Pushing Over

the Apple Cart

Book One:

Joy

Pushing Over the Apple Cart

Book One: Joy

ISBN: 978-0-9917319-0-9

Copyright 2012 by Lawrence Gleason

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

To Helen,

to Josie.

and to Heidi.

With thanks to Georgia Fooks

for her very early advice when we were first-years: "Never throw anything out."

Thanks to Apple

for making such long-lasting, reliable computers,

or this 17-year-old manuscript would have been lost forever.

Thanks to Legal Aid Alberta for funding this long-ago case after I could no longer do so.

Thank you's to Ethel Bartlett, Phil North, and William (Bill) Plomp,

and Heidi and Jill of the Lethbridge Sexual Assault Centre,

and "Mouse" of Lethbridge Community College.

And to the Communication Arts class of 1994

my best wishes, with hopes life has, and will, treat you well.

Book One: Joy

Chapter 1

"I went to school with you, in journalism." Deidre MacDonald

Chapter 2

"Gleason vs. LCC? Courtroom six, upstairs." Clerk at Lethbridge Courthouse

Chapter 3

"I've got to tell you something. It was very strange." Helen

~

First Year Student

~

Chapter 4

"Keep your notes." Georgia Fooks

Chapter 5

"Who was the first Playboy Centrefold...?" Midterm exam, question #7

Chapter 6

"He just gave the facts as researched." Richard Burke

"In your own documents you've told me you're relying on a policy that wasn't even in force.."

Chapter 7

"I won!" Joy Nicholson

Chapter 8

"Their Lordships regret..." From college textbook

"In order for the Court to intervene on the merits of this particular situation, then you have to, of course, find some way that those decision makers are statutory tribunals. Otherwise you have no ability in any event to review this matter."

Chapter 9

"Never steal a Stetson" From Poster on Dean Steton's office wall

Chapter 10

"There's right and wrong. No in-between." Al Rudolph

Chapter 11

"I don't know how you did it. But you did it." Georgia Fooks

Chapter 12

"I saw the whole thing." Joe Yau

Chapter 13

"You just love grinding our bones to dust, don't you, Lawrence?" Gail Maxwell

Chapter 14

"They never let you do your last show." Jacqueline Marchand

~

Second Year Student

~

Chapter 15

""For an "A"? I'd fuck him for this napkin!" First-year student

Chapter 16

"They hate me! They hate me! They hate me!" Ruth

Chapter 17

"What's the matter? Don't you recognize me?" Dana Merkl

Chapter 18

"Order! Order! Order! Order!" Chris Clapton

"...does that mean that they can- in Vanek or in this case- that a board could arbitrarily, capriciously, unfairly act to affect the rights of these persons without any cause for concern that the Courts might interfere with such a decision?"

"Yes, I think that is the bottom line."

Chapter 19

"...we have now weeded out everyone we didn't want on council." Alex Hamilton

Chapter 20

"I may be telling you too much." Dana Merkl

Chapter 21

"What we're talking about here is guilty until proven innocent." Lance Brown

"And that is the common law principle, a duty of procedural fairness lying on every public authority making an administrative decision which is not legislative in nature and which affects the rights and privileges of an individual."

Chapter 22

"Joy wasn't removed over receipts. She was removed over a lack of receipts." Craig Knutson

Chapter 23

"Here, read what those bastards are saying about me." Joy Nicholson

Chapter 24

"That's right, I'm a lawyer. But that's all I'm going to say to you, okay?" Ken Torry

"And it says a general right of procedural fairness can operate independently in the absence of any statutory obligation."

Chapter 25

"If she doesn't appeal, people will think she's guilty." Ron MacDonald

Book Two:

The Endeavor

Chapter 26

"There will be no lawnmowing 101." Veryl Todd

Chapter 27

"Just call me. Tomorrow." Kirsten Broatch

Chapter 28

"Truman Capote. In Cold Blood." Me

Chapter 29

"Why don't you come over?" Ruth

Chapter 30

"Look, twat- you broads are all alike."

From a college style article quoting Katherine Stone, California news director, in turn quoting what was said to her

Chapter 31

"People have moved on." D'Arcy Kavanagh

Chapter 32

"Evil has to be met head-on." Eva Brewster

Chapter 33

"You were late. It's too bad for you club." Jacqueline Marchand

Chapter 34

"I wasn't crying. I was sniffling." Ruth

Chapter 35

"There was some concern you might be violent towards her." Veryl Todd

Chapter 36

"I thought we'd be editors together." Kirsten Broatch

Chapter 37

"If you don't drop this I'm going to find it very difficult to recommend you

to future potential employers." Veryl Todd

Chapter 38

"My God, it's happening already." Mary Bana

Chapter 39

"Gleason! Do you sleep in the foundations?" Norm Webb

Chapter 40

"It's you!" Sylvia Bertrand

~

Third Year Student

~

New Classmates

~

Chapter 41

"Hi. I'm Annette." Annette Anderson

Chapter 42

"I don't get it. We're the press and we call the press conference?" Kirsten Broatch

Chapter 43

"I thought this was over. I thought this was over a long time ago." Richard Burke

Chapter 44

"You do what you have to do and we'll do what we have to do." Richard Burke

Chapter 45

"LCC will not tolerate that kind of behaviour." Dean Stetson

Chapter 46

"He's dressing different ever since, those expensive clothes." Janie Michel

Chapter 47

"I'm glad somebody was paying attention!" Janie Michel

Chapter 48

"Try sleeping with the editor." Nova Pierson

Chapter 49

"I'm glad you're running. We need someone like you." Annette Anderson

"You're holding the entire Communication Arts department hostage!" Richard Burke

Chapter 50

"Isn't that private information?" Communication Arts student

Chapter 51

"Something happened Wednesday between you and Ruth and we'd like your version of it."

Mel Delaney

Chapter 52

"We need you on the team." Janie Michel

Chapter 53

"You play their game." Janie Michel

Chapter 54

"Get in!" Diedre MacDonald

Chapter 55

"Everything is different." Mr. G.

Chapter 56

"How did you discover this client of yours?" Stephen Ripley

Chapter 57

"You're too good for that." Robin Baczuk

Chapter 58

"Aw, c'mon, Lawrence. It'll be fun." Annette Anderson

Chapter 59

"WHAT?" Marshall Jones

Chapter 60

"I wish I could go. It makes me mad. And I'm not even a student here." Helen

Chapter 61

"I'm a small, little woman. I'm nobody to be intimidated of." Kirsten Broatch

Chapter 62

"We have to. We have to. If we don't do it, who will?" Janie Michel

Chapter 63

"...way beyond Stephen King." Deidre MacDonald

Chapter 64

"Can you help? I'm having trouble." Vicki

Chapter 65

"It looks pretty good." Veryl Todd

Chapter 66

"I don't know what it's all about." Richard Burke

"It'll only take about five minutes." Megan Yanosik

Chapter 67

"This is crazy." Anmarie Bailey

"This is bullshit." Bobbi Foulds

"Please-" Annette Anderson

"You're not in control of this. They are." Audrey Orton

Chapter 68

"We're ready." Rick Buis

Book Three:

Secret and Scandal

~

In Camera

~

Chapter 69

"You can sit there." Rick Buis

Chapter 70

"It would leave out a great deal if I did not try to describe..." Me

Chapter 71

"Hiya Lawrence. How are ya?" Janet Veno

Chapter 72

"Are any of these allegations true?"

"No."

"None of them are true?"

"No."

Rick Buis, questioning me

Chapter 73

"She got me mad about it! I was ready to go to that meeting and I'm not even a student!" Helen

"Is your position to the extreme that if this had been conducted absent knowledge of Mr. Gleason it would still stand?"

Chapter 74

"Okay, okay, okay! We were friends! But I still think if Ruth - was feeling scared that's something the college should have done something about!" Diedre MacDonald

Chapter 75

"I didn't say anything like that. They never talked to me after." Audrey Orton

"..for good reason they don't want legal counsel involved."

~

Building the Case for Court

~

Chapter 76

"It sounds like a kangaroo court." Richard Pasiuk

"Alright. Miss Bartlett?"

Chapter 77

"There's only one way now." Philip North

"How do we deal with the fairly and apparently clear direction of our Court of Appeal, in cases to which Your Friend has referred, in which seem to be relatively clear in saying no statutory body, no judicial review?"

Chapter 78

"We set the policy and found that it was sound and it worked in this instance." Anne Raslask

Chapter 79

"Now they're never going to see the inside of a courtroom." Helen

"I would submit that either the President had the authority to do this by some means or she did not...How can she make a decision which binds the applicant?"

Chapter 80

"That's a crock of shit! I worked with you there for two years!" Cheryl Bullee

Chapter 81

"That could have happened to me. I could see that happening from a hug." Dennis Barnes

Chapter 82

"If it happened to me I'd pack up and leave this profession without a fight." Crossroads counsellor

Chapter 83

"They'll fight a war of attrition. They'll spend you into the ground. You'll be up against some very big boys and some very deep pockets. You can't win." Mouse

"... the Supreme Court of Canada set out that when you're examining a decision of a public authority, three factors must be considered to determine whether or not judicial review is appropriate."

Chapter 84

"Just let it be. Like water off a duck's back." Audrey Orton

Chapter 85

"Some students complained. They were calling her Hitler in a bra." Kevin Kooy

Chapter 86

"It's not uncommon witnesses change their stories." William Plomp

Chapter 87

"...employers are responsible for the actions of their employees

in cases of proven sexual harassment" Alberta Human Rights Commission

"..leave the matter with the instructor out of it." Phil North

"...they're saying that they can make whatever decisions they wish at publicly funded institutions without regard for the right of individuals...they've been given broad, wide, sweeping, general powers..."

Chapter 88

"Look at her!" Female counsellor

"Were there witnesses you could call?" Lawyer at interview

Chapter 89

"Are you still committed to action against the college?" Phil North

Chapter 90

"You were denied." Legal Aid secretary

Chapter 91

"You have some money coming." Personnel manager

Chapter 92

"We don't usually take these cases. Thank you, that's all." Legal Aid lawyer

Chapter 93

"The college has been unusually arrogant to deal with." Phil North

Chapter 94

"Go back to the college and ask about their appeal provisions." Student lawyer

Chapter 95

"It sounds like an interesting project." Ethel Bartlett

Chapter 96

"You won't get any money?" Josie

Chapter 97

"She plans to recover until mid-December when she will take her annual vacation." the Endeavor

~

Ruling and Aftermath

~

Chapter 98

"Are you really that vindictive?" Ethel Bartlett

Chapter 99

"We won!" Ethel Bartlett

Chapter 100

"You had your chance." Melanie Visser

Chapter 101

"A student loses everything anyway." Deryle Generous

Chapter 102

"An appointee to the [sexual harassment] Committee shall be deemed to have resigned upon...

(1) death..." Red Deer College sexual harassment policy, 1995

Chapter 103

"I think what goes around comes around." Dana Merkl

Chapter 104

"You need to learn and understand..." Mel Delaney

Chapter 105

"Give me a call. Yeah. We'll catch up." Deidre MacDonald

"Thank you very much for two very good submissions."

Foreward

It was the perfect crime.

They had done their job well, four of the five women dressed in the purest white, shoulders to socks, each looking like flower girls or bridesmaids of the purest virtue. The committee was immediately taken in, college administrators were convinced, most faculty members and support workers were satisfied, as were nearly every one of the roughly 3,000 students of Lethbridge Community College, most of whom held the issue in great disdain, even after my court win.

The court victory had restored their civil rights. No newspaper, television or radio reporter reported that. They stuck with reporting the sex scandal.

But if you can't enforce your civil rights, you don't have have civil rights. Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms are just ink splatters on a page if they don't apply to you. My court win ensured all post-secondary schools in Alberta were suddenly subject to judicial review. A strange and special civil court immunity had been defeated.

A secret had been exposed, a dragon slain, but, incredibly, it was still a secret. Everyone assumed we had civil rights. Fighting for them was done long ago.

The Cross Roads counsellor said he would never fight a false allegation of sexual harassment. I couldn't understand it then. Only months after my court win did I understand. One court win is not enough. One hundred court victories would make no difference. Men who never fight false allegations of sexual harassment are perhaps the smart ones. They move on, find new professions or new jobs, create new lives, put it behind them.

The perfect crime is one in which everyone is complicit.

I'll write about this, I told Heidi, a counsellor with the Lethbridge Sexual Assault Centre.

"You won't revisit this," she said. "Men don't."

She was almost right. This manuscript lay dormant for fourteen years within an aging computer. In time the manuscript would not be recoverable.

Then I met Deidre again, fourteen years after it all happened. She had no memory of it. I knew then I had to publish. In the few minutes of our meeting she recognized me, hugged me, gave me her card and asked me to call her so we could catch up. All she, Kirsten, Annette, Robin and Janie Michel had done had changed my life forever. Deidre, cheerful, did not even have the courtesy to remember. Perhaps it all had been a game of young college women, something of so little consequence it was not even worth remembering.

Perhaps the most perfect crime of all is one everyone forgets ever happened.

"I'll be making a statement, but it won't be soon."

Me

"You won't revisit this. Men don't."

Heidi

"This is their apple cart you're trying to push over. They won't let you do it. Others have tried."

Mouse

Chapter 1

"I went to school with you, in journalism."

Deidre MacDonald

November 20, 2009

I met Deidre again and she had no memory of it. She greeted me as an old friend. We talked briefly, minutes only, but it was warm, pleasant. We met, ironically, at a college. By a quirk of fate our meeting was video recorded.

She was a vendor at a Christmas craft fair in Slave Lake's Northern Lights College gymnasium, better known 20 months later as the place Prince William and Princess Kate visited and listened to Slave Lake residents who had lost everything in the fire that destroyed a third of the town.

I don't know if Deidre's house was claimed by that 2011 fire. I hope not.

I was interviewing vendors for a local newspaper. A live pan flute sang over the busy bustling murmur of Christmas shoppers as I interviewed about 20 people in the hour I was there. My camera hung from my neck, its video function on as I made written notes. The video, if needed, would help me later sort out who was who. I briefly questioned one vendor after another, writing names down, moving from one display to the next, taking photographs, accepting business cards, and was talking to a local photographer with displayed framed photographs when a long-ago familiar female voice called out.

"You look familiar."

I looked up.

"Oh, so do you."

"I went to school with you, in journalism," the stranger said, a female vendor selling home-made jewellery from the next booth. The woman, well dressed in grey and black, wore a matching shawl around her thin neck. One lock from her shortish, clipped, dark brown hair strayed over her forehead. She had near model-perfect eyebrows, bright interesting eyes. She looked like Deidre MacDonald. The voice was certainly Deidre's. I decided it was her.

"Yeah, you did," I said. I recognized her now.

"Holy cow. How are you?"

My camera, still on video mode, slung around my neck, danced, recording table corners, flashes of the neighboring vendor, parts of displays, and now Deidre, raising her arms for a hug, walking the couple of steps to do that, eyes bright.

"Deidre," she said, embracing me.

"I know," I said.

"Holy dynamite," Deidre said, moving back. She looked very pleased and surprised.

Me: "Isn't that incredible?"

"Do you know how many years it's been? We graduated in ninety-" Deidre looked toward the ceiling trying to remember what year we graduated in. "-three," she said with a nod, sure of herself.

I knew I had graduated a year before her.

"I graduated in '92," I said. I didn't realize until later we both got our dates wrong, but it made sense to us at the time.

"Yeah-," she nodded, very sure now, "-I took a year off and came back."

"So did you actually-"

"-work?" she finished the question for me. "Yeah. I went to Drayton Valley, and the editor was an ass, and I ended up leaving my whole field."

She went on to describe a meeting with two senior newspaper people. One of them she said "was an asshole." She waved one hand dismissively as she continued.

"I thought, ah, I've seen enough of this shit. It wasn't the same. It was totally different. He wanted, you know, you don't write it like this-"

A woman looked over our way. I explained.

"This came from out of the blue. We were in college together. In-"

"-journalism," said Deidre, finishing my sentence again. "Back in the day."

"Back in the olden days," I said.

I'd written a book about it, with the working title, A Case of Sexual Harassment. Once I had finished writing the book I'd left it inside the MacIntosh computer I owned at the time. I'd kept the computer, never sold or discarded it. Several years later I sat at the computer and read the manuscript again. Several years after that I plugged the old computer in again to read the manuscript. After meeting Deidre I would feel compelled to read this manuscript yet again, and decide, finally, to publish it.

Before that chance winter meeting in the gymnasium of Northern Lakes College Deidre and I last saw each other in the Board of Governor's chambers of Lethbridge Community College- it's called Lethbridge College now- where she was seated at the giant horseshoe conference table covered with a large white cloth she kicked over and over. That meeting might have lasted two hours. She never looked at me the whole time. She never looked at Helen, either. The white table cloth, draped low at Deidre's feet, went poof, poof, poof, as she kicked it repeatedly, showing how unsettled she was.

It was this same month, November, almost to the day, fourteen years before, when I finally forced Lethbridge Community College into Court of Queen's Bench. It was a miracle we were there. Deidre wasn't there. She and Janie Michel, Robin Baczuk, Kirsten Broatch and Annette Anderson, had graduated and were gone, months before. Heidi, Helen, Josie and I were there, watching what happened in Courtroom Number Six. Rick Buis was there, too, his winter trench coat on, as he sat by himself on the other side of the courtroom, three or so seats behind the college's lawyer he had greeted warmly when he came in from the fresh snow outside the Lethbridge courthouse. Mouse had predicted Donna wouldn't be there, and that Buis would be, in her stead. Mouse was right. Mouse was right about a lot of things.

It was cold that day. Very cold. There was a lot of snow that year in Lethbridge.

Chapter 2

"Gleason vs. LCC? Courtroom six, upstairs."

Clerk at Lethbridge Courthouse

Court of Queen's Bench,

Lethbridge Courthouse

Lawrence Gleason vs. Donna Allan and Lethbridge Community College

November 27, 1995

Thank God.

I thought this day would never come.

Guided by the parking meters- this morning road and sidewalk look the same in undisturbed snow- I stop the car below the stern, block-wide, brown-brick fortress that is the Lethbridge courthouse, its usually dark top-most parts wearing an ivory cap only the sun can remove, if it ever comes. Low white cloud shrouds the city like a dome.

The last obstacle to my entering this courthouse are a row of uniformly thin, white-hatted silver minutemen, standing at rigid attention each with a single unmoving official foot buried in a camouflage of unblemished purity. I dig my hands deep inside my dress pants pockets for parking meter change. Nothing. Josie searches her purse and finds a quarter.

Brushing fresh heavy snow from the car this morning I realized I had no formal shoes suitable for snow and no heavy coat I could wear with a suit jacket.

I step outside the car, take my parka off, toss it on the driver's seat and retrieve my sports jacket from the back.

It's cold. The air is damp. It feels like ice needles. I want to get into the courthouse fast.

Josie tells me to put my parka in the trunk.

"In case someone breaks in," she says.

"Here?" I want to say, but don't.

While I put the parka in the trunk Josie feeds a snow-capped parking meter a quarter.

"It's good for thirty-six minutes."

"We'll be a lot longer than that."

She looks across the street at a business that looks closed.

"Where can I get change?"

"We have to get inside. They must have change in there."

Inside the courthouse we see a ceiling monitor like the ones at airports announcing flights and look up at it. My case isn't showing. We go to the counter and ask a clerk for change. They don't have any.

I ask her: "Where's the case of-"

"Gleason vs. LCC? Courtroom six, upstairs."

At the top of the stairs, in one of the orange plastic chairs- again like the ones at airports- a bald man sits, looking like a disgruntled air traveler, slouched in his seat, staring straight ahead, his hands jammed into the pockets of his open, rumpled trench coat. A wide brown briefcase waits on the floor at his feet.

Josie and I spot Helen and Heidi at the end of a wide, red carpeted hallway, framed by a tall window behind them.

Josie hasn't met Heidi yet. I introduce them and realize I still don't know Heidi's last name. Counsellors with the Sexual Assault Centre don't provide last names to clients. Or maybe just to male clients, I don't know.

Heidi has only seen me with Helen.

"Are you the lawyer?" Heidi asks.

"No," Josie says.

"Thanks for coming," I tell Heidi.

"I wouldn't have missed this," she says, firmly.

Introductions done, Heidi sits back down in her wooden chair, facing the large double doors to Courtroom Number Six. Helen, Josie and I stand around her. Heidi tells us she thought she'd come in the wrong day, when first to arrive, she also hadn't seen the issue come up on the court monitor. She'd gone though four clerks before someone knew where and when this case was going to be heard.

