints after the game

after everybody was, energy was sucked out and would say, you know, anybody want to go again? You heard the whole, everybody say, yeah, give us another one. You knew you're on the right track. That's when I would say, okay, hit the showers, you know. But that's what it took, and you could just see you guys develop. And in later years, that's another story, as a bus driver, traveling with young people, you get to know. I guess in so many ways, it's just one place I travel with a lot of sports teams, but you realize that it's not just the sport.

It's not what happens just out on the gym floor or out on the playing field. it's everything else that there's the opportunity for young people to learn, and that's to be young ladies and young gentlemen in that sport, and to be courteous and polite and cooperative wherever, going into dining places as a team or into hotels for overnight lodging wherever. when you come out and the hotel keeper tells you, wow, what a great bunch of people here. That tells you something.

Those young people are learning, not just what it takes to win the sport, but to become young ladies and gentlemen. And I think so many of our coaches do an excellent job on that. So I guess that's what I see as being pretty important. Well, that's going away. way and playing hockey out east that's that's what larry win toniac i always speak very highly of him he's kindersely now but that's what he demanded of all of us young you know 18 to 20 year olds 17 to 20 year olds

probably is how we represented the team at all times right no matter where you went yep and uh that's a good thing for kids to learn and be hammered into them essentially absolutely i want to switch gears I want to go, I want to talk about how you met your wife. I haven't talked about Celia at all. And, I mean, how many years have you guys been married now? I'm putting you on the spot, so. I happen to know that. We just celebrated on October 10th, our 56th anniversary.

You're 56th? Yeah. That is amazing. It may be, I think I see this every time. So if somebody's listened to all these, they probably hear it all the time, but I find it amazing the people that come in here and all that have been married for stretches of time, that it's just impressive. So 56 years ago, actually it was probably a few years before that, can you tell us how you met

your wife? Absolutely. Well, I guess it's like somebody often, some of my, I guess, class meets in Mars. girls, wondered why as boys we never really dated any of the girls in our high school. It would be like you're trying to date your own sister, I guess, what it was like. So, you know, the girls in Nielberg, even though they were the enemy, some of those girls were pretty nice down there. But I was playing, went to a ball tournament as a player, of course, in Lashburn. There was like their sports day.

and during I was playing, but during the sports day, one of the fellows that was not a player that I traveled with, a young guy that we went to school together, he got talking to some two or three of the local girls, and one of them was a pretty cute girl, and it happened to be Celia. But he had already got talking to her and two of her friends,

And so after we were finished playing ball, he said, oh, I've got these three girls, and I think there were three of us guys. And we kind of teamed up in a car, maybe went for a burger or a pop or whatever. And then there was always a dance in that town. Well, it turned out that this girl, this Celia, that I was really pretty impressed with, I wasn't maybe all that impressed with the girl that I was with, but she said I don't think I could go to the dance. And, well, why not? Well, my parents, I think she was probably,

we were 14, 15 years old back then, but she said, I don't think my parents would let me go. Well, this wane that I was with, he said, oh, we'll go find out. So we drove right out to their acreage, and he went in with her, asked permission to take her to the... Nope, they didn't think that was... So that kind of impressed me that her parents

didn't think these young bucks from another town were that her 14-year-old daughter should be going out with them. So anyway, so on other occasions we met or we kind of had an eye on each other. So it kind of turned out that way that... And then I think I got to know her brother who was working at Husky Refugee,

Henry and Lloyd and all of it sort of went together and eventually, yeah, eventually we got into a situation where I was pretty shy, remember, at a young age, and finally we got going on a date or two together. Yeah, and then we were apart for quite a while. Me going away to university in Edmonton was pretty difficult without a lot of money, remember, and. And so it took us a while to get back together, but eventually, yeah, 56 years ago, we certainly got married. What advice can you give us all on 56 years of marriage? Well, make the right choice to start with. she was pretty special as far as I was concerned and and I think we've we've certainly seen a lot of things eye to eye

there haven't been a lot of differences of opinion and so yeah I don't know what else I can say I guess we both treat each other and oh certainly she's been a back of all those years when I was away playing hockey, raising our kids and so on. And she's been quite an athlete herself. And of course, we have three daughters, and all three of them, without us pushing them into any of the sports, have gone on to playing many sports. Some of them are still active, even though they're now growing up with families of their own.

still, some of them still playing international tournaments and things like that in seniors' level. Following in their father's footsteps. I suppose. Or their mothers. Growing up parenting-wise with your three daughters, what were some of the things you worried about back then as parents? Well, they didn't give us a lot of, a lot of things to worry about until they got into a little older as teenagers, you always worry about them going down the wrong track, getting

enticed with other friends that might lead them astray. You know, I think that's a natural thing for parents to be concerned about. I think it's important to talk to your kids and try and guide them down the right lines. They have to make decisions themselves, and you hope they're making the right ones and you try to maybe give them a little guidelines what that's all about. What were some of the things you tried to instill in your daughters? Hmm. I never really thought about that.

