ROBERT FIFE MEETS BISHOP TOM CORSTON 44 YEARS LATER AT CHAPLEAU HIGH SCHOOL REUNION

When Robert Fife was in Grade 9 at Chapleau High School in 1968-69, Tom Corston was in Grade 13 and president of the Students' Council. During the initiation a photographer captured Bob holding an umbrella over Tom, while also sneaking a smoke at the bottom of the hill at the new CHS.

Over the next 44 years they went their separate ways but they met at the 90th anniversary reunion festival of CHS, where Tom, now the Rt. Rev. Thomas A Corston, the Anglican bishop of the Diocese of Moosonee, invited Bob, now the Ottawa Bureau Chief of CTV NEWS, to participate in an ecumenical service.

Thomas A. "Tom" Corston, born and raised in Chapleau, Ontario, the son of Frances (Jardine) and the late Henry "Chicken" Corston, was elected the ninth Bishop of the Anglican Church Diocese of Moosonee at a synod in Timmins in July 2010..

He had been serving as an  archdeacon in the Anglican church and also Rector of the Church of the Epiphany, Sudbury, Ontario, in the Diocese of Algoma.

Growing up in Chapleau, Tom was active in St. John's Anglican Church, as AYPA president, which is a parish in the Diocese of Moosonee, he now leads.. Tom becomes the first Chapleau boy to have become an Anglican priest to have been elected a Bishop. Tom was also a president of the Students' Council at CHS.

He graduated from Lakehead University with the Bachelor of Arts degree and Wycliffe College with a Master of Divinity degree. He was ordained a deacon in the Anglican church in a service at St. John's Anglican Church, Chapleau, in 1974, and became a priest a year later.

He started his ministry in the Diocese of Moosonee and then served in several parishes in Atlantic Canada and Ontario.

Tom's grandparents John and Lydia (Swanson) Corston, came from James Bay in the Diocese of Moosonee to Chapleau in 1907 where his grandfather began work with the Canadian Pacific Railway. They established their family home on Grey Street.

Bob, who was born in Chapleau,  is the son of Margaret and the late Clyde Fife. Bob's grandfather George Fife was manager of the Chapleau Electric Light and Power Company and served as reeve of the Township of Chapleau from 1938 to 1942. Bob's father Clyde was later the manager and then of Chapleau Hydro.

After graduating from CHS. where like Tom,. he had served as president of the Students' Council, Bob attended the University of Toronto where he earned the Bachelor of Arts degree.

In 1978, Bob started his journalism career in the parliamentary bureau of NewsRadio and then he worked for United Press International.  He then became a senior political reporter for the Canadian Press and later spent 10 years as Ottawa Bureau Chief and political columnist for the Sun Media chain. At one point in the 1980s Maclean's magazine called Bob the best investigative reporter in Canada.


After the National Post was founded he joined it in 1998, and he became Ottawa Bureau Chief for CanWest News Services and the National Post in 2002.. He has won the Edward Dunlop Award for Spot News and two National Newspaper Citation of Merit for political reporting.

In 1991, Bob's first book, 'A Capital Scandal' which he wrote with John Warren came out. In 1993, Bob's second book, 'Kim Campbell: The Making of a Politician' was published. She became the first female prime minister of Canada. Both books remain a must read for a better understanding of politics in Canada. 

However, it has been since  Bob became Ottawa Bureau Chief of CTV News in 2005 that he has become a household name in Canada.

At the end of the service, a photo op was arranged where Bob and Tom would pose for a photo, although in so doing, I neglected to let them know that the 1968 photo would  play a role in this column. Thanks to Dr Bill Pellow for arranging for the photos to be taken. My email is mj.morris@live.ca.

Thanks to Dr. W.R. 'Bill' Pellow for arranging the photo shoot and providing the photos from the reunion.. Dr. Bill and Bob are surely discussing the major events of the day. Dr. Bill also attended CHS.