Helen said when she'd gone to the counter the clerk finished her sentence, immediately assuming Gleason vs. LCC and pointed us upstairs.

"The same thing happened with us," I said.

Obviously civil lawsuits must not be a spectator sport. The clerk gave the impression it was unusual someone would want to watch the proceedings of one.

Josie, looking out the tall window, tells me there's space in a parking lot below.

"It doesn't have any parking meters," she says.

She tells me she'll be back, she's going to move the car.

"I'll move it."

"No. You stay here."

She leaves. The rest of us continue to wait.

Helen looks steamed.

"I'm livid," she says. "I feel like kicking someone."

We stop talking suddenly as we notice the bald man that had been sitting among the orange chairs above the stairs is walking the hallway toward us, carrying his wide brown briefcase, his trench coat carelessly open. He pulls on the door of Courtroom Number Six with his left hand, but the door is locked. He turns and walks back down the hallway. Each of us continue to watch him.

So. He's the lawyer for the college.

A short time later Rick Buis comes up the stairs in a lined trench coat like the one the lawyer wears and greets the lawyer warmly. Interested comrades in arms, they talk for some time before Buis goes to a pay phone at the top of the stairs, not far away. He talks on the pay phone for a long time.

Josie comes back from parking the car.

Ethel Bartlett, coatless, carrying papers, appears from a side door halfway down the hallway. Joining us, she shakes Helen's hand.

"So you're the one who made the submission at the hearing," she says to Helen.

"Yes."

Ethel shakes Josie's hand.

"Hello, Josefina. We've met a few times already."

Ethel meets Heidi for the first time, shakes hands with her and says hello.

Introductions done, Ethel opens the courtroom door and steps in, appearing to have no idea the door had been locked- the reason we had been hanging around in the hall. We decide to follow her and open the door for Heidi who wishes me luck before going in.

Head down, Helen walks toward me, not the door, and hugs me. This moment is important. This matter was the end of everything for us. She wants to win as much as I do- more, if that's possible. She was the only one who was with me from the beginning. She was here now to see it through. It was on Helen's suggestion I'd taken on a private investigator and sought and appealed for funding on this case. She spent money she couldn't afford to spend. She took out a loan to help me keep this going. She supported me even after the was drained, exhausted, hospitalized. She knew Deidre. She had met each one of the female students called the "complainants" in this issue. She knew first-hand how hard it had been to get this far and understood more than anyone we were here only through persistence and miracles. Helen drops her arms from around my shoulders and steps inside the courtroom.

Josie and I embrace briefly at the door. There is nothing to say. It all comes down to this now.

As she steps inside I look up to see Rick Buis looking back at me, the pay phone receiver still pressed to his ear. He'd been watching this, our pre-court ritual at the courtroom door. Something about it appears to bother him.

Inside the courtroom- pine wood, blue tapestry panelling- the public seats are wooden church pews. At the front, the large blonde wood judge's bench is vacant, the judge not yet in. Embossed on the wall behind and above the judge's chair is the coat of arms of the Province of Alberta.

Heidi, Helen and Josie sit on the left side of the aisle, about midway up. Directly ahead of them at the front Ethel Bartlett is seated at the lawyer's table to the left of the judge's bench.

I sit beside Josie. Helen and Heidi are seated together behind us.

Buis comes in, chooses a seat two or three rows ahead of us on the courtroom's right side and keeps his coat on. Ahead of Buis the college's lawyer stands, his coat off, looking ready to begin.

The judge enters, white haired, distinguished looking. He is Justice W. Vaughan Hembroff, we learn later. The four of us rise immediately to our feet, but I notice with surprise Buis does not. He doesn't move, continues to sit. Maybe that's the procedure in these things. The judge takes his place at front and the college's lawyer starts talking right away, even before we're reseated.

"My Lord, my name is Albert. I appear on behalf of the Respondents, Lethbridge Community College and Donna Allan. Ethel Bartlett, on my left, appears on behalf of the Applicant, Mr. Gleason. And I gather you've had a chance to review the material, including the written briefs?"

"I have indeed," the judge responded.

Chapter 3

"I've got to tell you something. It was very strange."

Helen

When I decided to publish this manuscript, 16 years after it was written, more than two years after I'd ran into Deidre again, I went to the garage and discovered I still had six boxes of old college material that helped so much in the battle. It would all help to give this manuscript a final edit and fact check. I'd kept a surprising amount of trivia, old exams, notes, letters, notebooks, a few photographs, and a stack of Endeavor newspapers- that was the college paper we'd worked on. Going through the boxes I threw some things out including two photographs, one a faded speak-no-hear-no-see-no-evil photograph of a television first-year, Mary-Anne, seated with two others at a Buchanan Library table. The other was a greasy looking large print of Karri perched on a stool in the Endeavor, holding her knees with her fingertips, her beautiful back curved in a cheesecake pose.

I was surprised how much detail was kept in the half-dozen boxes. Never throw anything out, Georgia said. So I never did.

There were some surprises inside.

I had completely forgotten I'd written one story about a Christmas present, before Helen and I moved to Southern Alberta and I started college in Lethbridge.

I'm amazed at it, because it flows well and the troubles I had in news writing when I started in journalism are not apparent in it. It could have been edited much later. In the manuscript I was strict about quotations, but in this piece larger quotations are given from memory. That wouldn't have passed muster for the rest of this book. The first page of it is missing, but it's not missed.

It is the only article I have that shows how in sync Helen and I were at the time we were together. We thought alike, we shared a sense of things. That's important, so this article should be included, and I have chosen to put it up front. Shirley might not be so thrilled I wrote this. But just before we moved to Southern Alberta where I became a student at Lethbridge Community College, there was just Helen and I in Edmonton, and I wrote this, beginning with her family reunion in Saskatchewan:

Young singles sat on the lawn. Men segregated themselves at picnic tables and carried on their own conversations. Everyone seemed comfortable and casual. I began to understand why Helen called this home.

Helen and Irene were greeted by everyone with warmth and familiarity. I was introduced to friendly eyes. I seemed to be the only one there not known by all.

After a time, as everyone knew each other's business except mine, I received a good deal of courteous attention. I met every sort of relative- sisters and brothers and in-laws and aunts and uncles- who spread themselves throughout the house and over the lawn, engrossed in conversation.

Helen and I sat on kitchen chairs in the shade of a tree.

"What do you think so far?"

"You have a big family."

"Not everyone's here. I have a brother in Manitoba who isn't here and a sister who lives in Vancouver."

"It's too bad they couldn't make it."

"Gerry had to work. Shirley stayed away."

At such a friendly gathering, this sounded out of place.

"Why?"

"Shirley's Shirley," Helen said. "You'll have to meet her to understand. I don't think she's doing that well. She's one of those people who feels sensitive about things like that."

"Even among her own family?"

"Especially us. She came to the last reunion. She had just come back from Europe. She brought presents for everyone. She just beamed the whole time. Everyone asked about her trip. She loved that."

Helen took a sip of her lemonade. "Shirley's just unsure of herself. She needs people to respond to her favourably."

In February the following year, Helen received a letter from Shirley. In it she announced she was engaged to be married. Helen was thrilled. She speculated that Shirley had had a whirlwind romance.

"Listen to this," Helen said, poking me in the shoulder, letter in hand. "The date should be sometime in June. His name is Rick. She says she met him in November."

Helen folded the letter and carefully placed it back into its envelope.

"I'm happy for Shirley. She's had bad luck with men. I didn't tell you this, but she had a serious thing with some guy in New York City, of all places. She lived out there for a while with this guy. She told everyone he was quite wealthy and lived in a penthouse. No one met him. Shirley was ready to be married and wrote us a date would be set. The bastard threw her out. He wasn't very nice about it, either. Ann told me. She said it was terrible, Shirley was so devastated. She never left the house. Ann said she was so quiet the whole time, spooky quiet, she called it. She stayed with Ann while in Toronto. Then suddenly she moved to Vancouver. No one saw her for a year."

The invitations followed shortly with a wedding date made for June. I was still not going to meet Shirley. I couldn't make the wedding due to work.

Two days before the wedding, Helen flew out to Vancouver. She telephoned me that evening.

"We're all here," she said. "Shirley met me at the airport. She looks great. She's a happy lady. And I think I screwed up. I feel like a shit. I made a boo-boo. I made jokes in the car about what I thought the guy might look like. I was just teasing to ease things up. I mentioned a bald head. Shirley's look could have frozen fire. I didn't know until then. He's thirty-five or something. He's a nice guy. Shy. They don't come any shyer. And, of course, he's bald. It's strange that Shirley's so damned sensitive about it."

Helen had more news the following night.

"He's a computer programmer. He travels a lot on contract. He has a condo two blocks away from his parent's place. Get this. He's thirty-six years old and he's lived away from his parent's for 14 years and his mom still makes his bed. Can you believe that? He's dizzy about Shirley. Everyone comments on it."

Helen didn't phone the night of the wedding. The following night I met her plane. I watched her walk through the gate doors. She looked tired.

"How did it go?" I asked.

"Thank God it's over," she said. "Guess where those two are flying tomorrow? Cancun. Must be nice."

I picked up her luggage and carried it to the parking lot. In the car Helen slipped off her shoes and leaned her seat back.

"It went great. Shirley just glowed. Radiant all weekend. Mom and I wore the same dress. Can you believe that? Identical."

She suddenly sat up and put her seat upright.

"I've got to tell you something. It was very strange. Shirley lost her cool once and it was the weirdest thing I ever saw. She was upset about one of the wedding presents. Get this. Shirley had asked guests to give her certain presents. If that's not enough, she was upset when she didn't get exactly what she asked for. She actually threw a tantrum. God. I was embarrassed. For example, she asked Carla and Mike for a lemonade pitcher with matching glasses. She wanted them in cool blue with beach balls on the side. Well, no beach balls, and God, was she pissed. A tantrum in front of her wedding guests over a lack of frigging beach balls painted on the side of a damn pitcher. I couldn't believe it. It was the only time all weekend she was like that."

A month later, Shirley telephoned Helen. She and Rick were coming to Edmonton. He was bidding on a six month job here. She asked Helen to find them a good hotel. Helen was polite on the phone, but livid when she hung up.

"Can you believe that lady? That woman knows this city better than I do. She got her degree here. She lived here for four years, for Pete's sake."

We met at Irene's. Rick and Shirley were already there. Rick was as shy as Helen said he was. When we came in he stood and extended his thin hand gingerly in greeting and he smiled. He was a little shorter than I was. He was balding. We shook hands.

"So, we finally meet," I said.

Shirley didn't stand, but I could see she was more my height. She had sharper features than her sisters. Her back never relaxed, even when sitting. She held her chin straight out as a woman might if alone and enduring a short elevator ride with offensive strangers.

"Hello," she said. "Helen's told me so much about you."

She looked at me briefly without smiling. Her eyes were filmy, without depth. She extended her hand without looking up at me. I gripped her hand briefly.

"It's nice to meet you, too," I said.

Helen and I decided where to eat, a pizza restaurant. In the dim light over beers, the photo albums were passed around. I thought passing wedding albums over the table at a pizza bar unusual, but no one else seemed to mind. As each album was passed to me I turned the pages slowly, peering at the photos as if interested, until I had finished the last album.

"Well, how do you like them?"

I glanced up and realized Shirley was speaking to me. Helen had been right in describing her. Shirley did glow as the center of attention. There was something more to this, but right then I couldn't put my finger on it. Shirley raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"Nice," I said.

I looked down again and actually looked at a picture. Rick and Shirley had been married only seconds and were leaving the altar. Rick had his arm raised to link it with hers, but Shirley's elbows, though bent, were at her sides. She paid no attention to her new husband. She held a sprig of flowers in a tight fist in front of her. Her other hand was similarly clenched. She looked triumphant.

I closed the album and passed it back across the table.

"Very nice," I said. "It looks like you spent a lot of time on this."

"It was worth it," she said. "It's too bad you could't make it."

"It was a great wedding," Irene said.

"Oh, it was," Shirley agreed. "A great wedding."

Shirley reached for her husband's arm.

"That wedding was a lot of work, honey," she said, looking at her husband, patting his hand. "A lot of work. I'm not going to do this again, honey. honest, I'm not. This is the last time. The very last time. Honest, honey."

Even in the dim light, before he quickly recovered, I watched Rick's face freeze. Helen lightened the moment.

"Well, my God, of course you're not. Don't be silly."

I drank my beer while conversation tittered around me. I felt out of place and wanted to draw Rick into conversation, but I didn't know what to talk about.

I thought of the last photograph I'd seen. I'd seen hockey players look like that after scoring a goal.

The conversation turned to travel.

"Mexico was quite different," Shirley was saying.

She looked at me.

"Have you ever been there?"

I shook my head.

"Well, it's nothing like people make it out to be. You really have to experience it. And the food isn't at all like Chi-Chi's. That's only an imitation of the real thing. I got quite used to the food when I was there."

She looked at me again.

"Helen says you've travelled."

"Not much."

"Well, I'm looking forward to travelling now. I have so many plans. I've always wanted to go to Antarctica and Iceland. I don't know why. I just always have."

"Well, you both can," Irene said. I glanced at Irene to see how she was taking this. Irene was the youngest of the family, in her third year at university. She was smart, attractive.

"Oh, I know. We certainly have opportunities. I don't know why when people get married they say it's your money and my money. It's our money."

In the dim light of the bar Rick's face was an innocent expression of politeness. I reached into the middle of the table for the beer jug and filled my glass.

That night, Helen and I lay in bed.

"Did you hear her?"

"Leave it alone," Helen said. "I'm going to sleep. Good night."

Rick bid on his contract and was confident of the outcome. We all met at a restaurant he and Shirley decided on, Chi-Chi's. When we arrived Rick, Shirley and Irene were already seated.

"We were just having drinks until you got here," Shirley said. She recommended selections for us and we agreed. A waiter came to the table and we gave him our selections.

"Is the meat fresh?" Shirley asked the waiter. She didn't look at him.

"Yes," he said.

"I need another drink," she said, waiving her hand dismissively, still not looking up. "Not so much tequila this time."

I talked to Rick about his computer programming business. The business sounded like a partnership, with Rick as the junior partner. The long-time partnership sounded rather shaky, something quite recent, it seemed.

"Why should I let him bid on the project when I can bid on it myself and keep everything?" he asked rhetorically, at one point.

Rick won the contract with Alberta Transportation and would be working in Edmonton for six months. He flew in from Vancouver and we had him over for dinner.

"I thought you said your apartment was small," he said. "It's really very nice. It's cozy."

It was a polite thing to say. The apartment Helen and I lived in was quite small and I was sensitive about it.

Having flown in, Rick had no car in Edmonton. He asked Helen if she would pick up Shirley when she flew in.

When that day arrived I was home, reading on the couch. Helen came into the apartment, furious.

"Do you know what that woman did at the airport? She turned up her nose at my car. I could see it. It was like she was going to be diseased or something if she got in. When she got in she acted as if I and the car had leprosy. I couldn't believe it. That's not all."

I waited for the rest.

"She took one look at Rick's hotel room and said it was unsuitable. She told Rick to phone for another one. While he did that, she and I went for drinks. She told me Rick is too easy, he doesn't stand up for himself. She says he has four hundred dollar suits and can't afford to get them smelling like tobacco. She wanted a non-smoking room. Guess where. The twenty-sixth floor of the Empress Plaza."

I think she said the Empress Plaza. It was something like that. (Years later, editing this piece I couldn't find the name while checking. Looking at photographs of buildings, I recognized the building. Now it's called Coast Edmonton House.) I was surprised and impressed. I knew the hotel she was referring to. It was a luxury hotel and one of the buildings that dominated the downtown. Rick and Shirley would be living there for six months. They would have an amazing view of the river valley.

"Why wouldn't the stuck-up little snot drive here? She said she's come up for two weeks. They don't have a car here. He needs the car for work."

Helen set her mouth in a tight line of resentment. "I'll tell you this. I'll be damned if I'm going to be chauffeuring her around."

For the whole time Rick and Shirley were in Edmonton we saw them seldom. We met them once at West Edmonton Mall. After meeting at a restaurant Shirley and Helen shopped while Rick and I drank beer. Eventually they returned with a few treasures they took out of their shopping bags to show us.

"I bought some lottery tickets, too," said Shirley. She laid them down on the table and began to scratch at the scratch-away surface with a dime to discover what she had won. She bent her head to the table and her forearm blurred. I watched her scratch the tickets furiously, desperately. She sat up, genuinely disappointed.

"Nothing," she said.

A day after Remembrance Day, I arrived home before Helen, through air wet and heavy with grey fog.

When she came in, I said, "I picked up a parcel for you. It's from Rick and Shirley."

Helen was surprised.

"Rick and Shirley? What's in it?"

"I don't know. I haven't opened it."

We sat on the carpet and opened the careful wrapping of the package. Inside the box, neatly shredded paper protected two neatly wrapped Christmas presents. One was addressed to Helen, the other addressed to Irene. A sealed card accompanied both presents. On each envelope was marked, "Do Not Open Until December 25."

Helen reached her hand inside the box and sifted through the paper.

"There's no letter."

There was no card for either package. We sat back on our heels over the opened cardboard box and looked at each other. Even filled with Christmas presents, the box seemed jarringly business-like. The box seemed as coldly impersonal as its early arrival date was efficient. We looked at each other, puzzled, then stared at the box, sprinkled with return address stickers. Then, at the same moment, we both understood. We began packing the box, now containing only Irene's present, for its return. We would add a thank-you note for ours.

Shirley wouldn't understand, of course. Irene's present would have to be mailed again, this time directly to Irene. In sending the present directly to Irene, Shirley might add a letter to go along with it. The letter might say, hope this arrives on time. Something. Hope you are well. Something. Even just that. Have a good Christmas. Something. Shirley would have to express herself, even if it was only to express surprise at our rudeness, we were so rude we couldn't even cross town to deliver her present. But even that would still be something. There was time. Christmas was a long way off. If this present arrived at Irene's with a note, the present would then include some sentiment, some emotion, the one thing Shirley seemed to have forgotten how to give. It was for Christmas, for God's sake. Wordlessly Helen and I carefully rewrapped the box, preparing for its return to Vancouver.

~

First Year Student

~

Chapter 4

"Keep your notes."

Georgia Fooks

My first class at Lethbridge Community College began with a warning from Rusty, our night school chemistry instructor, telling the female students if they felt uncomfortable going to their car alone to ask security to escort them. He spoke as if we all knew about the recent violent sexual assault on campus, but it seemed most of us were hearing about it for the first time. Rusty impressed as someone not prone to dramatics or exaggeration, so we listened, taking his warning seriously.

I was a part-time student then, high school chemistry two nights a week, 7:00 to 10:00 p.m., an hour drive to the college for three hours of classes and an hour drive back. Before Helen and I moved to Southern Alberta I had finished Grade 10 and 11 chemistry at night taking classes with a surprising number of adult students in an Edmonton school classroom. After we moved I discovered the college in Lethbridge, 45 minutes away, had an evening Grade 12 chemistry class beginning in January. I would complete the course in June. Completing high school chemistry would allow me to continue on to college.

After one evening class, feeling unusually tired, I stopped at a hallway bulletin board and read everything on it, hoping that would make me more alert before the drive home. Among the notices one posted letter said a college department called Communication Arts was offering a new course called Community Television.

Wow. A two year program in television.

I drove home thinking about it, applied soon after and received a letter of conditional acceptance, saying I had to pass a required pre-entrance examination testing three areas, grammar skills, ability in essay writing, and typing speed, for a minimum 25 words per minute. An interview for suitability would follow.

I prepared hard for the exam's essay portion, taking my first university course, English 255, through Athabasca University by correspondence. I built up typing speed, practicing with the software program, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing.

Exam day came. I passed the first test easily, providing a hand-written essay. A computer then rated my grammar skills in the 92nd percentile. The typing test was the final hurdle. I blew my first typing trial, penalties for mistakes dropping my score to just 10 words per minute, my second trial barely better at 17. On my third and final trial I typed at moderate speed to keep mistakes down. I scored 24 words per minute, failing the entrance exam by one point.

Exams over, we were told to proceed to a room to await interviews. Having failed my entrance exam, I wasn't sure I belonged anymore, but followed behind other student hopefuls to wherever they were going. We were led into a classroom with four long white tables supporting rows of about forty small Macintosh computers. We each took a seat at a computer and waited.