They seem to do pretty well in their schooling and we always talked about education being important. But, yeah, I don't really have a lot to say about that. It just seemed like they seem to be always, you know, doing things that we were pretty proud of, you know, accomplishments in the sports or in their schooling results, their education results. So, yeah, we didn't, they didn't give us a lot of problems to worry about. I guess. If you could go back to your 20-year-old self, so rewind the clock,

you can hop in a time machine tomorrow and sit there and have a chat with them. What piece of advice would you instill on them, or impart on them? Try and tell them. I'm not sure a 20-year-old. You're saying when they were 20-year-olds or when I was.

When you were. If you could go right now, walk out this door, hop in a machine, right back to Cozy Nook, Saskatchewan, and pass along some advice. from what you've learned in your lifetime. What would you tell a young bill?

Well, that's quite it. I've never thought about this before, but I just, I just, who am I given this advice to? Anybody? To your younger self. Oh, well, I don't have a lot of, I don't think I've got a lot of advice.

I just, I know, I know from the time I guess I was talked into becoming a teacher, I just know that what has made me happy and probably satisfied is being able to help young people. If it's a difficulty they're having in a school situation, what can I do to help? And that's when I graduated or retired, let's say, from teaching to becoming a bus driver, I got talked into that. You started all these programs in coaching and you've got wilderness campouts and you've got canoe trips. You've organized. Now we need a driver for all that.

I said I would try that for a year. But when I decided to do that, people said, how can you? Why would you retire from teaching and then do something so stressful as driving a bus? And they have no idea because as a teacher, you're never done. You are continually planning and wondering about those kids that are having difficulty, how you, what can you do to help them? We've tried this, that didn't work. What else can we do?

And so your job's never really done. You could be marking papers and making suggestions for corrections on written work. It goes on. And then the lesson planning for the next day or the next week or the next month continues. When I turn the key on that bus, I'm done for the day. And so there's a whole different stress level. But it's, I think, how to help young people develop how to grow has always been sort of at the forefront. And there's always been a satisfaction of seeing that happen.

You can see the eyes laid up. You can see the reactions. I far rather talk to people face-to-face. rather than over a telephone because I can read reactions. And with young people, it's the same thing. Seeing them, you can see it happening. Is there, no names need to be given, but is there one that sticks out to you then in your time

where you saw a young student struggling or what have you? And you tried some different things. And finally, you know, they, lit up or it changed their, you know, their direction. I just, I go back to this very start of this conversation and the man talking to you about you should become a teacher. I can see it. And I mean, look at you, your entire life now has been through the school system and impacting young lives and coaching football and driving the school bus and everything around students and young people and trying to make a similar impact, I think, on a group of people at their very

influential stages. There are one or two that you look back on and you're like, ah, there's this one kid, this one year? There are so many. I don't know how I could single it out, but I could tell you a little story about my most satisfying day in teaching. if you could ever pick a day. It was as I told you about attending university in Edmonton

and actually it's kind of an unbelievable thing but I actually wanted to get back out teaching as quickly as I could I ended up taking two years of university and one by doing a regular year, taking intercession, two summer school courses, and doing that a year and then took actually 10 courses inside of a year. But while I was doing substitute teaching during that process,

I went into a school, I did, went into several schools and it was amazing. You look at the outside structure of a school in the area of the city, you have no idea what the inside of that school is like. And I've talked to superintendents that have the same feeling. But I had that chance. And an old brick school and a rundown part of the city, you go inside as a substitute teacher. And I've had a young man, young kid at the door, sir, would you be here today as a substitute teacher? And I said, actually, that's what I am here.

Well, you come with me. I'll take you to the principal's office. and the courtesy shown by the young fellow, and the whole day spent there was just so amazing as to what you looked at from the outside. I went to a brand new area in town in Edmonton as a substitute teacher. I could just tell you,

I went to the, you always report into the principal's office. There was absolutely nothing that they had. They said, oh, the job. gentleman that you are subbing for in grade seven, he'll be in room so-and-so, or your room will be, we'll say room 22, and everything should be on the desk for the seating plans. And when I got to the room, there was absolutely nothing. Open the desk drawer, there's nothing anywhere. There's a couple of textbooks laying on the top of the desk. There's nothing. I went back, and they said, well, we have nothing.

You are just going to have to wing it. So I went back, in a grade 7 class, I went back to the room. And before long, the warning bell, and there's kids coming down the hall. They came into the door, stuck their head in the door, and then back, and you could hear, sub, sub, sub, sub, down the hall. And the kids came in, and it was absolute hell. There was stuff getting thrown, there was people being pushed, there were unbelievable behavior.