SEE STORY ON ROBERT FIFE: http://michaeljmorrisreports.blogspot.ca/2011/01/robert-fife-from-chapleau-winner-of.html

SEE STORY ON TOM CORSTON http://michaeljmorrisreports.blogspot.ca/2010/04/tom-corston-elected-ninth-anglican.html

John Theriault presents a photo feature from the Chapleau High School Reunion

John Theriault attended the 90th anniversary reunion festival of Chapleau High School and provided this photo feature -- a sampler from a reunion. Thanks John.

YES, YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN. I JUST DID AND I HAD A 'BLAST' AT THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY REUNION FESTIVAL OF CHAPLEAU HIGH SCHOOL

As I travelled to Chapleau for the 90th anniversary reunion of Chapleau High School, the one recurring thought in my always wandering mind, was the title of the wonderful novel 'You Can't Go Home Again' by the American writer Thomas Wolfe.


For the past three years I have been writing weekly about the life, time and people of Chapleau, but in the 23 years that I have been living in British Columbia, I had been home only once -- in 2001 for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the incorporation of Chapleau as a municipality.

 That was a great time. I stayed with Dr. G.E. Young, and we spent hours sharing stories about the Chapleau I knew so well. There was also a hockey reunion organized by Earle Freeborn and Buddy Swanson, so I was so comfortable going home again.

This time was different. I had been kindly inviited to be part of the program by the reunion committee, which I so much appreciated, and extend my most sincere thanks to them, but it is one thing to write about Chapleau from the other side of Canada and another to be on the scene.

I was also travelling to Chapleau with my cousin Michael McMullen and his wife Alison (McMillan), which created the opportunity to chat about Chapleau moments going back to 1885 when our great-great uncle Patrick Mullligaan arrived in the community. Our respective grandmothers were Mulligans.

Thomas Wolfe told us that you, and me, "can't go home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting all the time -- back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."

I know I am taking Mr. Wolfe out of context, but for me, yes, you can go home again. I just did along with hundreds of others to celebrate to have a "blast" as I wrote to a friend on Facebook when he asked me how it was going.

Perhaps it was made even better by the fact the reunion had begun by the time we reached Suidbury and we had hooked up with about 12 others from my years as a student at CHS in the 1950s, who were now living all over the place but were heading home.

Yes, once home, I saw there have been changes in the physical face of Chapleau.

 However, even though I walked up and down almost all the streets of town, and some back lanes too and went on an expedition over the old bridge at the end of Cedar Street to my favourite walking place past Corston's farm and Pellow's field to the Memegos property, all that paled in comparison to the real reason that I came home.

To me, the greatest resource any community has is its people, and from the moment I walked into the A.W. Moore arena at the recreation centre, my belief was once again confirmed.

There you were -- students I taught at CHS, guys who played on hockey teams I coached, "kids" (now mostly over 40) who acted in plays I directed, members of St. John's Anglican Church which I attended, friends of my parents Jim and Muriel (Hunt) Morris, both of whom graduated from CHS.

I also chatted with friends of my grandparents Edith and George Hunt and Lil and Harry Morris.

I saw many old personal friends and met people I had never known and never would have if I hadn't come home. I had come home with a cousin from my dad's side of the family, and was able to chat with cousins from my mother's side.

I am sure as I type this column from Michael and Alison's home in Ottawa before heading back to British Columbia, you, in your way had similar experiences to me.

Mr. Wolfe, you can go home again "to the escape of Time and Memory." I just did and joined hundreds of others at the 90th anniversary of Chapleau High School -- all made possible because co-chairs Nadia Huard Fortin, Graham Bertrand, both members of pioneer Chapleau families, and their committee made it possible.

Rt. Rev. Thomas Corston, now the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Moosonee, and a member of the Corston-Jardine families, both pioneer families had asked me to read one of the lessons at the wonderful ecumenical service that closed the reunion. When Tom handed me my reading, and I saw it was from the Old Testament- Ecclesiastes 1: 1-8, I looked at him and said, "Thanks Tom. You know me well."

And to all of you, thanks so much, for your kindness while I was home. Trust me. You can go home again. My email is mj.morris@live.ca