I'd learn later this room was AN1705. "AN" was short for Andrews, indicating we were in the Andrews Wing of the college, where the Communication Arts and Criminal Justice programs were taught.

This room was where first-year students worked. Second-year students worked in a neighboring classroom nicknamed, "the Endeavor," for the campus newspaper of the same name produced there. We would learn the Endeavor didn't look like a classroom. It looked like a newspaper office.

While we waited, two cheery, relaxed, fiftyish men holding coffee cups came into the room and stood at the front. The taller one, grey, balding, wearing glasses and a trimmed grey mustache, introduced himself as Richard Burke. The plump shorter man, rocking on small cowboy boots, was introduced as Veryl Todd. At that time he was chairman of the Communication Arts department.

The two coffee drinking cherubs asked each waiting person in turn why they had chosen the program, and only when they were halfway through the class asking each student hopeful the same question did it dawn on me this was the interview we'd been waiting for. My turn came. One of the two cheery instructors asked me the same question they'd asked others. Whatever I said seemed satisfactory to them both, because in answer they looked to the student behind me and asked him or her the same question.

In spite of the informality and what seemed to be ready acceptance, I was still concerned about my failed typing test. With interview over and students-to-be leaving, I went to the taller, grey-haired, mustached instructor named Burke and told him of my test results.

"You type that fast?" he asked.

While Ian Mandin taught our television classes, we were taught news writing by Georgia Fooks, who would retire at the end of this year, when we were half-way through our two-year program to graduation. Georgia had taught at the college for nearly a quarter-century. Her trademarks included a quick, staccato lecture delivery and her enormous, round, 1970s-style glasses that rested, somehow, on her smallish pert nose. Into each waiting class Georgia carried a voluminous stack of papers in her arms that she set down with the words, "Okay, you birds," and began her lecture from there, stabbing the air with her office keys, clattering like an antique typewriter on deadline until the hour was up. She was the fastest talker most of us had ever heard.

Georgia's lectures were heavily salted with advice. Keep your notes. Never throw anything out. Write the facts. Deadlines are sacred. Never, never leave meetings early. Never be satisfied to one answer to a question.

Early on, we first-year students attended an afternoon of lectures in the gymnasium where media professionals, including Mark Campbell, a long-time local radio and TV personality and 1974 LCC Radio Arts graduate- and still hosting Lethbridge TV in 2012- told us how they became successes and how we might. Much of what they were saying was drowned out by a steady thump of a half dozen or so basketballs being dribbled behind a large blue curtain that divided the gymnasium. After long minutes of this steady thumping students were muttering someone had to shut the basketball players up.

I ran out from the bleachers at the same time as a young woman, both of us sprinting past the lecturers. About halfway across the floor she gave up while I continued, only to nearly fall on my face, having somehow mis-stepped awkwardly, with only unnatural and long paces preventing a fall as I continued to sprint. I didn't fall, reached the curtains, told the basketball players on the other side of the curtain to tone it down, and returned at a trot to unexpected applause.

As I took my seat, Georgia, seated ahead of me, turned with a grin.

"After that show, Lawrence, I'm not referring to you as a Greybeard any more."

The Greybeards, as Georgia called us, were Com Arts students pushing 35 or 40 years of age and older. Being a Greybeard in the Class of '94 was to be among a dozen or so students with a serious work ethic. It was a lucky break for me to be in a class with so many older students embarking on training for a second career. The class after us would have one Com Arts student I could think of that could be termed a Greybeard. The class before us, none. I was very comfortable in the Class of '94.

Writing was much harder work than I ever thought it could be. I wrote like a bricklayer placed bricks. I placed, then tested, words, phrases, sentences, one on the other, replacing some as I went. If I wasn't pleased with my work- which was often- I'd dismantle everything and slowly reconstruct everything from the ground up again.

My first writing assignment was to describe a teacher in 100 words. No exaggeration- it took me five hours. I used exactly 100 words. I counted each word, several times. I asked another student how long the assignment took her. Twenty minutes, she said. I wondered how on earth I was going to continue to do this.

It became necessary for me to work late. Each of us had passes, valid for one semester, allowing us to work in the Endeavor until 11:00 p.m. After that, a late pass was required, officially known as, "Access to Facilities and Use of Equipment Authorization," which was room-specific, always signed by someone in Computer Services, usually by a Mary Shmidt, and good for for four days before requiring renewal. They allowed me to work in the Endeavor until 3:00 a.m. I accumulated many of these and still found that wasn't enough time. On three or four occasions I worked in the Endeavor past 3:00 a.m.

I put in longer hours than anyone, but a lot of Greybeards put in long hours. After we became second-years, I worked with a number of them, late and alone in the Endeavor, for many hours on many evenings, as we toiled over whatever we were working on.

A student who put in many late nights- but only until 8:00 or 9:00 at the latest- was a Saskatchewan school teacher, Marilyn Johnson, who had left teaching temporarily after 14 years to study writing. Marilyn was a blue-jeaned, tall blonde with a milk-white face, and a laugh that sounded very much like a giggle escaping before she could catch it. She was extraordinarily shy, particularly so, I thought, for a teacher.

Her writing skills became apparent early when Georgia read out to us one of Johnson's submitted articles. It was the only time Georgia read any of our articles aloud to the class. This article so moved Georgia that before she finished reading it aloud she burst into tears. Marilyn's milk-white complexion burned crimson.

Marilyn planned to take only the first year of the two-year program. She later changed her mind, telling Mary Bana and I over lunch she was taking another year off, risking losing her teaching position to finish her journalism studies.

Mary would become one of the two chief Endeavor editors for our class. She had a sociology degree she wasn't using and decided on journalism after working with the author of "Who's Who in Southern Alberta," a composite of everyone who might pay for the book after being mentioned in it.

Mary had wispy blonde hair, a round face, and blue eyes that shone interest in everything until she was tired. They then looked like lamps about to fade. Her single most distinguishing characteristic was her laugh- a great, expressive, loud and joyous cackle that could erupt at any time.

At times she worked until 8:00 or 9:00 at night in our first year. In our second year to come, she would like me, work sometimes until close to midnight. At times we'd leave the college at the same time, and on a few occasions we were the last two Com Arts students to leave. In our second year, we were, at least twice, perhaps much more, the last two college day students of the 3,500 or so attending LCC to leave for the day.

Georgia nicknamed Mary my "mother confessor," thinking, rightly, we spent a lot of time together talking, time together noticed by other students. Cathy Christianson, a radio Com Arts student and college beauty, who had an amazing memory- she had been subjected to some sort of testing previously to find out how her brain was doing it- asked Mary if she and I were "seeing each other".

"Oh, no," Mary said, taken aback. "We just hang out."

No one could get under Mary's skin more quickly than Sandy Menard, chief among us Greybeards as he had a real beard, salted white. We called him Sandy, but he used Alexander in his byline. He was a fiftyish pot-bellied former logger and tire salesman, who may have been a McGill graduate, but he hid any academic background by often wearing a uniform of green work clothes. He could play the devil's advocate with any issue, and would do so just to toy with the inevitable comments thrown at him.

He was the most talented writer among us, playing ingeniously with words. My favourite piece of his was a pleasant exploration of group descriptions, taking the reader from a "gaggle of geese" to a "relaxation of baseball fans".

His technical pieces so impressed me I kept copies of two, including one on a jet engine manufacturing company training technicians at the college. Another piece described our larger photographic darkroom from the dim yellow room lighting right down to the glass plumbing. I worked to cram as many images in a small space as he could and never managed.

I thought I was a rather open-minded liberal when I came to college, until after a few discussions with Sandy, who really was a liberal. In one discussion in the Cave, a student relaxation area, he was astounded to discover I refused to read what I called the Toronto Globe and Mail.

"It's not the Toronto Globe and Mail," Sandy said. "It's the Globe and Mail."

He left the table to grab a Globe from a nearby news stand and we went over it. One article was on our newly elected premier, Ralph Klein. I thought I could predict the slant it would have on it. I was wrong. After I read the article, I felt like the original redneck. The article was more incisive than anything local that had been written about our new premier.

Dan Gyulai was another Greybeard, a good writer, good photographer, good sense of humour, a keen sense of what was right, and here to study writing while keeping his career as a tax preparer. He held high standards for himself as a student. As old and comfortably secure as he was he could have had an aloofness about him, but he didn't. He pitched in as hard as anyone.

Another student who worked late at times was Cheryl Bullee. She was not a Greybeard. She was a twenty-sevenish thin brunette, back in school after starting her family. In one class, our instructor, D'Arcy Kavanagh, a tall sports jock, sporting thick-lensed glasses and trademark near handle-bar mustache, described for our class an agricultural writing assignment coming up, something about dairy. For some reason, among we students seated in the roomful of desk rows, D'Arcy seemed to think Cheryl had keyed into some special understanding of his lecture.

"Are you a milk producer?" Kavanagh asked her.

Cheryl's quip detonated the classroom with admiring mirth: "Not any more."

A few who worked late weren't Greybeards.

Karri Green, 19, worked very late a few times, though not in our first semester. Karri, drop-dead gorgeous with beautiful long blonde hair, was an Advertising and Public Relations student and I was in print, so we never worked on the same project, but when she started working later we would, many times, have the Endeavor to ourselves in the evening.

I wasn't impressed with Karri at first. In our first weeks she seemed snooty and slept in class. But we started to get along after she began to put in some serious late hours. Since I was a late hours fixture too, we got to know each other and found we had things in common. We'd both lived in New Zealand for a while and in the nearby town of Claresholm.

I discovered the future Miss Universe, Tara Vanderwalk, a Claresholm girl, lost her first pageant to Karri when they'd both been in a high school modeling class. A contest for Miss Claresholm was held that Karri described as more a lark than a contest. It was Karri's only pageant.

I remember being floored one evening in the Endeavor, discovering Karri wore a Rolex, a gift. Her wearing one wasn't what floored me. It was discovering Karri had no idea a Rolex and a Timex cost different amounts.

She once posed for me one evening on a stool in the Endeavor in our second year, a 1950s cheesecake pose, back curved, finger tips on knees, blue jean shorts, light shirt, I snapped off a roll of film. She was very interested in seeing the results, but at that time my developing darkroom skills were dismal. I tried for two nights in the darkroom to get a good print. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get decent results. Some prints looked grey somehow, others looked washed out, some prints had little round little splash marks like water had dripped on them. The best looked greasy and gritty. I stalled her for two days, then handed her the best prints I had made. She was polite about it.

These were the years just prior to digital photography. Some students made darkroom work look easy, even cool. At the very end of our first year I admired the way a second year editor, Shelli Sannes, would walk out of the darkroom, and while casually talking to someone, hold the end of her just exposed roll of 35 millimetre film, three or four feet long, grey-black dark, and snap the thing like a whip repeatedly to rid it of beads of water. I thought that was very cool, that motion. All I can think of comparing it to is watching 1940s Hollywood stars smoke casually on screen. It just looked cool, working that long strip of film while paying it no attention, talking to someone casually, all the while while snapping it just so, flicking it just right so it went- snap! so any leftover beads of water would fly off. I wanted to copy that motion, learn how to snap that film so expertly while, at the same time, doing it so casually, like this skill was nothing, no big deal. It just looked so cool.

Karri hung out with Andrea Rainault, equally gorgeous, definitely more earthy and plain spoken. Andrea never worked late that I remember, so we didn't talk nearly as much as Karri and I did. Andrea was athletic and an experienced coach. I was impressed by this, but when I told her that, she gave her shoulders a shrug. No one older likes to be told what to do by an 18-year-old, she said.

Rob Follis was a regular in the Endeavor after classes until 6:00 or 7:00 or so, but not the late, late hours some of us kept. Most of the time he worked late he brought his wife with him to the Endeavor and we got to know her. After they had their baby, their occupied blue baby basket was a regular after hours feature in the Endeavor.

Rob was also a match for Sandy Menard with headlines. In a first-year headline producing drill in D'Arcy Kavanagh's class we were given various stories, including a drowning in an Ontario city with the same name as a soap product. Rob quickly penned, "Ajax woman washes up on dock."

He was a good photographer and Cheryl, once on assignment and wanting to work with a good photographer, picked Rob. I elbowed my way into one of her assignments. She was ticked when I met her downtown to take a photograph of something she had dug into. I've no idea why she didn't just take the photo herself, it was unusual to work with a photographer, but when I showed up, she said, rather pointedly for Cheryl, who was never unpleasant, "I thought Rob was going to do this." I got the point and left.

I believe among his best shots was at a church, a grim group of police pall-bearers carrying a casket out the door.

Another student in our class, Ryan Anderson, 19 or so, never a late worker with the rest of us, went out to get the same shot. I heard third-hand the story of his effort, which went he waited outside a church for the pall-bearers to bring the casket out, and when finally mourners came out of the church he began to snap shots, but instead of being ignored like he thought he would be, mourners shot back offended looks. As that continued, the surprised Ryan retreated to nearby bushes and fired his shutter from there, shooting, shooting, but getting more appalled looks from very offended funeral attendees. Ryan slowly realized what was missing among the mourners. Uniforms. He was at the wrong funeral.

Ryan never worked late with us. He was a Canadian Forces Reserve member and young patriot, who at that time wanted a tattoo on each shoulder of a Canadian flag. He later changed his mind about the tatooos. He had a chance to fire a an expensive missile from some missile shooter, whatever that looked like, on a Canadian forces reserve training mission.

The youngest student working late was likely Nikki Mountney, 17 or 18, nicknamed Bliss, which actually was part of her name- it was on her byline as a middle name. Nikki was very, very pretty and loved the colour purple. Her jacket was purple, her book binders were purple, a pen she used was purple. We once worked all night together and she was the only college student I had over to the Lethbridge apartment I took in the middle of my first winter. I had two accidents in one night on winter roads. Working late, a small apartment was necessary, I thought. Helen helped me move a little red fold-up desk into it. Toward the end of our second year, Nikki and I worked late one night on separate assignments, hers a photo layout. After 3:00 a.m. a late pass was no longer valid, but we kept on and finished about 5:00. We went to my place to wash up. I changed, Nikki lay on my bed, tired and waiting, until I pulled her up, successfully ignoring her inviting exposed belly- her top had rolled up- and we left to eat breakfast at Denny's. In the truck, before we started out, she told me she wouldn't have come in if she didn't trust me. It was a nice thing to say.

Deidre was a student with us during our first year only. I first noticed Deidre MacDonald when one night she packed up to leave AN1705, a room down the hall from the room we called the Endeavor, which we hadn't begun working in yet, and wouldn't until we began our second year. In our first semester a half-dozen or so students would work late each night in this room peopled only by first-years. It was a long time before we slowly, one by one, in our second semester, started to work in the Endeavor, almost next door, only Burke's little, but nicely windowed, office and a small meeting room built between them.

I was a regular at night in AN1705. Deidre worked late on a few occasions in that first semester, but wasn't a regular feature. On this night, early in our first year, it was dark outside the long bank of room windows, and she was complaining, not about any one thing, but a lot of things- the bus schedule, her bills, her job, that she couldn't stay to finish her assignment. She wasn't complaining to any one person either, but directed her lament to all of us in the room, five or six of us scattered in it, each of us parked in front of one of those little Mac computers, as Deidre- I didn't know her name yet- packed up and put on her long brown coat. I remember the coat and its colour clearly because just after she'd put it on- and just before she picked up her book bag and left the room- she stopped talking, concluding her lament by leaning back and spreading her arms dramatically, Christ-like, in martyred resignation.

Chapter 5

"Who was the first Playboy Centrefold in 1953?"

Midterm exam, question #7

Our first class field trip was to the Lethbridge courthouse.

I gathered with nearly forty classmates in front of a courtroom door at the end of a long second-floor red carpeted hallway. I paid no attention to its opposite red-carpeted end where, 38 months later, Josie would discover the large window at the end of the hall overlooked a parking lot, and Helen, Heidi, Josie and I would wait at the far end of this hall by the wooden door of Courtroom Number Six.

Our assignment was to report on three criminal court cases. We sat through a half dozen or so matters, then after about two hours of court proceedings the last name was called. Responding was a nervous, pudgy, mid-twentyish blonde man, walking shyly to the microphone before the judge. The young man was plainly mystified by the presence of forty serious news reporters, notepads and pens ready, waiting to hear his case.

The Crown Prosecutor rose. He said the young man had been confronted outside a neighboring small town gas station about a missing pack of hockey cards. He had denied the cards were in his pocket. Police were called and determined otherwise. The value of the cards was two dollars.

The Crown Prosecutor sat and the defense lawyer rose to inform us all all the young man had no previous convictions and had never been in a courtroom before.

Above the massive blonde-wood judge's desk the judge bowed his head and appeared to scribble something. He ordered a $100 fine without looking up and gave the young man instructions where to pay it. The young man realized he was dismissed. He turned, trained his eyes on the courtroom's large door at the back of the room, never taking his focus off his escape route, and fled by us, red-faced, humiliated.

I was the only student who stayed back to interview the defense lawyer. He was very tall, very thin, craggy-faced, had sophisticated mannerisms and wore a nicely tailored blue suit. It occurred to me he would have been perfectly cast in a play as an 18th century gentleman estate owner.

"It went pretty well for us in there," he said to me, but I didn't follow what he meant.

I was also the only one to interview the Crown Prosecutor, chubby, thirtyish, in a well-worn brown suit. I found his small office across the hall from the courtroom. I peeked in his half-open door and asked if I could talk to him.

"Sure, come in," he said.

Although tiny, his office was larger than Georgia's by half. He was framed nicely by the office's only window behind him, tall for this small room. He ignored the barren desk he sat behind. He leaned back in an office chair, legs straight out, feet resting on a short unused bookshelf. He drew heavily from a cigarette and was as heavily preoccupied in his thoughts.

He stared a hole in the wall above his feet as he answered my questions as if thinking about something else. Only when I went to leave did he look up again. He said, sincerely, "Good luck in your new career," then turned to stare at the wall above his feet again, thinking and smoking as deeply as when I had come in.

Georgia's second field trip was an evening Student Association meeting held in the college Cousin's Building lecture theatre, held there instead of their own small board room so our class of forty or so could comfortably watch the proceedings.

We were all relaxed by this time, used to the college routine. Students gathered sloppily into the theatre seats, coats flipped irreverently onto neighboring chairs, legs and feet rested on seats ahead.

Georgia took a seat near the rear exit and placed her thick ring-bound teacher's planner on her lap.

Elected student association representatives gathered around a long, large table at the front. We listened to their drone of routine for an hour before it became too much for one male student. He finally rose and picked up his coat. Some students turned to watch hopefully as he was about to pass Georgia near the rear exit. Coat over his shoulder, he smiled at her. She extended her neck to acknowledge his smile fully with her own broad grin.

Georgia had two smiles, I noticed. One beamed radiant infectious pleasure. The other merely pulled facial skin back from her bare teeth. It was this smile the student got, but it seemed to satisfy him. He left through the rear theatre exit, but didn't see Georgia raise her pen and judiciously make an entry into her teacher's planning book. Half the class left early. Georgia made an entry in her planning book each time a student walked by her to the exit. Every student who left early got no grade higher than a 'C' for that assignment.

"Some people just aren't made to be reporters," Georgia said later, as five of us walked with her from the theatre, the meeting done. I found Georgia to be right about meetings. The most interesting things seemed to happen toward the end. All these years later I am loathe to leave meetings until they are finished up. It's a hard habit to break. But when my week has been filled with meetings, I've learned since not only can't you attend all of them to the end, you should never be obligated to, and sometimes you can't attend them all, period.

During this meeting discussions included a recent week-long trip to Ottawa for a Canadian Federation of Student's meeting, attended by our SA president and vice-president.

It surprised me. I had no idea college student council members travelled like that. Then, I thought our student association simply organized dances and debated issues like the most appropriate colour for posters. About twenty years earlier I had been president of a high school student's council. Our annual budget from student fees totalled less than $1,000. These people spent twice that on a single business trip.

I interviewed the eager student leaders after the meeting and asked about the trips.

They were common and necessary, I was told. The SA had an annual travel budget of $10,200.

How much has been spent so far?

This year's SA is well under budget, but last year's council grossly overspent.

Where did you stay in Ottawa?

It was outside Ottawa. In a hotel.

What kind of hotel? It sounds like a resort.

Well, it was a resort. But we doubled up on rooms.