And when they all got in, I started to talk, to introduce myself. I had my name written up on the chalkboard already, and I tried to go to, well, you couldn't even get a word in, there was stuff going on. There were, and I got absolutely nothing. to go on. So where do we go from here? I've never done this before in my life. I picked up a book on desk and slammed it on the desk and went off like a rifle shot. There's an absolute did silence went over the room. A little girl in front that was turned completely around yipping at the girl behind her. She jumped and landed out in the aisle way and other kids had really,

jumped and scared them. And then with this dead silence, I said, wow, that almost scared me too, you know. And I just said, I have to apologize. To you, young lady, sorry about this, but I said, I just have to tell you, and we started from there, I said, I don't, I'm going to tell you right off the bat. I don't have a thing to go on. I don't have any seating plan. I don't know even what course is you. you're taking or what the timetable looks like. I said, we're on our own here. And if we want to have a successful day, I need your help.

And so I'd like you to take out your books for the first class that you'll be having. Guess what? The whole room got up and they all switched seats. They went over now to their own seats. They figured I had a lesson plan, I guess, and they were going to really fool me. Anyway, when I said that, and I had started out with an apology. They went back to their own class, their own desks, got their books out, still not a peep out of any one of them. And I said, I just want you to know.

I told them who I was. And I said, I'm not a new teacher. I said, I've been teaching for years. And you might as well know, I've never seen the behavior. I'm just thinking, what would your parents think of if they had witnessed this? They knew that you were behaving like this. But anyway, I said, if we're going to have a successful day, need you to help me out here. So I don't know who you are and maybe we can get along

without that. I need to know if there's anybody absent and they said oh yeah there was one kid I think they knew that wasn't there so they were cooperative I had to send that down to the office but other than that found out what they were doing first and we've kind of set up the periods of the day that they'll be covering first thing was an English course. Well, having taught all the subjects, I was okay with this. But found out, I said, so, yeah, they had an assignment, but only about three kids got the assignment done because the other kids didn't know how to do it. It was about parts of speech. So we went through a very simple explanation on the board about the various parts of speech, explained with a very simple

sentence and then increased it a little bit more with adjectives and what a noun and a verb and whatever well you could see the the light bulbs going on wow something they had missed completely somewhere in there by this is by greed seven they should have known all this but taught them what this was all about well now they knew how to do this assignment so they and it just turned out that the next thing they did was a library period. And I said, okay, what do we do in a library period?

Well, we go there and if we have any assignments to work on, we can do that. There are tables to work out. If we have books with us, we can take them to read or we can assign out a book when we get there. I said, well, my experience about a library is we have to be quiet.

We have to work quietly. We can't be talking. And is that true? That's the way it's supposed to be. And I said, and the other thing is, we could have a little fun with this. When we go to the library, there are other classroom doors open. Let's go down there. Nobody even knows we even moved.

We'll go down, file down there, and you'll have to lead me. I don't know where there's library. Well, no, it's just down not far. So we went in, and they all went to tables. Now they had this assignment they now knew how to do. So most of them worked on that. Others quietly went about the library and walked over to me and said, what's happened here?

I said, what do you mean? She said, this is the classroom from hell. What's going on? And I just said, well, I think we've accomplished something here. And she says, I've never seen this before. This is unbelievable. Anyway, the day went like that. And at the end of the day, I had about 10 kids gathered around my desk to see,

is there any way you could be here tomorrow? And I said, I have no control over that. If I get called in, I'd be very pleased to be able. This is the best day ever that had, you know. So I can just say for me, that was one of the very successful days I had in education. There were some social studies, things that I knew a lot about without having any further assignment, knowing what they'd been covering. Basically, I knew the topic for the day, and I was able to give them a pretty good background on that. We had a very constructive day, I guess you could see, and very successful when it started out like the classroom from hell.

you know, went from the absolute worst to the absolute best. And, you know, you just, I would have loved to been back there. As it turned out, their regular teacher must have been back because I got canceled out of that one and sent to another school the next day.

Yeah. Oh, what leadership can do is all I hear there. That's a fantastic story. Yeah. I mean, that is a fantastic story. Well, we've been going for an hour before, minutes. And I don't know how much better to leave it off your best day or maybe one of your most memorable days in teaching. So I just want to say thank you very much for coming down

Bell and sharing some stories from your life. And it's been very enjoyable to sit across from you. Yeah, well, thank you very much. As I see, making the move to Lloyd Minster back in the summer of 1968 till now it's been just a great community and there's some fantastic people not only in sports but in all other associations we haven't talked about fishing game but later today I guess I just quickly say there in fish and game I'm chairing three different events two of them involve youth you might be surprised about that but later this afternoon I'm presenting a scholarship to a young lady that attended LCHS and is now attending Lakeland College and so I'm doing that's one of the scholarship programs one of the

areas and the other one is involving it's called our youth outdoor activity day and we take 50 kids boys and girls ages 10 to 13 out to our our our property, fishing game property out in the gully east of Lloydminster. And it's a great program for these kids, get some out into the wilds. That's right. Yeah. So, yeah. Okay.

Well, thanks again, sir. I really appreciate sitting across for me and you coming in and doing this. Yeah. Well, it's been nice meeting you. And it's just great doing this podcast. What a great thing that you're doing. that's wonderful. Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much, Sean. Hey folks, thanks again for joining us today. If you just stumble on the show and like what you hear, please click subscribe. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday a new guest will be sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you find your podcast fix. Until next time.