This was all new to me. Eye opening. It was a good example of Georgia's advice, too. Never leave a meeting early.

Another class of Georgia's dealt with the limits of sex in print, for the seemingly innocent time we were in, just before the internet explosion. There were articles passed around and ten or so photos, most of females, at least one of a male, that one an exposed penis with eye glasses placed over it, prompting one female student to exclaim, "Look at the schnoz on that!"

Georgia told us that one year, when she was about to do this same lecture, one girl had her parents visit and they would be in class. Georgia nearly panicked. She said she considered moving this lecture to another day, then was determined not to change her lesson plan. If the parents were going to sit in her class, they would sit for the very same lecture she had planned for that day for students. She would make no changes.

As she taught that class Georgia said had no idea how the parents were taking this first lecture shared with their journalist-to-be daughter. She carried on with her job and at the end of the class she received a compliment from the parents, who told Georgia she handled the material very well.

We had a chance to do some real television news, reporting a municipal election. Ian Mandin, our television instructor, told us the local cable station, the college partner in the television program, needed volunteers in different areas of the city, including candidates' headquarters. Runners were also needed to drive video tape from those locations to the studio.

It sounded exciting. For the first time I thought we were going to do some real television. It seemed, though, choice election coverage assignments were going to the pretty females in our class. Ian and the station manager may not have had a hand in making up those assignments. That was a function, we understood, of one of the volunteer coordinators. I brought the matter up in class and said the choices looked suspiciously odd. I wanted Ian to address the matter with those who chose the student assignments. When the class ended, one of the girls in the class, Shauna Waldorf, tall, attractive, told me I had a point.

A number of us volunteered at the cable studio across town, but we wouldn't be given credit for volunteer hours until later in our program. We volunteered anyway. We were chomping at the bit to create something. A group of students created a hilarious black-and-white production, a take-off on good-guy, bad-guy silent movies. The video was shot at Fort Whoop-Up, named during the 1800s when the American liquor trade with the area natives was halted by the newly arrived North West Mounted Police. The other shows I didn't see. One, created by fellow TV student Shawn Oliver, called Pretty Women, featured a montage of shots of about a half-dozen female students in college, including classmates Shauna Waldorf, Karri Green, April North, Kathy Christianson, Kathy Ruddick, Andrea Rainault and Joy Nicholson.

Oliver and Kevin Riley, who did the technical work on Pretty Women, saw the thing take off in popularity as it aired on Channel 12. It aired over and over for quite a while. Karri said she had guys in bars coming up to her a year afterward saying they saw her on TV. I'll quickly mention two other videos done. Another was called Vogue, after a Madonna song. From what I gather Vogue was a pose thing people did- God knows why or where. In that one were Jana Bradley, Jamee Lawrence, Amber Babiy, Chuck Laferriere and April North. Oliver did another for the guys called Sharp Dressed Men, featuring Colin Parada, Jamee Lawrence, Blake Sawatske, Mike Djordjevic and Colin Gados.

These creations for TV broadcast showed we were capable of a lot more than we were being given credit for in class, going through our over-priced $95 text book with Ian, to learn terms we already knew, when he wasn't telling us TV stories from the old days. It was as enjoyable as a root canal. Long shot. Medium shot. Close up. Fill light. Key light. Bore. Dom.

Community television, we understood, was different than commercial television. A regulation of the powerful Canadian Radio and Television Commission required cable companies to broadcast local programming. That Canadian content regulation created the community television industry. Local programming required studios. People were needed for those jobs- camera operating, lighting, switching, directing, hosting, VTR operation, and the like.

According to Georgia, the college had at first been denied provincial funding for a television studies program as there were plenty of other such two-year programs offered by Alberta colleges and technical institutes.

According to Ian, when the college tried again to put together a program that would be funded by the provincial government, it did so with the local Lethbridge cable TV company. As there was no community cable television program taught anywhere in Canada, the program developed was truly unique, and provincial funding was granted.

Georgia told me our two-year program, Community Television, had been seven years in the making.

You'd never have known it.

The very first question on a midterm exam, given us by Ian, asked: "What two things butt heads in a newsroom?" I had no idea what he meant. What did "butt heads" mean? Arguing? I wasn't sure. I thought a college-level exam would be less ambiguous. I put down editors and writers and received one mark of two. Question seven on the same exam was "Who was the first Playboy centrefold in 1953?" I didn't know that either, and could not fathom why the question was asked, but later found the answer was in one of our textbooks.

I left the program, fed up with television. I was learning more in my writing classes. After one semester I became a print journalism student.

I had been rough on Ian Mandin, our television instructor, 55 to 60 years old, possibly older. He was our class clown. During one class Ian had written, in large letters, underlined with a flourish, the name of the supposed inventor of the bra, Otto Boulderholder. In another class he'd slid on his belly along the length of an eight-foot table to ask a question, up close, of the class beauty, Jeanie Buchanan, seated at table's end. I was not impressed with Ian, but I was in a minority. A lot of students loved him for his clowning. One student wrote this description of Ian: "...his youthful mannerisms belied his age." Many thought his humour a key part of a valued asset, an ability to connect with students.

Ian was twenty-something at heart. He once drove Jeannie and I to the downtown TV studio in his car, a green Volkswagen convertible. He drove with the top down that day. It was sunny and life was good, Ian was cracking jokes as he drove, telling Jeannie not to sit too close to him or people might talk. He really was too young for his age.

It was the last healthy year of Ian Mandin's life. After his heart attack I looked for his house in a posh neighborhood next to the college grounds. A big house with a basketball hoop in the driveway, I was told. They were all big houses with basketball hoops in the driveway. I couldn't find it. I gave the Get Well Soon card, signed by Com Arts students of all program streams, to someone else who knew where he lived.

After I graduated I met Ian by chance, both of us leaning up against a hardware store counter, just talking, former teacher, former student. That's when he told me. While recovering from his heart attack, Ian learned he had cancer. I was shocked- it was an awful shock, sad and unexpected. I had no idea what to say. Ian changed the subject from himself to me and asked me what my plans were now that I had just graduated from college. I had graduated in print journalism.

I'll be going back to study TV, I told him.

Ian winced, hurt in his eyes. It occurred to me he may have thought I'd given him an awful shot at that moment. It wasn't a shot. I didn't like his teaching, we both knew that, but I left the program as I thought it hadn't been quite ready yet in its first year. I hope he knew that.

I called him a few times at home after that and we talked on the phone. He had been undergoing chemotherapy and had to stay indoors to prevent anything from bothering his immune system. He was susceptible to infection then.

In our last conversation we talked of the college TV program and its formation. He was cheery.

"Talk to you again," he said.

But it was our last conversation.

I did call once more- a woman said he couldn't come to the phone. I learned about his death on the television news. They covered his funeral.

It's hard to believe on that clear sunny day in the fall of '92 when Jeannie and I rode with Ian to the studio, him cracking jokes, feeling good, the convertible top down like an open flower, heralding that wonderful, marvelous sun, on a day so close to yesterday I can almost touch it, that one more year of good health was all he'd have. It's unbelievable. Ian was so healthy and happy you'd have thought he'd live to 90. You'd never have guessed he had such little time left.

I remember the drive to the studio somewhat clearly because I was so irritated with Ian's wisecracks. But I'm glad for the memory now. In a little VW convertible, under bright sun in a blue cloudless sky, a happy and joking Ian Mandin gave me one of the few lessons worth my college tuition.

Drive with the top down once in a while. Because you never know.

Chapter 6

"He didn't slam anyone or point fingers.

He just gave the facts as researched."

Richard Burke

Print was more interesting in spite of the work it was for me, and it was hard work. It continues to be. Even years after graduation it still took me fits and starts of half a dozen tries before I could create a lead. I still get lost in long stories. I still come out of meetings wondering what the hell happened. I still keep late hours, struggling to string words together. I pray for the day when writing will be easy and proceed as speedily as it does for some people.

The pressure was on in our second semester. The second-year students would graduate in four months and we first-year print students would take over the campus newspaper, the Endeavor, in the fall. In this semester we were to become published writers.

To prepare us we had to submit story ideas to the second years for comment. They promptly returned our suggestions with harsh scribbled feedback: "Don't you read the paper?" Another: "This has been done and redone."

I thought I'd try again with another story idea. Since observing that first SA meeting, I had been curious about the cost of SA business trips. There was a rumour more money had been spent than we were told.

The Endeavor at that time was a second-year bastion. I, like most first-years, went in only to check mail- all of it paper mail, e-mail didn't exist then for students- and we never went into the Endeavor to work. The Endeavor was not a classroom in the traditional sense. It was designed as a working newspaper office and production room. The Endeavor computers were larger Apple models than the little Mac Classics we used in AN1705, next door.

Just inside the Endeavor's only entrance, on the right, were a series of little square wooden mail pigeon holes, built into a frame about four feet wide and rising eight feet high. Here all Com Arts students, save for those in radio, picked up their assignments, marks, faxes, and various mailings. On the opposite side of the room windows ran the full length of the Endeavor's wide far wall, overlooking a brick courtyard with concrete benches and picnic tables.

There was no teacher's desk. Students ran things here. Twelve teacher-sized oak desks were grouped into three computer work stations of four desks each, butted up against each other, one workstation at either end of the room and one roughly in the middle. The work station on the far right as you entered the room was considered the advertising area.

I approached the middle computer workstation, one of two butted up against the window ledge, the other the ad area workstation to the room's far right. I told whoever was sitting there I thought the SA travel budget might be a good story.

A female student walking by said travel budgets were "old news." A seated student told me what I was suggesting had been "done and redone." Another said, "There's no story," adding the issue had been researched.

I left, glum. Obviously I had a lot to learn.

A week or so later, at the top of page two in the first Endeavor of the semester, a headline read: "SA not overbudget". The lead: "For those of you who have heard the rumour $20,000 was spent on travel by the LCCSA this year, it's just that, a rumour." The article quoted the SA financial coordinator as saying, "about $7,500 has been spent on travel and the SA has two more conferences to attend this year."

The group that ridiculed my story idea declared in print it was rumour without foundation. But reading the article, I didn't see any investigation at all. Upset, I decided to investigate the thing myself. The trouble was, I had no idea how.

For the first time I went to the Student Association offices where I asked the receptionist where I might find the travel budget expenses since the last SA election.

"They're unavailable," she said.

"Unavailable?"

Everyone in the office stopped at my surprised echoed reply to this ridiculousness.

Of course they were available, I said. The SA served the students. It was the Student's Association. Like any other LCC student, I paid student fees, so I was an SA member and I wanted to see them.

Taken aback, she suggested the SA president could talk to me.

It was my first time in the SA president's office. The president was a young black man, well groomed, dignified looking. He looked like an SA president. He habitually wore a tie, unusual for our school.

He listened to my questions politely. He said the details I wanted were unavailable.

He was holding some computer printouts, financial breakdowns of some sort.

May I see those?

No, these are private.

How are SA expenses decided?

By full council. Nothing is kept secret, no monies are unaccounted for.

Every expenditure is in the minutes?

Yes, of course.

Could I see the minutes?

He looked surprised.

"Certainly," he said.

He pointed out where the minutes were kept, tacked on a bulletin board in a neat row.

"May I photocopy them?"

That was agreed. While I was photocopying, he came up to me and said, "Because your work is SA business, photocopies are free."

I copied every page detailing financial expenditures, then took the papers to a cafeteria table to add up travel spending only. There was something puzzling about how the numbers added up. A phone call to one of the college accounting staff gave an answer that helped. Each college fiscal year ended June 30. A new fiscal year began July 1. With that, the numbers made more sense.

The SA elections had taken place in March, in the previous fiscal year. When I added up travel expenses taking this into account, surprising totals popped out. This SA administration hadn't spent $7,500 on travel. They'd spent $19,000. They were almost $9,000 over budget.

I then interviewed the SA president in a large-windowed alcove at a section of cafeteria tables called the Brown Bag. A number of travel expense items were for generous, but standard, mileage claims by him for using his vehicle on business trips. While he was earnest in his answers and he genuinely tried to be helpful, I was hitting sore spots and it showed. But all the while we talked I was impressed how professional he looked in his red tie.

That night in AN1705, I began typing my very first news story for publication on one of the baby Mac computers. As I worked, a pretty blonde female proctor came in and watched over my shoulder.

Proctors did the campus policing task of ensuring students in college computer rooms had a signed pass. I've since forgotten this proctor's name and wish I could recall it, as we got along well. She was a business student and a proctor for a long while. She had long before stopped asking me for my pass. I was a regular, consistently working late hours. On her rounds, whenever she reached where I was working, she stopped to chat.

She said she knew something about the story I was working on. She and the SA president were both business students. He had formerly been the president of the business club. Three hundred dollars had gone missing once on a trip he had taken to Edmonton, she said. He replaced the money, but the club wasn't cozy with him after that. When he was elected SA president, members of the business club objected to him being appointed "BOG rep", she said.

I didn't know what a BOG rep was. That, she explained, was the student representative to the Lethbridge Community College Board of Governors.

I now learned the college administration officials, our president and our college vice-presidents, weren't the top dogs at the college. The college administration executive answered to the Lethbridge Community College Board of Governors, a group of citizens chosen from the community and from different areas of the college. One student representative was a member of the Board of Governors. The Student's Association nominated a student for BOG rep. Each actual BOG appointment was made by the Minister of Advanced Education. With that appointment, the student then became a full voting member of the college Board of Governors.

The proctor also told me how much money the SA played with each year. It should have been obvious. About 3,500 full-time students paid $92 per year in Student Association fees, providing our student council with a budget of roughly a third of a million dollars.

Out of that budget student recreation was paid for, including full and part-time college recreation staff. About a quarter of the funds went into an account called the "Building Trust Fund," an account created years before to upgrade the Barn, a large, cavernous, older building renovated to serve student recreation and was the only place alcohol was served to students on campus. The Building Trust Fund evolved into a healthy SA savings account.

The next day I asked Georgia about the student Board of Governors position, visiting her in her tiny closet of an office in the Criminal Justice area of the college, still in the Andrews Wing, just down the hall from the Endeavor. Years before Georgia had turned down a larger office, not wanting to be forced to share it later as the college population grew. Her every office shelf- many were short afterthoughts of shelves, right to the ceiling- were full of books, stacked papers, boxes and metal recipe file containers.

From one small high shelf Georgia pulled down a small metal box, opened it and went through a stack of recipe cards. She had on file who had been the student BOG rep for each of the past 23 years.

Most SA presidents over the previous two decades had been from Com Arts. But the most interesting discovery was that the BOG rep position and the SA president's position were usually united, held by one and the same person. Georgia could only find three exceptions to that in 23 years. Georgia hunted for reasons in her files. One exception was because a student served a second term as BOG rep and only one term as president. The other exception Georgia knew from memory. An SA president many years before had allegedly been involved in drugs and student council voted to nominate someone else to the BOG. This year marked only the third time in more than two decades the positions were separated.

Red Tie was SA president but the BOG rep was a female student named Susan Weston. She was the Special Events Coordinator, one of the five elected SA executive positions.

I finished my travel budget story but it took a couple of story meetings with the second years before I got up the nerve to submit it. Although we first years hadn't started invading the Endeavor yet, we were starting to get published. By the January 21 issue, very early in our second semester, a lot of we first-years had been published, including Mary Bana, Rob Follis, Donald McKim, Veronica Muendel, Andrea Rainault, Dan Gyulai, Tracy Turk, Ryan Anderson and me.

Once my hard-hitting SA story was submitted, it was accepted. For the first time I made page one, the page I would own for most of my second year. For that February 4 issue, I shared the front page with another first-year, Deidre MacDonald, who'd written a Canadian Federation of Students story.

Deidre owned that issue, with a much-talked about page two story on a video game called Gal's Panic. I took the photographs.

Deidre came into the Endeavor and asked if I had a camera with film. I did. I kept one in my locker, which I was not supposed to do, it was flouting the rules. The college supplied classic-style 35 millimetre Yashikas, which had to be signed out and turned back in at the end of the day. There were only so many cameras to go around and they were always in demand.

She wanted me to take pictures for her. I said sure, if I could have photo credit. We each had a quota of photo credits to reach. Deidre agreed, told me the subject was a "pornographic video game," in a video games room in the Cave. I fetched the camera and we walked down to the Cave.

I hadn't known before we had an arcade. It was in the far corner of the Cave, in a small darkened room behind a glass door. There were about a half dozen video game machines inside, like pinball machines. We looked for the one Deidre was interested in, with the name, 'Gal's Panic,' written on it. It had a recorded female voice calling out on occasion, "Come on, touch my body."

Deidre explained: if the game was won, an electronic version of a cloth draping a picture of a female nude was removed and at each level the picture became more explicit. The player maneuvered a joystick controller that cut away pieces of the depicted cloth preventing a peek at the nude.

We discovered neither of us were much good at video games. When another student came in I asked him if he could play it. He said yes, we gave him our quarters, and he won a couple of games easily. There was a skill of sorts to it. The "saw" cutting away the "cloth" had to avoid gremlins. He cut away bits of cloth quickly, forcefully jamming the joystick hard to turn sharp corners, moving out of the way of these teeny little gremlins who could stop all efforts to get a peek at the nude. When he won, Deidre and I took the shots.

When the newly printed papers came in with the story I was on my way into the college when I passed Deidre, walking with a friend.

"Sorry, Lawrence," she called out. She explained she'd just seen the story and the photo credit read, "Photo by Deidre MacDonald," instead of my name. She assured me she'd gone to Richard Burke, the Endeavor publisher, and told him to give me credit for my quota as I didn't get photo credit for publication.

The video game apparently had been in the college for a year, with no complaints, but when Deidre's article was published the whole matter became quite an issue, dealt with as well in our editorial, asking the question, "Is the LCCSA making money off on pornography?"

Deidre and I didn't hang out together. We had talked a few times. I recall sitting with her and Sandy Menard once in the Cave. She was talking about being at a party and describing someone falling on a glass coffee table and breaking it.

I also recall her and I sitting alone once in the Cave, talking. I recall it as a fun chat. She described a date in Edmonton a relative had set her up with. Her was a dentist or some other professional. She said he had the money and the style. He took her out to a fine restaurant and he ordered champagne or something similar, but she chose to drink beer out of the bottle. There was a few other touches to this story I can't recall, but all carried the gist he was upper-crust filet mignon and she was down-home hot dog. He never asked her out again, she said.

I recall one of her contributions in class on selling. She was working as a waitress and talked about how to serve wine and bump the customer up to more expensive wines. She worked at the Lethbridge Lodge, one of the main hotel-restaurants in town.

Once in the Endeavor, a number of us were working late, she was talking about a women's walk, Take Back the Night, a protest of violence against women. More than 100 walkers were expected, many to be carrying candles and signs. Men weren't allowed to walk. I questioned that, wondering aloud if it were a protest against men or against violence. Deidre also said men should be able to walk.

That was about it. She was a classmate. We'd talked, but we weren't close.

I'm certain it was in our second semester we began attending a once-per week critique class each publication day, a mix of first and second-year students analyzing the good and bad of the latest Endeavor edition. It was during this critique class we first got to know who some of the second years were. We crowded in with the second years in AN1705 with the newspaper's publisher, Richard Burke, a veteran instructor.

I had no idea what the second years were talking about at first as they critiqued each page. A typical critique might be, 'We should have come up two picas on that column.' So we first-years sat in silence listening. It took a while before I knew what they were talking about.

The publisher, Burke, stoop shouldered, balding, grey, and with trademark grey mustache, had a tired voice that sounded almost apologetic as he lectured, so it was a surprise to me, much later, to discover he had significant physical stamina. In a later semester, after an outdoor photo assignment, I walked with him out of the bottom of a coulee, one of the steep and deep winding prairie ravines near the college. Burke, a smoker, climbed the two or three hundred feet to the top at a steady pace and passed me as he did so, without sounding at all winded.

Burke was also the only staff member in the department who stayed late on occasion. On those evenings he sat in the small meeting room leading to his office- like a hallway- at one of the two large tables overcrowding the small room. There he tied fishing flies. It seemed to be a popular hobby among some instructors. Marilyn Johnson did a story on two fly-tying college staffers, Rick Sullivan and Rick Furukwa. Burke would tie flies for hours with another staff member from IDS, those initials somehow referring to the staff computer training and services department. Burke had apparently moved from Lethbridge to the picturesque and mountainous Crowsnest Pass, an hour and a half away, an area which offers good fly fishing. He commuted to the college from there even in winter, which I still think quite an achievement. On one occasion when I thought the winter roads too dangerous to drive from Claresholm and stayed home, Burke, with his longer journey, partly over the same road, and through some mountainous terrain while I had only straight prairie to drive over, made it to the college early enough to take my call, hearing me tell him I wouldn't be in due to bad roads.

Burke's academic credentials were a Bachelor's degree in journalism and a Master's degree in curriculum development. He was a newspaperman with 13 years experience on the Lethbridge Herald, the Victoria Times-Colonist and a Los Angeles newspaper. The Lethbridge Herald had also been the workplace of another department instructor, D'Arcy Kavanagh.

My travel expenses story had been published on the front page. Burke pointed out the positive aspects of my story during the critique: "He didn't slam anyone or point fingers. He just gave the facts as researched."

But whatever Burke thought, I learned some student council members did feel slammed. Some former and sitting student council members became very angry, genuinely pissed, over my first news story.

When student elections came up a couple of months later, one student in our department, a black woman in her early to mid-twenties, Joy Nicholson, decided to run for SA president. Her main campaign theme was to reduce student spending on travel.

Historically at our college only about 10 per cent of students bothered to vote, but during that spring LCCSA election Nicholson became the focus of a storm of anger from some students. She was defended by others just as passionately.

That unusually emotive tone for our usually placid student body set the temper for our second year in college. By the time the lit fuse was spent, Joy Nicholson, a successful student with an impressively superior grade point average, would be removed from the SA presidency in disgrace, her grades would tailspin and she would quit college just before graduation.

I wasn't the only one to question how she was removed and why- it was unnecessarily damaging to her and her reputation- but it was a comment of Burke's that first zeroed in on a core issue, a secret hidden from us at that time, and from himself, too, I'm sure.

"People are asking why the college administration is bothering Joy," he said.

That's what it looked like. That view would also become part of a later class discussion I recorded. But by the time I discovered the likely reason for what we thought was unusual college interest from administrative higher-ups, Richard Burke and I were on opposite sides of another issue, and our teacher-student relationship would, as time passed, resemble more of our being enemies than anything else.

November 27, 1995

"...in your own documents you've told me you're relying on a policy that wasn't even in force..."

Justice W. Hembroff

The lawyer from the college continued:

"My Lord, and you can see from the brief filed by myself that on behalf of the Respondents, we are raising as a preliminary matter the issue of whether or not these proceedings are essentially subject to judicial review in the Courts."

So. The court proceeding would begin with what the college saw as the crux of the matter, whether I, or any Alberta student unfairly treated in a college or university internal tribunal could sue, and seek a judicial review of the matter. This was the battle line. We would determine if basic civil rights could be enforced by the Canadian court system to apply to a student at an Alberta post-secondary school. The sexual harassment issues raised by Deidre, Janie Michel, Annette Anderson, Robin Baczuk, and Kirsten Broach were secondary to this key point. To me that was incredible, but it was what we had to do.

The college's lawyer:

"And so with the concurrence of My Friend, (that meant my lawyer, Ethel Bartlett) what we agreed to do, subject to your discretion, obviously, is that I would proceed first to deal strictly with that preliminary issue. My Friend would respond, and then I would like to rebut as necessary. And then we'd leave it in your hands as to whether you wish to rule on that issue at that time or whether you wish to proceed with the merits in any event."

The judge: "Alright. Let me ask you this, seeing you're first [sic] this question to begin with, what policy are we talking about here?"

"The policy we're talking about here would be I believe actually attached to both Affidavits."

The lawyer for the college searched for the proper designating exhibit letter for referral. My lawyer, Ethel, searched for it, too. When it was found the college's lawyer continued:

"Yeah, Exhibit 'B', to the Affidavit of Mr. Rick Buis. I believe it's also attached to Mr. Gleason's Affidavit."

"What does it say at the top?" the judge asked.

"It says, 'Lethbridge Community College Policy and Procedures Handbook.'"

"Keep going."

The college's lawyer: "Category, Administrative, Effective Date."

"January 24th," said the judge.

"Yeah, that's-"

The judge interrupted. "This process was started before that."

"Yeah."

"Under what policy was this process started?" the judge asked.

"The policy was started under the same process. The only thing that hadn't happened-"

The judge interrupted: "How do I know that?"

"I believe that-"

The judge interrupted again: "I mean, in your own documents you have told me that you're relying on a policy that wasn't even in force, and nowhere on record do I find other information."

The college's lawyer: "Well, the only reference I can make, sir, would be with respect to paragraph four of the Affidavit filed by Mr. Buis and paragraph eight of the Affidavit, and I didn't understand that there was any issue with respect to the fact that that policy was the policy that was- was clearly an issue in these same proceedings."

The judge: "Well, suppose you're charged under the Criminal Code with an offense that came into force today, but you're charged because you did it yesterday."

"Right."

"Do you think some court is going to listen to that?"

"Well, the only thing that hadn't happened by that time, and all I can say to you, My Lord, is that the policy, as I understand it, had not been officially adopted by the Board of Governors of the college on the date-"

The judge: "So then whose policy is it that is being breached?"

"It's still the policy of the college that had gone through the preliminary stages of being revised, as I understand it, by the faculty, and- and the student body, and all that was left was essentially a rubber stamp."

Hearing the college board of governors described as a "rubber stamp" I found myself in unexpected agreement with the college's lawyer, who continued:

"And it was agreed that that would be the policy that would apply in this particular case. That's all I can tell you. I mean, I can't tell you that the policy was passed by the Board of Governors-"

"Well," said the judge, interrupting again, "according to your document from the record, it wasn't passed."

"I can't quarrel with that, My Lord. I didn't understand that that was going to be an issue in these proceedings."

"Well, nobody has made that an issue."

"No."

The judge: "But when I look around to try and find out what it is that I'm supposed to be examining-"

"Right," said the college's lawyer.

"-I can't find anything to examine."

Chapter 7

"I won!"

Joy Nicholson

Joy Nicholson was a wiry black ex-model who had worked in Europe and Hawaii. We sat on the carpet at her place with photos from her modelling days scattered around us. I was impressed how different she looked in each photograph in her portfolio. Sassy, teasing. Sensual, sexy. Brooding, mellow.

She showed me a professional shot of someone she described as a former boyfriend, also a model. She said she knew him in Hawaii. The professional shot of him, all cool blue with deep shadows, featured an anatomically perfect male with an angular, chiselled, unsmiling face.

"He was an asshole," Joy said. Apparently he had mistreated her and never paid back money she had lent him.

Another photograph was of her in embrace with an American celebrity I recognized, for God's sake, it was a former world champion boxer in some category like middleweight. The snapshot was an amateur shot of her and him, a young couple going out. It was taken inside an apartment. Behind them the fine white apartment entrance door had about three or four additional locks and a couple of draw chains.

It was in New York, she told me. She used to live there. She had gone out with him for some time, she said.

I was impressed. This guy was famous. I'd seen him in newspaper photographs and on TV. Here he was hugging this black woman who sat with me on the carpet of her living room going over photographs spread out around us.

Joy reminisced, looking at the snapshot.

"Now that was a lifestyle," she said.

At this time Joy was living with a young Lethbridge businessman, the owner of two impressive local stores. She drove his top-of-the-line black Jeep to the college occasionally. The first time I rode with her she pulled away from the college, picked up a mobile car phone, its curly phone cord connecting the receiver on which Joy pushed beeping buttons with her thumb as she drove. I can't describe how that impressed me. Everyone has a cell phone now, it's not a big deal, but this was just before the cusp of the cell phone age. A car phone was still a big deal and Joy beeped on it so casually. Connected, Joy crowed into the phone for five minutes, encouraging someone. After hanging up, she said it was a New York model who worked for her.

"You just called New York?"

"She lives there," Joy retorted, as if that explained everything.

Joy was much, much, too much for small town folks like us. She stood out.

Mary, eating sandwiches with me at the Brown Bag, once stared amazed at Joy, at the nearby cafeteria counter, trying to decide on a pastry. In a school full of faded jeans and t-shirts, Joy was wearing an ankle-length fur coat.

"Who in their right mind would wear a fur coat to school?" Mary whispered. "What's she doing here?"

I drove Joy home from the college half a dozen times. On one trip, Joy suddenly got excited and waved a finger at a Mayor MacGrath Avenue bar.

"Park there! Park there!"

I parked and she ran into the bar like a sprinter. A very few moments later a shapely, long-haired blonde woman came running out at full speed, got quickly into a little car and sped off. Joy rushed back to my truck, asking where the woman went, telling me to follow her, but it was too late, the woman had gone.

Joy Nicholson needed an adventure a day and could well be described as an adventure looking for a place to happen. She was a constant chatter of opinion, a table hopper, stopping people in hallways, classrooms, outside, eating lunch, walking by, in the distance, anywhere, talking to more people in an hour than I did in a day, or two or three days, or even a week. She was out of place in our college and didn't give a damn. She loved it.

By the time she decided to run for Student Association president, she had supporters in all areas of the college.

Student Association elections were held each March. At the time of the elections, the Red Tie SA president had resigned and the vice-president moved up. The new president was a Com Arts radio broadcast student, Dan Grant. Dan was the lone presidential candidate until two female students declared, Joy, and a pale, thin, young lady- later a television news anchor- Julie Nolin.

Both women were tall, attractive, thin, and former professional models. Julie had done some modelling in Japan or was about to that summer and Joy and just finished with her own modelling career. The similarities ended there. In every other respect, Julie and Joy were as different as fresh spring rain and a hurricane. Julie was lily white, genteel, polite. Joy was black with a New York rapper attitude. Julie was the nice girl, the typical hands-in-lap, ankles together, class valedictorian. Joy was all over the map, abrasive, funny, personable, rude, her skinny arms flailing the air as she talked.

Joy poured money into her campaign. Pink buttons with "Joy for Prez" and purple t-shirts with the same logo were distributed. It was an unusual campaign at LCC in how much money was spent.

The candidates made speeches at various venues, including the Barn, where LCC students went to drink beer. Making a speech at the Barn was tough on student politicians. Students there seemed to regard the candidate's speeches as some strange interference that required them to talk louder at their tables. For those who listened, Dan announced he had a surprise coming. We'd know about it soon, he said.

The final candidate's event was a debate between the three presidential hopefuls in a lecture theatre. When the students in the audience began their questions, Joy seemed to be pummelled with the brunt of them- hard hitting, angry questions, shouted out. One sitting student council member demanded to know what business trip Joy would have left out. Dan defended student travel, saying one similarly sized college he knew of spent nearly a quarter million dollars each year on travel. Joy's negative response to this prompted one outgoing student council member- or former student council member- to pointedly rise from her chair and walk out of the lecture theatre.

Then Dan announced his surprise. He wanted the best for the SA, he said. That meant we should have the best candidate as president, so he was dropping out of the race in favour of Julie Nolin. He told the audience he believed Julie to be the best candidate of the three running, himself included.

"It looks like an anybody but Joy campaign!" someone in the audience shouted.

A week before the election Nicholson was told by the Chief Returning Officer, called the CRO, she was up for an unexpected suspension from the race.

The SA election rules were strict and very strictly enforced. Not pulling down all your election posters 24 hours before the vote could have you eliminated. Slandering another candidate could also have you eliminated. Nicholson had been accused of slandering Nolin. The CRO, Dawn Ly, a student holding one of the five SA elected executive positions, had acted quickly.

The allegations of slander had been initiated by a Criminal Justice student, Kenton Shikla, who reported a campaigning Nicholson told him not to vote for Nolin, as when she was on council travel expenses were high. To a lot of us it sounded like simple good old fashioned campaigning, but there it was, an allegation of slander, a serious matter, and the matter was up for review. Nicholson said she told Shikla no such thing, which made the issue more complex.

Joy had to appeal to the CRO, Dawn Ly, who would decide on the issue. The CRO could involve other elected SA executive in the review, which she did, Anna Jenson, Susan Weston, and Mark Havinga. The strange issue was settled by an equally strange decision. The verdict was the matter was not slander as Nicholson had not put her comments in writing. The tempest in a teapot had done its damage, however. Many in Com Arts thought Nicholson would now poll a distant second.

On the second day of the two-day balloting, the Endeavor came out with a front page article with Dan Grant's praising the qualities of Julie Nolin- who would become his wife within a year- and another front page story on the review of slander allegations against Nicholson. With that, it looked like Nicholson had little chance. She could not rebut the Endeavor articles. It was against the rules to campaign 24 hours before the vote so she couldn't speak out on the articles or explain without being suspended again, this time for good.

The story on the speeches also featured the bizarre headline, "Debate features little conflict," the candidate's debate described as bland, presenting similar positions on issues, the only item of interest being the regrettable bowing out of the sitting president in favour of Julie Nolin.

Holding the freshly printed newspaper, I asked Mary Bana, seated nearby, "Did this writer even attend the debate?"

I was furious. I wrote a long letter of complaint about the articles to our publisher Richard Burke and instructor D'Arcy Kavanagh, reminding them Nicholson could not defend herself against all this, though I'm sure they were aware of that. I was still a first-year. Already I was a complainer, something I would be for the rest of my time in college.

The night the ballots were counted I was in a dimly lit hallway just inside the Criminal Justice area of the Andrews Wing, talking to Georgia in front of her small closet-like office, when Joy turned the corner, eyes wide, arms open.

"I won!" she exclaimed, in disbelief.

Georgia threw open her own arms and gave Joy a long, tight embrace. Joy had gone often to Georgia to be consoled during the race and Georgia believed Joy had a very rough time of it.

After their hug, Georgia stood her student up and lectured her like a den mother.

"You're going to be well known now," Georgia told Joy. "People are going to know who you are."

There was a break in Georgia's voice. She was so happy for Joy I thought she might cry.

Chapter 8

"Their lordships regret..."

From college textbook

Our first lessons in journalism law had been ego deflating. We learned Canadian journalists had no special privileges, no power greater than that of the average citizen. Our textbook outlined for us the case law this rested on. It was a decades-old British case, Arnold vs. The King-Emperor, and a portion of the written decision was provided for us:

"Their lordships regret to find that there appeared on the one side in this case the time-worn fallacy that some kind of privilege attaches to the profession of the Press, as distinguished from other members of the public...but that, apart from statute law, his privilege is no other and no higher."

The mentioned exemption, statute law, I had to look up in the dictionary, because I didn't know what a statute was, let alone a statute law. Statute law, simply defined, were written laws established by legislative process by a recognized legislative body. For example, laws passed by the Alberta legislature were statute law.

Our college was created by statute law, The College's Act. A portion of The College's Act provided for student governments to be established. So even our Student's Association was created by statute law.

It was just a study point to me then, but became valuable information later when I was forced to sue the college.

Unknown to us in our first year of college, statute law and what it did or did not provide was of significant importance to our college administrators. We had no idea they were well aware of a legal argument based on strong civil court decision precedent that firmly established if a matter was not specifically mentioned in statute law, the college could use their discretion.

For example.

If a college disciplinary committee, or a marks review committee, or a sexual harassment committee and its procedures were not mentioned in statute law, the college could design its own policy.

No problem. Commonly done.

But we were to learn our college administrators believed the college power went a great deal further. With supporting precedent case law including from the Alberta Court of Appeal, they were aware of what seemed to be a water-tight legal argument that no internal college procedure, recommendation or decision could be challenged by the civil courts. No exceptions.

Some of the argument was based on a 1975 case where an Alberta university professor sought tenure. He was turned down. He went to the Tenure Appeals Committee, an internal committee of the university, not created by statute, but by the university. The Tenure Appeals Committee turned him down. He sought judicial review. In other words, he sued, asking the civil courts to overturn the decision. The courts turned him down. A written decision by the Alberta Court of Appeal informed Anthony Vanek since the university Tenure Appeals Committee was not created by statute, the court had no jurisdiction over the matter. That decision became a cornerstone case in the legal argument that recommendations and decisions made by internal committee process within colleges and universities in Alberta were not subject to judicial review.

That meant the Canadian courts were powerless to intervene in any disciplinary hearings that took place within an Alberta college or university as they were internal proceedings. Any internally established committee or tribunal, not established by statute, was strictly an internal matter. I was eventually to learn the proceedings and resulting decisions of such internal tribunals were the business of no outsiders and that included the entire Canadian civil court system.

Taken at its extreme, it didn't matter whether or not civil rights, including Alberta's Individual Rights Protection Act, or our national constitutional rights of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or any other Act guaranteeing civil rights, were ignored or violated by an internal college tribunal, even grotesquely so. Incredible as it may seem, in such cases the Canadian civil courts could not use their power of judicial review even to uphold the law of the land.

I was to learn, much later, on what were deemed internal matters, the administrators of Lethbridge Community College believed the college- and they as administrators- were immune from the civil court process of judicial review.

Until the decision of Lawrence Gleason v. Donna Allan and Lethbridge Community College, all post-secondary schools in Alberta had the power, whether they used it or not, to veto civil rights- with impunity- and there was, quite simply, nothing you could do about it.

November 27, 1995

"...in order for the Court to intervene on the merits of this particular situation, then you have to, of course, find some way that those decision makers are statutory tribunals. Otherwise you have no ability in any event to review this matter."

The lawyer for the college

The Judge continued: "I'm going to hear the application in any event, but I would suggest to you that that's a difficulty that you have."

The college's lawyer: "My position with respect to that, My Lord, even without a written policy adopted in force by the Board of Governors at that particular time, is entitled to proceed on the basis of complaints by-" He paused to assume a different tone for a different tack. "-let's assume there was no policy whatsoever."

"Right," said the judge.

"No preliminary policy, no draft policy, and there were complaints filed by some individual students, then of course there has to be a mechanism in place for the College do deal with that."

"And what if there is no mechanism?"

"Well, if there is no mechanism-"

The judge interrupted: "Do we go with the Rules of Natural Justice, or do we at least say the requirement of administrative fairness?"

The college's lawyer: "I guess it still boils down to my preliminary question as to whether or not, no matter who made the ultimate decision, and clearly in this particular case the decision that has been challenged by My Friend is a decision of the College and a process adopted by this committee under this policy. And no matter which way you get around it, if the challenge is to that particular decision, or that particular procedure, then the preliminary issue arises. You've got to- in effect, in order for the Court to intervene on the merits of this particular situation, then you have to, of course, find some way that those decision makers are statutory tribunals. Otherwise you have no ability in any event to review this matter."

The judge: "Well, I don't think that the cases say they have to be statutory tribunals. They have to be a tribunal that is required to exercise administrative fairness, if I'm able to intervene. And there are others besides statutory tribunals, aren't there?"

"No, the rule, and I intend to go through this-"

"Alright, why don't you do that."

"I'll do that, sir."

"And keep in mind this other question that I-"

"Yeah, I don't know if I can say a lot more with respect to that. I don't know-"

"-would respond to you. No, this question as well that I would ask you to respond to, you make the point that the President Allan is just the, if you will, the functionary who has to deal with the recommendation of this committee, but the whole mechanism, assuming that it is in place, is put in place by the College- the Lethbridge Community College and its Board of Governors- isn't that so?"

"Yes, it's ultimately adopted."

The judge: "Pursuant to powers given it by the statute, as I understand."

"Okay, Well, I'll deal with that."

The judge: "Yeah."

"That's clearly- clearly that's an issue."

The judge: "Well, that's what I want you to deal with."

"Okay, I think I understand the background facts, My Lord, and I don't think I have to review them, as you're obviously- as you've indicated, you've read the material."

Chapter 9

"Never steal a Stetson"

From poster on Dean Stetson's office wall

After Joy Nicholson won the SA presidency I asked Susan Weston, the outgoing student Board of Governors representative, if she would be supporting Nicholson to take over from her.

Weston reacted as if I'd slapped her. She looked instantly startled and stared at me.

"No," she said, her voice flat. "I won't be doing that."

Why not? I asked.

"It's too many hats for one person," she said, adding the two positions were too complex to be held by the same person, president and BOG rep, plus the BOG rep had to deal with confidential issues, so it was best for students the two positions be separated. I noted, with interest, as she spoke, Weston didn't see any conflict with combining her own elected executive position, special events coordinator, with the BOG rep spot for the past year.

In the next regular SA meeting the outgoing student council changed the procedure for nominating BOG rep. The position was to be advertised throughout the college as open. All comers could apply. Nominees would speak for two minutes each before the seventeen or so student council members, who would then vote on their choice.

The gist of the argument for it was: You're not against democracy are you? Isn't it fair all students should be able to apply? After all, the bylaws state the job is available to an SA member, not any specific SA member like the newly elected president.

True enough, but it felt awfully wrong. This impressive pang of concern for democratic process student council members were having in their last days in office hadn't been too noticeable during our recent election. The new procedures- not new rules- just a different way of interpreting them- for choosing a BOG rep would conveniently put a significant hurdle in front of the same person nearly eliminated as a candidate during the election by some of this same outgoing executive, who would, in their last gasp in office, end 23 years of tradition in how our BOG reps were picked.

It smelled fishy.

I wasn't the only one who thought so. A letter to the editor on the issue from a student named Randy Bahler, said losing students should take their lumps and questioned why the long tradition of the college SA president serving as BOG rep should be changed.

I spoke to the Dean of Student Services about it, the first time I'd ever spoken to him.

The Dean of Student Services was a short, fiftyish, brown-haired man with a nose one size too big and laced with tiny broken capillaries. He had a friendly but serious face, and wore glasses. His first name was Dean, the same as his academic title, Dean, which, he said, led to a nickname some referred to him by, Dean Squared. He told me he'd met a dean at a conference whose given and Christian names were both Dean, hence Dean Cubed.

His only office window looked out across an indoor hallway to the north wall of the Student Association offices. On one of his walls a poster featured a closeup of cowboy boots suspended just above red Utah-like desert sand, suggesting frontier justice had just been dealt. Below the suggested hanging an expensive looking cowboy hat lay on the ground. The poster's caption: Never steal a Stetson.

I told Dean Dean Stetson I was concerned about the outgoing SA's motives for changing long-held procedure. It appeared to be an intentional hurdle constructed for Nicholson.

Stetson didn't respond to that concern. Instead, he surprised me by challenging the SA tradition of combining the two offices.

"No other organization sends their president to the college Board of Governors," Stetson said. "The Faculty Association doesn't. The union doesn't. Why should the SA?"

I was surprised he was taking a stand on the issue. And he was taking a stand- a strong one. Why would he care who the SA sent?

Stetson suggested I talk to the college president about my concerns.

I was surprised. I thought this was small potatoes for a college president to be concerned with.

"She'd talk to me?"

"Sure," Stetson said.

I told Joy about my discussion with Dean Stetson. She told me her first meeting with him was similar. After winning the election, she sat down with him for a get-to-know-each-other discussion. Their talk touched on a variety of topics including, she said, Anna Jenson.

Anna was the newly elected SA financial coordinator. Just prior to the election she had been appointed SA vice-president and I met her then, walking in on a practical joke played on her by another SA member, Scott Groves, who represented nursing. He'd rigged her new office with hanging banana-filled condoms, reservoir ends proudly inflated, and opened her office door to show me before closing it again to wait for her reaction.

I was completely unaware of animosity between Anna and Joy. I had no idea at this time, but Dean Stetson, it seemed, was fully aware.

Joy said Stetson brought Anna's name up, suggesting she would be someone good for Joy to work with. She said she believed Stetson was looking for some sign from her, perhaps a sign she disliked Anna, some sign of trouble to come.

Joy described Stetson this way: "He's cool. He's very hip to what's going on. I was calm in his office but when I walked out it was-" she demonstrated like a cartoon character, leaning against a wall, wiping her brow with one hand while her other hand clutched her hyperventilating chest.

"It was like a battle," she said. "Beneath the surface it was like a struggle the whole time."

Joy told me something else interesting. Anna often dropped into Stetson's office and to the office of the college president, Donna Allan, for advice. This amazed me. I concluded from it that my perception of administration as being distant from student affairs was simply silly.

The college president and two vice-presidents worked upstairs in a suite of executive offices. Here the doors were tall, a good twelve feet high and rather wide, as if the college president and vice-presidents were giants requiring oversized doors. In significant contrast the furniture in the executive suite's waiting area looked tiny- four little, and somewhat uncomfortable, blue chairs placed tightly around a wee little coffee table, as if all visitors were dwarfs. I took a seat in one of the small blue chairs and waited. Across from me was a wall of rippled glass, behind which was some sort of meeting room. Looking through the rippled glass I could see a ripply conference table and ripply chairs.

College president Donna Allan came out, a heavy woman, well-dressed, her grey hair worn up. Tall hair, I think they call the style. She greeted me with a warm, dry handshake.

"Do you drink coffee?" she asked.

She led me to a little side room behind the reception desk that held shelves of coffee supplies. She told me to choose any cup from the dozen or so there on a tray beside a coffee pot.

From there she led me through the suite into her large windowed corner office, motioning me to take a seat. It was the first office I'd been in that had couches and a coffee table. We sat on upholstered furniture facing each other. Behind her large floor-to-ceiling windows and glass patio-like doors led to her outdoor second-floor balcony, overlooking deep ravine prairie coolies to the west of the college.

To start small talk Allan asked about me first, then said she'd heard there was dissent among students.

"We're not going to burn down your college," I said in what was meant to be a joke, part of icebreaking, but Allan's expression didn't change as she waited for me to explain.

I told her I believed an obstacle had been put in front of Joy Nicholson in the last days of the outgoing executive to prevent her from sitting on the Board of Governors.

Allan didn't comment to that. Instead she asked about "Joy and Anna".

"There seems to be so much animosity between them," she said, adding, "Is there anything I could do to help? I could have them in my office, have them talk it out, deal with their differences."

I was surprised, for several reasons. One, I was surprised she knew their names. Two, I was impressed Allan had cut to the chase, concluding the rift between Joy and the student council was a rift between two students. I had the impression, just from that, she was either lost and didn't hear a word I said or she was far more knowledgeable about the issue than I was and I needed to be brought up to speed. Three, she was offering more of her time. I had thought her seeing me was an unusual courtesy extended. I was wrong. This, apparently, was part of her job.

Finished with my coffee, I awkwardly didn't know what to do with the empty coffee cup. So cued, Allan stood up, thanked me, smiled, and shook my hand professionally, all warmth gone. That impressed me more than anything. All warmth was drained from Dr. Allan in that handshake. A moment before she was warm grandmother, courtesy and caring. In the courteous handshake that ended our interview, she was as cold as a fish. Interview and handshake done, I stepped outside her office and turned to respectfully nod good day as she closed the very tall wide door in front of my nose.

In a weekend retreat at the college Barn, the newly elected SA executive met with their outgoing counterparts. Dean Stetson spoke to them, his theme the importance of getting along.

Meanwhile our class was making transitions, too. The editor's posts had been chosen for the coming year. Mary was appointed one of the two senior editors. The other would be Sandy Hartwick, the advertising student with the Bette Midler laugh. Their tuition would be paid in full as editors-in-chief for the coming school year, a huge perk for the position.

I was standing in line at the top of the stairs to the 1365 lecture theatre entrance when Mary walked by below me, quickly and happily, as if she suddenly owned a part of the school.

"Congratulations!" I called out.

"Thank you!" Mary called back. She was beaming.

On April 8 we took over the Endeavor and outgoing editor Shelli Sannes wrote her goodbye column. I'll quickly list our editors and managers in this paragraph: Alexis "Lexi" George and Jason Reed were our advertising managers, Dale Oviatt and Jeff Melchior were our entertainment editors, Nikki Mountney, campus relations editor, Anmarie Bailey photo editor, Marilyn Johnson and Deidre MacDonald- who wouldn't come back for her second year until a full year had passed- were the new features editors, Joanne Schmidt was our sports editor and Pam Bennett, who actually had a lot on her plate with the Student's Association- she would also be SA vice-president for a while- became our distribution manager, a major responsibility, getting the newspaper out, not just around campus, but throughout Lethbridge.

I decided to campaign for Joy for the BOG rep spot. That decision did not impress Mary.

"We're here to learn reporting," Mary told me, angry. "Reporters don't meddle in politics. We report on politics."

She was right. I should have taken a step back and remind myself I was in college to learn something and not get caught up in college politics. I wasn't a kid. I was 37 years old.

But I helped Joy out anyway, deciding first to find out more about the issue. I had Joy pick up a binder of bylaws for me from the SA office and we both sat down with Georgia to review them. I opened up the binder and received my first inkling of the events to come.

"Well. That's interesting."

When you finish reading pages in a three-ring binder, it will retain your spot for you when you close it up. It's not like a book. A book just closes and you either mark your page or find it later. But a three-ring binder opens up naturally to the page last read, unless all the pages are drawn to one side before it is closed. This binder opened up to the bylaws dealing with motions of non-confidence- how to remove SA executives from office.

Joy Nicholson was still president-elect. She would not be sworn in for another week. But even before Nicholson was sworn in, someone in the SA office was doing some rather interesting research.

Chapter 10

"Remember, these are Criminal Justice students. They think about issues in black and white terms. There's right and wrong. No in-between."

Al Rudolph

Joy and I decided to create a petition.

If we gathered more names protesting the separation of the positions of SA president and student BOG rep than the number of students who voted in the last election, that would have to make an impact, we concluded. I typed out explanations of the issue, stapled these to petition blanks, stuffed the packages into about 20 big brown envelopes. I then had to pass them out to students, but hit a shyness barrier. What if no one was interested? I'd look foolish. I sat alone in the Brown Bag area of the cafeteria with my envelopes, trying to work up my nerve to approach students.

Stetson walked by. After a few minutes he walked by me again. He had seen me sitting alone, my brown envelopes piled in my lap and stacked on the table. There was no one around me, no upset students concerned about the separation of the SA presidency and the BOG rep position. There was only me, sitting alone in the Brown Bag with my pile of stuffed brown envelopes no one was interested in. Twenty feet past me, Stetson tilted his head back for a silent laugh.

I packed up my envelopes and put them in my locker where they would stay for a few days. I went to Georgia's office to talk. I told her I didn't understand why Dean Stetson or Donna Allan would care one way or another who the SA sent to BOG, but I had the impression it was a very real concern to them.

Georgia explained it was only natural the administration would be interested. It was politics. The senior executive officers of the college answered to the Board of Governors. The BOG was their boss. It mattered how BOG reps thought and how they voted.

Georgia told me young BOG reps were particularly susceptible to being charmed by the college executive. New student BOG reps were immediately taken under wing by the administration, and were well treated "to get them alongside," Georgia said. All the sudden attention by important people was intoxicating to young people.

This made sense. If the student BOG rep wasn't the SA president, he or she would just be one of the gang upstairs. There wouldn't be a direct constituency the student BOG rep had to answer to, but the SA president is always answerable to students.

"Most students wouldn't have picked up on your concern," said Georgia, adding most students didn't understand the issue, and if they did wouldn't care one way or another about it, anyway.

Dean Stetson dealt with BOG members regularly. He was a member of the Executive Committee, the four-member committee that included himself, the two college vice-presidents and the president. They all attended Board of Governors meetings. They routinely dealt with all BOG members.

With that, I finally understood why Stetson appeared to have such obvious interest and had taken a stand on this matter in our discussion.

Later on, when we began covering city hall, I had my first lessons in the advisory role of administrators. In one case that impressed me greatly, the City of Lethbridge was buying a fire truck. The vote was to take place in just a few minutes and city councillors were being asked to approve the purchase. The mayor, David Carpenter, quietly asked questions of the appointed city managers seated nearby, during a recess.

"How come the truck you want costs more than this other one?" Mayor Carpenter asked.

"This one has longer ladders."

"We need longer ladders?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

As simple as that exchange sounds, it is part of the process. Even for some major expenditures the research elected officials conduct at times consists of just a couple of last minute questions. They ask the people who know, hired for their expertise, so they can advise the elected top dogs.

In a college, ours anyway, the top dogs were the appointed Board of Governors members, but their advisors were the Executive Committee. BOG members for the most part, just like the mayor at that moment, would know piss all of the details of most issues they dealt with. BOG members would be good citizen types from the community, pleased to come to meetings once a month as members of the Board of Governors of the local college, a prestigious position, something impressive to add to a resume, or for the accomplished who don't need a resume, a civic duty. They would rely heavily on the continued presence of Executive Committee members to help them understand any given issue and would, for the most part, readily accept any answers given for their questions and put a rubber stamp on it by their vote.

A board of governors is often seen as a rubber stamp. My concern at that time was that with the separation of the SA presidency from the student BOG rep position, the student BOG rep would become simply that- a young, coddled, flattered, and fraternal rubber stamp, good for some in the college, but, I believed, not good for students.

After a few days of working up my nerve I finally started explaining the issue to Com Arts students and handed out the petition blanks. I spoke to a number of classes on the subject, day classes and evening classes. Joy came with me for the evening classes. Speaking in front of a group was uncomfortable for me, but Joy seemed to love it.

The most interesting classes we addressed were day classes in Criminal Justice, commonly called CJ. Joy and I asked a CJ instructor, Al Rudolph, if we could speak to his classes. This was the first time I'd met Rudolph, who looked like he was designed by a comic book artist, big teeth, big jaw, big arms, strong rigid back, shorn grey hair. He asked what the issue was and we told him. Sure, he said. But be there on time. Top of the hour sharp. He gave us the times when his classes would start.

Before we left his office, Joy asked him in an aside about an SA member, a divisional rep from Criminal Justice. He seemed to know a lot of people, Joy said. Rudolph disagreed. He was a third year student, Rudolph told her.

"Third year students in a two-year college are nobodies," he said.

After we spoke to his first class the next morning, Rudolph followed us into the hallway to give some advice.

Introduce yourself first. You didn't introduce yourself at any time. They didn't know who you were. Remember, these are Criminal Justice students. They think about issues in black and white terms. There's right and wrong. No in-between. They're not with you. You didn't sell them. As far as they're concerned, what you said was the SA makes the rules and you want to circumvent the rules. They don't like that.

I was impressed with Rudolph's lecture to us. Because Rudolph was built like a cartoon tank, I'd thought until that moment he would be so rigid in his thinking this kind of perceptiveness couldn't be expected. I now realized perceptiveness was his business. It was a mini-revelation for me.

We slowed down for his next class. We introduced ourselves. We told them what the rules were regarding BOG appointments and the history and college tradition of combining the two offices. We told them why we believed our own student council, in their last days in office, were breaking rules- not written rules, but rules of procedure so long standing that they may as well be written. We told them we opposed that. We thanked them for their time. We got big smile of approval. Some class members thanked us.

Petition forms started coming coming back, filled with student names from various departments. We even began to receive support from college areas distant from Com Arts.

Chapter 11

"I don't know how you did it. But you did it."

Georgia Fooks

Scott Groves, the nursing SA rep who'd shown me the banana-condom decorations, told me my petition was going to backfire.

"People don't like things shoved down their throats," he said.

I brought up Grove's comment with Georgia in one of our private discussions in her closet-like office. She and I agreed there seemed to be an attitude problem with the veteran council members. Georgia thought it might be a good idea if Joy's first SA meeting as president resulted in postponement of the BOG rep nomination issue for a week or so to shake out the strong influence of the outgoing executive. I thought it was a good idea, but there didn't seem to be a way of getting a delay.

A delay might not work anyway, I thought. Even though five new executives, including Joy, were about to take office, they would continue to work with the old council's dozen division reps until the end of the school year. New division reps wouldn't be elected until fall.

Mary covered the student council meeting as the Endeavor reporter. I attended to present the stack of petition pages now with 360 names asking the two senior student government positions not be separated. That week more names would come in, bringing the total to 450 student signatures, about 45 more than the number of students who had voted in the last SA election.

For the first time Joy Nicholson took her place at the head of the table. Her first council meeting was argumentative. This was April 7, both the day of the deadline for BOG rep nominations and the day council would nominate someone to the post. Joy wasn't pleased the nomination rules had only been posted the day before, April 6. Her accusations of manipulativeness offended many. Soon Joy couldn't control the meeting. It became a shouting match.

Dawn Ly, her term as an SA exec just ended- she had also been the CRO during the recent election- left her visitors seat several times during the meeting to kneel next to the seats of our newly elected SA execs, speaking to them in private huddles. Then suddenly- it was a surprise to me, I had been following discussions- Ly walked out of the room and four of our new executive members, Anna, Gail, Pam and Jason, followed her. They refused to come back.

It took a moment for me to understand. Quorum had intentionally been broken. The meeting could not continue. When it dawned on me what Dawn had done I left my visitor's seat and walked through the confusion to Joy at the head of the table.

"Adjourn it," I said.

She caught on immediately, announced there was no quorum, rapped the gavel, then let it slip from her fingers. It fell with a clattering sound on the table.

When I next sat with Georgia in her office for another private conference, she leaned toward me conspiratorially, reaching from her own chair to smack me between my shoulder blades.

"You deserve a pat on the back," Georgia said. "I don't know how you did it. But you did it."

Chapter 12

"I saw the whole thing."

Joe Yau

Friday morning. Half past midnight. The last student working in the Endeavor, I went for a pee break, but when I came back minutes later, the door to the Endeavor had been closed and locked. There was no light shining at the bottom of the door in the dimmed hallway. The Endeavor light had been turned off before the door was locked, and no one was inside.

I couldn't leave, my coat and truck keys were still in the Endeavor. In an adjacent hallway I saw a security guard- very lucky as they were hard to find this late at night- and I asked him if he could open the Endeavor door.

"Why should I?"

I was taken aback. "I have my keys inside."

He asked me for a pass. That was inside, too, but he was firm on this. No pass, no open door.

"But my keys are inside. I have to get home."

"What are your keys doing inside?"

"I was inside. I stepped out. I need to get back in."

"So you're the one."

I received a lecture on closing doors behind me. A computer could have been stolen while I was out of that room, he said. It was a full lecture with his finger waving an inch from my nose.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Joe, the Oriental janitor, approaching us. When Joe began his shift at midnight he'd poke his head in the Endeavor and say hi. The security guard's nose was now close to mine. I could feel his breath. His voice was loud, haranguing, garbled somehow. I couldn't hear what words he was saying anymore. I shouted, but my voice came out as garbled as his voice sounded. At the same time I pushed him away from me, my hand on his chest but I could feel the base of his neck with my finger tips. He hit the wall behind him. I was surprised he hit the wall hard.

Joe ran up and stood between us. I walked away, shaken. Joe talked to the security guard then ran up to me.

"I'll open the door for you," he said.

He opened the Endeavor door and turned the lights on. I retrieved my coat.

"Maybe go out that door," he said, pointing at the nearest direct exit, not far away, just past the dark CJ hallway to the right, where Georgia's office was, halfway down.

"I can't believe it. I've really blown it. I pushed a security guard."

"Don't worry," Joe said. "I saw the whole thing. He shouldn't have done that. Now go. Use that door."

I went.

The next morning before law class started Georgia held her hands up to her face when I told her about it. She told me to talk to Perry Albert. I had no idea who he was. Georgia said he was the head of security.

Upstairs, Perry Albert surveyed me from across his desk. He was young, perhaps thirty, and overweight. He sounded out of breath when he spoke.

He told me the college might lay charges.

"For what?"

"For assault."

If it came to charges, I'd lay my own, I told Perry. I was sure assault included unprovoked almost nose-to-nose shouting while waving a finger in someone's face. I had a witness for that.

"We can't have students going around pushing our security guards," Perry said.

I agreed with that. I was sorry as hell about what happened. It wasn't something I ever expected to do.

The meeting ended.

I expected another meeting, or to be sent a letter about the matter, something. When a week had passed and nothing resulted, I went up to Perry's office to ask what was happening. Nothing was, he said. That was it.

It puzzled me to no end. You'd think I'd receive at least a letter. But it was as if it never happened.

The incident wasn't mentioned again until a week or two later when a uniformed security college security guard on midnight shift dropped into the Endeavor.

"I heard about what happened between you and Herb," he said.

I hadn't known the security guard's name before this.

He paused, one of those awful pauses more potent than words. Standing, he looked at me steadily as I sat beneath him, waiting for his inevitable warning. Instead, he said, "Someone was going to push back sometime. Good for you."

One of the items from college I still had for final edit of this book was a small campus directory, a pink-covered 1992-93 campus directory I kept at year's end before it was thrown out. I realized during final edit I didn't know Joe's last name. I looked up the names of all the cleaners listed in the directory, searching for a Joe among them. There is one, Joe Yau, listed as a heavy duty caretaker.

A belated thank you, Joe. You went out of your way. It was a good and brave thing to do.

And Herb, I'm damn sorry. Sincerely sorry, even after all these years. It's not something I ever expected to do.

Much, much later, perhaps two years after that incident, Herb and I were standing at the Cave concession window. His turn was first, but we were standing side by side. The woman behind the concession counter said something to him that was supposed to be funny. Something about his wife's purse- that if he couldn't find a dollar in his wallet, to look there- something like that. Herb, looking in his wallet, said very simply, giving the number of years he had been married, that he had never once in all his married life looked in his wife's purse. He didn't say it as a matter of pride, but he could have. In that moment I had a new insight into Herb. In that moment I realized he was not just a tough man, but a proud man, a man with strong inner integrity he valued strongly and stood by without compromise.

An article done on him later revealed he had a history of a hard work life, and, somewhere deep beneath his crusty exterior he had a marshmallow centre, as the article revealed he had been known to go well out of his way to help students in need. So there was a lot more to Herb than just being a tough security guard.

Chapter 13

"You just love grinding our bones to dust, don't you, Lawrence?"

Gail Maxwell

The next day the Minister of Advanced Education, Jack Ady, came to the college.

I received word from someone, I forget who, that he would meet with students. The notice given me was very short and I ran around gathering people up to meet with him.

Our meeting with the minister would be held in the Board of Governor's chambers, upstairs. I'd never been in BOG chambers yet. The chamber entrance was just past the entrance to the upstairs executive office suite. Here the hallway ended before large wooden double doors. Here the hallway widened out to become a waiting room in front of the wooden double doors of BOG chambers, even offering two couches for waiting visitors. For VIP visitors a cozy and private little side room was on our left with its own private entrance to BOG chambers.

I believe Joy and I were the first ones in. The grand double doors to BOG chambers opened to a theatre-sized room half-filled with an overly-large horse-shoe shaped table. At the table's far curved head a polished brass bell sat and from there the wide table curved out gracefully into two straight prongs of its impressive horseshoe shape, the twin prongs towards us as we entered the room. The horseshoe's twin ends roughly pointed at each east side entrance- the double doors for the public that we just walked through, and another door, to our left, of the private VIP side room for waiting visitors. At the end of the twin horseshoe prongs sat a very large separate desk, big enough for three people. It was meant for three people. During BOG meetings the dean of student services and the two vice-presidents sat at it.

During the sexual harassment hearing to come, that's the desk I would be told to sit at. This was the first time I'd seen the room in which the sexual harassment hearing would be held.

Joy and I took our seats at the far curved end of the horseshoe table near the brass bell. Education Minister Jack Ady came in and sat at the table's head next to Joy. I had no idea the old SA executive members were coming to this meeting. Susan Weston came in- looking suddenly startled to see Ady and Joy seated comfortably together at the head of the table, waiting. There was nothing in it, but Susan didn't know that, obviously.

Ady fielded questions about student tuition and the like. Joy passed a note to me asking if she should ask something about her issue directly. I shook my head.

The meeting finished. Leaving after the meeting broke up, I passed two new student council executive members who'd walked out during the previous day's SA meeting, Gail Maxwell and Pam Bennett.

Gail and Pam were friends. I didn't know Gail well, she was from a different department. Gail was in her early twenties and had just finished a tour of military service. Pam, late teens, chubby, was in our department, an advertising student. Both were opposed to keeping the president and BOG rep positions together. Pam held her view strongly. They now looked miserable, heads down. As I walked past they looked up and glared at me.

"You just love grinding our bones to dust, don't you, Lawrence?" Gail said.

I rushed past them to my locker to get a camera to get Ady's photograph before his second meeting started. When I got back, a crowd of about 15 well-dressed people had gathered outside the BOG entrance with Ady in the nice waiting area hallway terminus. A few guests sat on the nice couches.

Joy was chatting with the guests. She saw my camera and called out, "Take my photo."

I snapped her and she beamed.

I snapped a shot of Ady. Joy backed in beside Ady as if he were a prop.

"Take my shot here."

I didn't know about this. Not knowing what to do, I fiddled with the camera.

"Take my shot," Joy said, again, loudly.

The crowd of people, slightly amused, waited for me to take her picture. I should have lifted the camera and pretended to shoot. Instead, I told her no.

"Why?" Joy demanded.

I just said what I thought. I had no idea what else to say.

"Because it's inappropriate."

I didn't like our using Ady as a prop, even it if was good ammunition for our side in the debate, and even though it would be a good photograph for the Endeavor.

Ady's eyes widened, suddenly realizing something was amiss, though I'm sure he had no idea what, and he left Joy's side, slipped into the grand open doors next to him and went back into BOG chambers.

I went back to the Endeavor to type. As I walked in the door, a television student and later successful television programmer, Larry Sherwood, greeted me angrily. His future wife, a pretty blonde named Christine- called Christy- was standing about ten feet away. Years later, I would attend marriage preparation with Josie, my own future wife, with eight or so other couples and Larry and Christine would be among them.

"You can't hog Ady!" Larry shouted. "He's the minister of all of us! When he was here last year he shook hands with all of us. You can't keep him for yourself!"

"Well, I just did," I said, ignoring him. Why explain? As if I controlled the minister's coming and goings.

Larry's anger wasn't the last. Within half an hour of leaving the upstairs crowd I was typing in the Endeavor when Joy, seething, and with full sails set, blazed into the room and straight up to me.

"Don't you ever do that to me again," she hissed- and just as promptly stormed out.

At the next SA meeting my petition was presented and ignored. The BOG rep would be decided on in the format I suppose unsuspecting Lethbridge College students still use.

Speeches were given. Dan Grant was running, but I don't remember him speaking. I must have been out of the room.

Joy spoke. She was wired, spoke too fast. She distributed a letter-sized note around the room while talking. Each copy she handed out had identical black marks over it, like cat paws. With those copies she was passing out, she killed any momentum she had on this issue and it all came to a final rest.

This was a nomination meeting, but people were voting on it, so the SA's strict election rules applied. The rules stated you could not use college materials for your campaign, not a pencil, not a piece of paper, not a photocopy you didn't pay for. The purpose was to make it fair for people running against a sitting student council member who could use his or her office supplies and so have an unfair advantage, but we in Com Arts had access to some office supplies as well.

The printer in AN1705 was having problems. It was leaving tracks like cat paws over every page it printed off. The letter Joy was distributing to this jaundiced student council looked bad aesthetically, but the paw prints were also evidence to every person in the room from Com Arts, including me, she had broken the rules.

Besides Dan Grant and Joy, a large Criminal Justice student named Craig Knutson was running.

His turn came for his two minute speech. He walked to the head of the table and gripped the empty president's chair like he'd just bought it. He was a former United States marine, he said. He'd served for five years. He was married with children. He knew responsibility. He believed he could do the job. He was the perfect compromise candidate for the sitting SA members. He won the BOG position, likely by a wide margin.

From this point on, the two traditionally combined SA positions, president and BOG rep, were separated.

Chapter 14

"They never let you do your last show."

Jacqueline Marchand

Thirtyish Craig Knutson was a fairly big man, large, not tall, his solid ample body crowned with a big head studded with two small eyes that sucked up impressions like a sow sops oatmeal. He became a power in student government, later SA president, with one of his first actions to give himself and his executive $1,000 per month raises.

But that was in the future.

One lazy afternoon Craig and I relaxed at one of the half dozen large oak desks in the roomy SA rep room. He'd recently returned from a meeting of ACTISEC, the Alberta Colleges and Technical Institute's Student Executive Council.

Joy had impressed him and others on the trip, he said, adding she had been elected ACTISEC rep to the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. The only thing that meant to me was that Craig, so soon after his election, was now more informed on SA matters than I was.

He had some juicy gossip for me, too. On a two-day business trip to Red Deer two SA execs partied and slept together. I knew the girl. She was in Com Arts. I decided the two would make a nice couple.

There was a sad outcome to that fun weekend. The male student, Joy's vice-president, later resigned his position. The story was he'd dropped his pants dancing on a Red Deer bar table, but the rumour mill worked its magic of exaggeration and by the time he heard the new tale he had supposedly shown off more than his ass. He was mortified. He quit student council. His final VP letter was handed to Joy while I was talking to her in her office. She handed it back, asking her vice-president to remove the word "penis" from his letter of resignation.

People party, who cares. But the matter bothered him tremendously and he was gone.

I saw him much later, it could be have been as much as a year later. I had forgotten about him. I'd never seen him around. Then there he was in a college hallway. He said hello, but his eyes were searching my face for something, what, I didn't know. I said hello back and there was a fleeting look on his face I interpreted as relief.

That same day, I was studying in the Brown Bag and he passed by, calling out my name loudly with a wave. I waved back. Then it occurred to me. That issue, way back then, had bothered him so much it affected him all this much time later. His eyes had been searching my face. Perhaps he wanted to know if I thought less of him somehow. My guess is he searched every persons face with his eyes when he first returned to college to see if they knew him back then when he resigned as our vice-president. He had been a cheerful guy, a happy-go-lucky guy, carefree, a great guy, a good guy. A year later he certainly didn't look anything like that. That nothing issue I had forgotten all about- a little blip of nothing in our college year- must have weighed on him very heavily for all that time.

Craig's being impressed with Joy didn't last. Joy had an incredible quality to charm irresistibly just to squeeze all she could out of people. Some people sensed that right away and didn't fall for it. Anna Jenson was likely chief among those. Apparently, I didn't have that sense at all. I'd been charmed by Joy right down to my socks.

I thought Joy was important to the college. Sure, she could charm. Sure, she could be abrasive, even exasperating. But I had the impression Joy would never back down if she knew she was right, on principle she would fight like a hell-cat. I liked that quality.

My most distinct memory of this time, soon after the election, was while visiting Joy's house. She was living with a couple very rich fellows who shared this house, one, according to her, was the fellow who owned two high-end stores in town, and the other was involved in a major auto dealership. Why, if they were making that much money, they would purchase one house to share I have no idea. I assume she was still going with the store fellow. She was quite comfortable in the house.

Anyway, someone knocked on her door and Tracey Norlin, the loyal, pretty, SA office secretary came in to deliver papers for Joy to look over. It was evening, long after work hours were done. Tracey had been around the SA for a long time- she was a former SA vice-president- but here she was, standing in the living room in her coat while Joy relaxed in an easy chair in her thin, short, Chinese-style house coat, her long model legs crossed, reading whatever it was that Tracey had handed over, like this great service was owed to her.

Tracey managed the SA offices with a partner, another full-time secretary, Pat, who was leaving the SA office to work in student services. I asked her before she left if she was looking forward to the move.

"I can't wait to get out of here," she said, and she meant it.

The vacancy was filled with a new hire, a local girl named Jacqueline Marchand, which everyone shortened to Jacquie- pronounced "Jackie". She was an LCC Com Arts graduate just moved back to Lethbridge from Saskatchewan. Jacquie had given up a brief career- more like a stint- as a television reporter and news anchor in Lloydminster and Swift Current. Back home in Lethbridge she was doing a local radio show Saturday nights, but was leaving that soon, too. Her last radio show was coming up.

"I'll listen," I told her, as I interviewed her for a feature article.

"Don't bother," Jacquie said. "They never let you do your last show."

"Why's that?"

"Because they never know what you might say."

For some reason about this time I visit Georgia at her house on some errand.

I discovered Georgia's house was part library, her walls lined with book shelves. I liked that. That was familiar to me from my own home. It was very pleasing to see Georgia sitting in her living room chair, going over whatever papers on her lap, surrounded by all those hundreds of books on those shelves on two sides of her living room walls. It seemed familiar to me as my mother always had hundreds of books in her house on shelves, many more in boxes, most later organized, just like a library, into different categories on book shelves in various rooms. First Nation and Canadian history were chief among mom's reading topics which amused me more than once, her fascination with First Nation issues. Then during one discussion I was surprised to learn, right out of the blue, my grandmother was fluent in Kootenay, or Ktunaxa, as they call it now.

"Oh, yes," Mom said, as if it were common knowledge. "They all spoke Kootenay. Your uncle Alec, Aunt Jessie, your grandmother. It was their first language."

"I didn't know that."

It wasn't common knowledge and she didn't know it either until she was nine. On a street corner a native woman called out to her mother- my grandmother- who tried to ignore her until she couldn't any longer. Mom remembered my grandmother finally speaking to the woman, fluently, in a language she never heard come out of her mouth before or after. In those days being First Nation wasn't a matter of pride. Grandma hid her heritage, never passed on her first language to us. I finally understood why mom researched this subject so intensely. It was as if she were searching for a part of herself never recognized.

I remember once at a house full get-together at Yvonne's, mom's friend from her earlier married days when both were in their 30s. It was late, the friendly evening living room full, mom is talking, relating some legend of some tribe, God knows who, about Mouse and some other animal. Her fingers are up in front of her face and her eyes wide like Mouse is looking through grass to avoid this other animal. Mom finishes and we are all impressed with her passion for this legend but Yvonne says, in the nicest way, as only a friend can, that to her it all sounds like bullshit, that she doesn't know what it means, if it means anything at all.

Mom is the first one in our family to graduate with a university degree. First Nation studies is her passion. But I have the feeling that Yvonne is right. You could read a book about this legend a thousand times and get nothing more from it. The elders who passed this down must have either had some knowledge that wasn't passed down along with this legend or we were left with a shell of it, some academic facsimile of it that passed on everything but how to understand it.

Anyway, seeing all those book shelves in Georgia's house made it seem very friendly and familiar, but I noticed Georgia's books were mostly hardcover novels. Novels. That was interesting.

I recalled during one class Georgia said she had overheard two janitors talking to each other as they walked together down the hallway, passing by her tiny office. Georgia had been enchanted with the way they spoke, the tone, the words used, and in class told us she had stopped what she was doing to write this dialogue down.

The thought occurred to me Georgia, our writing teacher, surrounded by those hundreds of hard-cover novels in her living room, and so enchanted by passing snippets of dialogue, may not have been a news reporter at heart, a job she had never really done. Instead, Georgia may have harboured a desire to be a novelist.

I'll include this class laugh as it just now came to mind. We had one First Nation student in our class, Jesse, and Georgia had no idea what to refer to him as.

She asked what do you prefer, Jesse? What do want to be called? Indian, First Nation, what? and with a comic's timing Jesse waited until he had everyone's full attention.

"Savage," Jesse said, and our class roared its approval in surprised and giddy delight.

Our first year of college ended. Four months of summer holidays began.

I had two jobs that summer, one in the college's Buchanan Library in addition to my regular work with Alberta Health. The library entrance door was only forty feet from the SA office entrance door so it wasn't hard to keep with with what was going on down there.

One lunch break I dropped into the SA office- a much quieter place in summer as the divisional reps were gone. Only SA execs were working in the offices in summer, if in at all. They were required to put in just five hours per week. On this day Gail was the only SA exec in. We talked for ten minutes or so.

Things weren't going well at all, Gail said. Anna couldn't stand Joy. They couldn't work together. Joy got so angry with Anna she threw something at her. Dean Stetson offered to mediate problems between them. Joy had no friends in the office. She used people. She ordered people around. Everyone was fed up.

It confirmed what Donna Allan, the college president, had zeroed in on very early, weeks before I had clued in to a problem between these two. I had no idea how bad it was until just then. It seemed beyond serious, it seemed disastrous.

I talked to Joy about it.

Joy didn't like me challenging her behaviour. Our conversation became an argument. I wasn't good at verbal sparring with Joy. She had a knack for knocking people down easily. I was getting frustrated.

"You use people," I said.

"Yeah, I use people to the max. So what?"

Pam quit her SA position. Gail quit soon after.

For the rest of the summer only Joy and Anna were working in the SA offices that held, during the school year, about 20 elected student council members. It must have been a bitter time for them both.

Joy called me at home. "I want to appoint you vice-president," she said.

I'm flattered, but aren't these things decided by election?

No, I can appoint.

She was right. Anna had been appointed once. But with her next sentence I clued into how right Gail had been about Joy.

"But if I appoint you, you have to do as I say. I mean it. You have to do everything I tell you," Joy said.

I declined.

~

Second Year Student

~

Chapter 15

"For an 'A'? I'd fuck him for this napkin!"

First -year overheard

September.

I didn't recognize the person typing next to me at the Endeavor's middle workstation. Her long thin fingers stroked her keyboard, quickly, expertly. She was thirtyish. Sandy-blonde hair fell to her shoulders. Her pretty face was etched in concentration.

I said hi.

"Hi. I'm Ruth."

She seemed shy.

"Where are you from?"

"Cranbrook," she said.

I tried to think of someone in Cranbrook we would both know, without success.

"What are you taking?"

"Oh, I'm not taking anything. I'm a teacher."

"Oh."

It didn't occur to me until a few minutes had gone by she was a teacher in our department.

"Do you have an office?"

"D'Arcy offered."

"Oh, yeah, he has a spare desk down there. No one's using it."

She relaxed noticeably, leaning back from her computer.

"Oh. I might take him up on it, then."

I thought this was funny, her apparent relief discovering there really was an empty desk in an office a male instructor offered to share. Ruth didn't trust men much, obviously. But we seemed to get along.

As if to confirm this thought, she said to me, quietly:

"I usually don't talk this way with people."

Joanne, our boisterous sports editor, talked like a valley girl on amphetamines. How Joanne said something was every bit as interesting as what she said and she had something very interesting to say about the new students in our department, the first-years. She had been at a MacDonald's, some of the female Com Arts first-years had been there, and Jo had overheard part of their conversation, was aghast, and so, of course, had to tell us about it right away.

The new students had been sitting at a nearby restaurant table and very likely didn't know who Joanne was, just as we didn't know who any of the first-years were. Joanne's ears had perked up, though, when she overheard these new students were apparently very impressed with Com Arts instructor D'Arcy Kavanagh.

Jo reported one of the first-year's asked: "Would you fuck D'Arcy for an 'A'?"

Another answered: "For an 'A'? I'd fuck him for this napkin!"

Our second year started out with the first and only student protest I ever witnessed at Lethbridge Community College. It was over the right to smoke, of all things. Television cameras recorded some of it.

During noon hours cigarette smoke inside the Cave was as thick as big-city exhaust fumes during rush hour. Many students didn't use the Cave at noon for just that reason, myself included.

The Cave was a large student relaxation area, about the size of the college cafeteria with about twenty or thirty tables, many of those tables overlooking a sort of giant aquarium in which students watched television. Behind its floor-to-ceiling windows, the aquarium floor was recessed about a metre. Red carpeting covered not only its recessed floor but its built-in benches. Smoking, food and drink were not permitted in this glass-walled aquarium-like room and there was an obvious difference between its bright red carpet and the ugly, butt-stained, smelly brown carpet covering most of the Cave floor. In the Cave a satellite kitchen concession sold pop, coffee, pre-made burgers, soups, chili, and the like.

Over the summer a Board of Governors vote made the college a non-smoking institution. Students had smoked in the Cave and various smoking rooms throughout the school, but now smoking was outside only. To protest the new policy about 20 students lit up cigarettes inside the Cave on a mid-September Monday.

A day after the initial smoking protest, college administration decided to meet with the protesting students. College president Donna Allan and Dean Stetson, the dean of student services, went to the Cave at noon. A television camera from a local station recorded the meeting.

Students were angry, in no mood to listen to college administrators. A speaker's lectern with microphone had been set up for Donna Allan. Her Barbara Walter's voice so amplified, she tried to inform students of the history of the policy over cat-calls and shouted questions. Finally, Allan quit trying to talk.

"I won't listen to you in this environment because you are only screaming and hollering," she called back.

At this point Joy, decked out in a brown leather jacket and just arrived with a group of friends, got up between Donna's dais and the crowd of students and spoke without a microphone. Joy was pumped. She spoke like a civil rights leader, pacing back and forth between Allan and the students.

"Why yell and scream? WE HAVE TO BECAUSE NO ONE WILL LISTEN TO US!"

The news camera zeroed in on the angry black woman with large naked teeth.

"I'M BEHIND YOU GUYS!" she shouted, and students cheered as she raised her clenched fist straight over her head in a power salute. Behind her, like a backdrop, Donna Allan stood, unmoving.

On the television news that night a reserved Donna Allan contrasted sharply to the closeup of a furious and indignant female SA president.

The next day protesting students in the Cave were still lighting up and smoking. But it was uglier. Some tossed their butts on the carpet already spotted with dark cigarette burns and squashed them out with their foot. A food service worker in the Cave satellite kitchen told me she was so alarmed by the protestors continued anger she was considering shutting down the satellite kitchen for the day.

I sat down with Georgia in her tiny cubbyhole office and asked what she thought of it all. I thought she'd talk about smoking. Instead, Georgia chose to comment on Joy's civil rights performance. There was no question Joy could perform for a crowd.

"Donna's not going to like that at all. She doesn't like to be made a fool of," Georgia said.

As second-years we had graduated from AN1705 and its long rows of little Mac Classics to the Endeavor production office next door. The Endeavor itself was now our work place. That was a big deal. Very quickly the Endeavor would feel very comfortable.

With stories written and advertisements sold, we now had to compose the newspaper, put it all together a page at a time. Every week students received a page to do. That page was an assignment for marks. But we had more students than pages. Not everyone every week got a production assignment.

In production each advertising student put the ads in first. Then print students edited the stories, and placed them around the ads. Then each page was printed off and hung to signal it was finished to be gone over again. If no errors were discovered in a second edit, the page was ready and taken to the light table by windows edge in the middle of the room. Each page back was coated with wax and pasted onto large grid sheets that kept everything straight as the light table allowed you to see the grid lines through the printed paper. Each waxed grid sheet held two pages each. For a 24 page paper, each two page numbers added up to 25. Page one and 24 together, page 2 and 23 together, all the way down to page 12 and 13 together. Then all finished waxed-up pages were carefully put in a box and trucked to the printer in the nearby community of Taber for final printing. Then we eager students waited for the hundreds of finished newspapers to be trucked back to the college.

I was one of the students without a production assignment on our first newspaper. I hung around the Endeavor anyway, looking for something to do. One student assigned a page hadn't shown up yet, so with Mary's permission, I sat down to work at a computer until he arrived. One story I was about to edit had such a serious flaw it was funny. I read it aloud to nearby students.

The story concerned long-time service awards presented to LCC staff. A thirty-year service award was to go to a business and administration instructor, but during the summer break he had suddenly and unexpectedly died. The story read as the man was dead, "a member of his estate can claim his award." I read the unfortunate and unintended punch-line to wide-eyed looks all around, then the absent student showed up, and I was out of a job.

The next day we were a proud bunch when someone rolled in a large trolley of folded and bundled newspapers stacked a metre high, smelling of fresh ink, with our front page photo of television student Kevin Riley addressing BOG for students protesting the non-smoking policy. Advertising students rushed to distribute papers to the various kiosks around campus. Some piled fresh-smelling stacks in their cars to take them to distribution points throughout Lethbridge.

Shortly after, two stone-faced young women showed up at the Endeavor wanting to talk to the person in charge. They were referred to Mary.

The room was full and noisy and I couldn't overhear what they were saying from my workstation, but something seemed to be very wrong. Mary looked aghast as they spoke to her. Having said their piece the two women pointedly turned from her and walked out. Someone brought Mary a paper and she opened it quickly, scanning pages, then suddenly collapsed to sit on the edge of a desk behind her. Her arms dropped but her hands still clutched the paper. Her head dropped as far back as it would go, near resting on her back, her throat fully exposed. It was as if her spine could no longer support her head. The noise in the Endeavor died.

"JEEeeeeeeeeessus," Mary moaned to the ceiling. "OhhJEEESUS."

She lifted the paper in her hands to look at it again and shrieked, "I can't believe it. I can't believe we did this!"

I picked up a paper and searched through it.

The story I'd read aloud the previous day was unchanged.

All students in the room were stone quiet, looking at papers. Someone went to get the publisher, Richard Burke.

Burke came in and read it. No one said a word. Burke rolled the paper up and raised it in his hand.

"There's nothing you can do about this now," he said. "This is part of the written record."

Maybe we should apologize, someone said.

Burke said no. The mistake was made, there was nothing we could do about it. It was a lesson. He left.

We went back to our workstations. No one spoke. There was only the clicking sound from computer keyboards. The Endeavor sounded like an insurance office.

Joanne rushed into the room, excited and alarmed.

"You GUYS! You should see what we WROTE! It's AWFUL! Business students are REALLY upset!"

I broke our sullen silence.

"Tough shit."

"Tell 'em to deal with it," said Lexi. not looking up from her computer screen. Lexi was one of our two ad managers.

Then just typing. No talking. Not one word more was said. There was just the clacking of busy Endeavor computer keyboards.

Joanne, bewildered, stood riveted at the Endeavor entrance door, confused. Then she suddenly turned and walked away.

The war between Joy and Anna continued. At the end of September Joy felt she had to unload a list of issues to council members in a general letter. I wasn't at that meeting. I didn't pay much attention to Joy's letter she gave me a copy of. It seemed easier to read between the lines of the letter. What impressed me, looking at it, was how little influence Joy seemed to have with her own council.

Her list of complaints was all Anna did this, Anna did that. Anna, in charge of the SA's participation in convocation, insisted Joy had to buy her ticket to the event. Joy believed as SA president with her presence expected, she should get a pass. Anna had tried twice to reduce Joy's honorarium. Dean Stetson had to intervene. Anna brought a motion to council to double her own honorarium for one month as she said she had increased work. It passed easily. That certainly indicated Anna had council support and Joy didn't. Anna insisted Joy get her travel receipts in order. There was more, but that was the main part of the list.

I never spoke to Joy or Anna about any of it. It didn't seem like news. It seemed petty.

Chapter 16

"They hate me! They hate me! They hate me!"

Ruth

It was soon apparent our shy new Endeavor advisor, Ruth, wasn't familiar with our MacIntosh computers. No one was asking her for advice yet. We were having fun advising her. She hung around like a tagalong kid, hoping she was liked. And she was. She was approachable, shy and very, very attractive. We were all beginning to like her a lot. Ruth was so well-liked by our class I was taken aback when I discovered a student who did not like her.

Coming into AN1705 for a class, I sat down at the long middle table that ran lengthways down the centre of the room. Across from me a female first-year, young, short dark hair, bored face, in no hurry to leave, was finishing a doodle. In fact, the open pages of her notebook were entirely doodles, not a single class note.

"Boring class?" I asked.

She looked up at me.

"This is my doodle class," she said. "That's all I do. Doodles."

Ruth had been her instructor, just finished with this room. The first-year had been sitting right under Ruth's nose, the first seat away from the short wooden lectern sitting on top of the teacher's desk. Ruth, shy and without much confidence, could have been rather unnerved by it.

The first-year student finished her doodle and left.

The doodle student was Annette Anderson. It was our first meeting. I didn't know her name yet. Our next conversation would be in March, about six months later.

In our short time at college with only one year as reference, we believed it was tradition for the Endeavor to be a second-year bastion. First-years worked in AN1705. That tradition held for only one semester this year. In January a few of the first-years started coming into the Endeavor, little by little.

But in September we didn't know the first-years. They were a new and different crowd. Perhaps like every second-year class that took over the Endeavor, we didn't think about them- save for that one salacious story of Joanne's- nor did we care about them, or have classes with them. Our class had inherited the Endeavor. We had the Endeavor to ourselves. We were getting our names in print. That was what we cared about.

But early that semester one first-year student did come into the Endeavor and just inside the door by the mail pigeon holes, handed me a story to look over. She may have just received it in her mail. Just like we had as first-years, we took two or three steps into the Endeavor to pick up mail from our assigned pigeon holes. This was the first time this first-year and I spoke. I can't recall who it was. She was short and had light hair, but other than that, I don't recall much about her, save for her tone of voice. In retrospect it could have been Kirsten Broatch, but I'm not sure.

"Look what Ruthless did," she said, disgusted, handing me a news story assignment of about 100 words. Her news story read like a high school prose piece. Three or four quick, thin, red lines had been whipped thought it, denoting needed changes. I read the piece as corrected. I was keenly impressed. Ruth had seen where to find a news story in this prose, and by the quickness of her pen strokes, had seen it immediately. I handed the story back to the first-year and showed her. The student read it again, new respect on her face.

Ruth started work about one o'clock during our production days and when she sat down at a desk across from me, I told her, "Today I learned what your nickname is."

Ruth wrinkled her face. "Law-rence. I don't have much of an ego."

A first-year student called her "Ruthless," I told her. "She thinks your tough. That's a good reputation for a teacher."

I thought it was funny. Our shy new teacher looked anything but ruthless.

Sometime later, I'm positive it was that same afternoon, Ruth and I were standing by the Endeavor entrance and I must have raised the subject again, because I remember her raising a finger, the pointing finger of her right hand directed at me, and she wound it slowly in a circular motion, while telling me quietly, "You know, I can only joke about this with you."

I was more than impressed by Ruth by this time. I was just short of smitten. Ruth was extraordinarily beautiful and shy in a way that was so unique there was no one like her. But it wasn't just that she laughed easily and smiled readily. I had never met anyone so transparently sensitive. She was the most transparent person I'd ever met. Her every thought, her every emotion, was broadcast in every mannerism. Every movement of hers was like a dance. If she wasn't so shy she could have been one hell of a ballerina. Audiences would have been spellbound. I was.

Days later.

While typing at the middle workstation, Ruth came to me and said, panic-like: "They hate me. They hate me, they hate me."

"Who?"

Her first-year class, she said. She had no idea what to do.

I was flattered she approached me first in her distress. But I had no idea what to do about it. Very shortly after, she went back to work and I went back to typing.

The next day Ruth approached me in the Endeavor's ad area.

"Can you show me the darkroom's new filing system?" she asked.

"Sure."

The Endeavor had its own dark room. There was another dark room in another area of the college we shared with Criminal Justice students, but we rarely used it. In our dark room the photo editors had set up a system of envelopes for picture storage. It would make everyone's work easier. In the darkroom, I bent to show her where the envelopes were and what each one was for.

I bent over and pulled out an envelope and felt her pat me on the back.

"I don't want to look at the filing system. I just said that. I need to talk to you."

I stood up, confused.

"Can we talk?" she asked.

"Sure."

We walked away from the door to where the dark room widened out. I leaned against a counter. She held her long fingers out, a plea.

"Please don't say anything about what I said about the first-year's yesterday."

"No problem. I haven't said anything."

I wasn't the only one who'd heard her. The room had been half full. But for some reason she was afraid I would say something. She relaxed. She leaned her back against the black painted booth where we unrolled film in absolute darkness. Everything here was painted black, every square angle, every flat surface. Ruth was softness and curves and sincerity. I asked a few questions, then let her talk. She talked about the first-years, teaching, and what it meant to her.

She was in profile, pale chin tilted upward, voice quiet, soft. She might has well have been speaking Spanish, I wasn't listening. I was fascinated with her. The thought came to me that at this was the perfect moment to kiss this pretty teacher. I'd never have another moment like it. But I never moved. It was a thought only.

A crash.

Ruth reacted like a gun had gone off. Some plastic darkroom bottles stacked in a corner had just now fallen over and she rushed to the far wall counter to look behind a box and some equipment, but there was nowhere for anyone to hide. No one was watching, listening to us. She turned and came back to me, relieved and started again where she had left off, she needed to get it out of her system, but now I felt panicky. I couldn't listen, but I didn't want to rush her, either. Her reaction to the containers falling over had startled me more than them falling over. I let her talk for a bit then told her we'd better go. I said this twice.

Finally: "We'd really better go. This doesn't look good at all."

Ruth looked happy. Every emotion seemed to affect her body, the way it moved, her posture. She had walked into the darkroom concerned, back bowed, and now leaving the darkroom she had that walk only pretty girls have, her back as straight as if she carried a book on her head. We left the darkroom, stepped back into the sunlit Endeavor with its one wall of windows, and went back to work.

Chapter 17

"What's the matter? Don't you recognize me?"

Dana Merkl

Georgia was gone this semester, retired. After almost a quarter-century at the college we had been her last class. Our zenith moment had been the surprise send-off of Georgia Fooks, and it was all Sandy Hartwick.

Sandy, Mary's co-editor, had an uncanny talent for impressions and Georgia's mannerisms were patently mockable. As our first year had ended, in one of Georgia's last classes in the 1365 lecture theatre, with its rows of higher and higher comfortable theatre chairs, just as she began her lecture in the same way she always began, a twin Georgia, wigged for likeness, similarly dressed right down to the large glasses, rushed in with an armful of papers which she plopped down on the table up front.

"Okay, you birds," this new Georgia said, beginning her high speed lecture, stabbing the air with a handful of keys, the other hand straightening out her clothing over her breasts as she lectured, another Georgia trademark.

The real Georgia, overwhelmed and breathless, seated herself in the audience with the rest of us. "Oh, my God," the real Georgia kept breathlessly hooting as we roared. The room rocked. Our class had laughs before, but none like this. We never laughed so hard. We never would again. It was priceless Sandy Hartwick and there wasn't a better way to say goodbye to Georgia Fooks.

Ruth found a new office. Georgia's. The little office looked very strange with no Georgia in it. The rows of crammed to-the-ceiling shelves were now empty. That looked almost sad.

I dropped into what was now Ruth's office to chat, but she wasn't listening to me, she was thinking about something else. She sat as if her knees were pained, she wrapped each one with her long fingers.

"Do I mark like anyone else?"

No. She was a lot tougher. We had some pretty easy markers in this department.

"I've never had any mark from Veryl other than four out of five or five out of five. That's all anyone gets from him. No one learns from that."

I remembered the student who had shown me her work and hadn't seen the news story Ruth cut from her prose. I reminded her of this, told her of the student again, but she didn't look any happier.

Ruth was far too sensitive, she had yet to acquire a teacher's thick skin. I knew full well that would come and also knew it might come too soon for me. I liked her just as she was, taking everything to heart.

I told her a story to illustrate where she was at: My mother, a teacher in British Columbia, had been invited to go sailing. The man who invited her was proud of his sailboat, but wasn't sure of himself. He motored the sailboat into an isolated cove. There he put up sails, but winds changed and he didn't react well to winds changing, so she watched him as he helplessly tried his best in the isolated cove, trying to change whatever it is that sailors change so the boat would respond to the winds. She didn't enjoy herself and she didn't go on his sailboat again.

I told Ruth when she finally caught on to this teaching business she'd be able to sail without going into a private cove to figure out the winds.

We had to leave for classes and were walking through the hallway now. Ruth's head was down as she walked. I realized she was reacting as if getting polite flack.

"So you think I'm the boat?"

"No, no. I think you're the sailor."

The vice-president position was up for election. Joy hadn't appointed anyone. None, I suppose, would take it. I had thought of running for vice-president. I even had my posters ready and had received good comments from a few saying they would support me. In the Endeavor, designing a campaign poster, Dale Oviatt, passing by, asked what I was working on. Dale was a young married Mormon who worked his ass off doing ad sales and would do it again for a nearby weekly during the summer.

"I'm thinking of running for vice-president."

"I'd vote for you," Dale said.

Dan Gyulai, passing by in the Endeavor, he said he thought I would be good for the job.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you're selfless," he said.

But I didn't run for the worst of reasons. I hated the thought that I might lose. Already declared as running was Dana Merkl. I'd first met him during the meeting with Ady with BOG chambers earlier that year, in spring.

Dana was a shaggy dog in farmer bib jean overalls, mid-thirties, pot-bellied, long-haired, bearded. His brown hair circled his chubby round face like the matted-down fur edging of a parka. Free bangs hung straight down to his eyes. A seemingly permanent baseball cap parked on top. Married with children, he'd worked as a truck driver after military service. He was in college completing high school in a program called "upgrading".

We had significantly more upgrading students in the college this year, as, reportedly, provincial welfare reform dictated able-bodied welfare recipients had to go to school and improve themselves or be cut off. They were a noticeable bunch, the upgrading students. They were very different. They kept to themselves. With rare exceptions, like Dana, they never looked like students. I remember one older lady, perhaps she was my age but looked twenty years older, and she smoked at an exit, in the same spot outside near the mock courtroom classroom of the Criminal Justice students. She was a living statue. I only ever saw her there, smoking. She always had the same stance and always the same expression, the same clothes. With so much happening during my time in college it was a mini-shock every time I'd see her, trapped in unmoving time, staring into space, dragging heavily on a cigarette, ignoring everyone around her. Her body language said she never wanted to be in college, she had been forced to go, but she would endure it. She, of all people, is one of my chief memories of college. All this learning available, all of these resources, and seasons passed, years passed, and she, whoever she was, looked just as impervious to it all as she had been from her first day here. It was bewildering and incredibly sad that none of this learning environment ever managed to seep into her pores.

Dana discovered there had once been an upgrading club but no one had done anything with it for years. He reactivated it and from then on was a common sight in the hallways, shaking a little plastic bucket of coins while selling 50-50 tickets for his club, a dollar a ticket or three dollars for an arm's length of tickets from the roll. The winning ticket number for half the money of each pot was posted in the SA office.

The upgrading students, many of whom really looked like a poor bunch without much money, loved this club. It seemed for the first time for many of them, they were treated very well, special. Dana arranged club dinners in the college restaurant where the culinary students cooked sumptuous meals with fancy pastries. Dana plowed other money into upgrading scholarships. They were small scholarships, but welcome, twenty-five and fifty dollar scholarships. All this from his little bucket of coins. The upgrading students would do anything for him.

Before the election, a large stranger suddenly stopped me in the hallway, his face right at mine, nose to nose.

"What's the matter?" he said. "Don't you recognize me?"

It was Dana. He'd stopped me this way for shock value. This new Dana was neatly trimmed and beardless, with a pleasant face that matched his familiar friendly voice.

Dana won the by-election by acclamation and settled into the vice-president's office quickly. The burning issue at the time was improving working relations within the SA, which, if simply translated, meant trying to get along with Joy.

Sometime after the election, Joy was on the warpath. Anna had written a motion that passed without problems giving her an additional $450 for extra work done during the summer, doubling her honorarium for that month as she felt she'd covered for other positions that were empty.

Joy didn't believe Anna had done any more work than she had over the summer, but what was interesting to me about that scrap, was that Joy had noticeably little influence on the newly-elected division reps. They really couldn't be blamed. Even I was finding Joy hard to take by this time.

Once, while typing in the Endeavor, Joy came in, walked straight up to me, and said, "I want you to come with me. I have a meeting."

I followed her out of the Endeavor to the Cave where we sat and talked for about ten minutes about nothing in particular, when she suddenly got up. I waited but soon realized she wasn't coming back. She'd gone. Odd. Where was this meeting she was talking about?

I asked someone passing in the hallway: "Did you see Joy?"

"Yeah, she went around that corner."

Around that corner in a narrow hallway were a series of offices along it, including Kavanagh's. I stepped into his office. Kavanagh, at his desk, was listening to Joy at the spare desk across from him. Joy stopped talking and looked up at me.

"Do you mind?" she said, her tone hard.

I was stunned. I mumbled, confused, "I thought you wanted me to come to some sort of meeting."

I backed out of the room, embarrassed. I went back to the Endeavor to finish typing.

After half an hour or so, Joy came into the Endeavor and stood over me.

"What the hell were you doing following me into Kavanagh's office?"

"You said you wanted me to come to a meeting."

"That was a private discussion. Do you know how you made me look?"

She steamed out.

I had one more episode with Joy much like that one.

She phoned me at home and asked me to come to a press conference in the 1365 lecture theatre, near the SA offices. The television stations were coming out, Joy said.

"I need you," she said. "I need you to be there."

Asked that way, naturally I couldn't let her down.

In 1365 Joy and a student government vice-president from the University of Lethbridge, Sandy Lawson, announced college and university student leaders were going to be working together more closely. On what in particular? I thought. They were giving no details. It was a general statement. The two sat, back straight, chairs side-by-side sharing a little table for a desk, facing the rows of comfortable blue chairs that rose steeply to the back of the room in which almost a dozen people sat. The newspeople had bored here-we-go-again looks on their faces. Up front, Joy, dressed just right for the occasion, wore an upscale but simple dress, and had given her hair an extra brushed and combed look for TV. Her displayed fingers were entwined professionally, resting primly on the little desk. Sandy let her do most of the talking. It didn't sound like news to me.

While Joy and Sandy spoke I whispered questions to a couple of the students sitting near me.

Why are you here?

Joy phoned and asked me, they both said.

I understood then I had received the same form-letter phone call as everyone else. I hadn't been asked as a news reporter to come to a press conference, I'd been added as a warm body to become audience to give the impression shit looked like news.

Other students were getting fed up with her. In early October someone kidnapped the presidential gavel, leaving a ransom note, demanding payment of better SA working relations.

Joy seemed oblivious to it all. In her office one afternoon I listened to her talk about her early days as a model. If she didn't like someone on the set she had them thrown off, fired, she said.

With that story I finally understood where Joy was coming from. Joy was a temperamental model, the pretty star. She believed she could act as she damned well pleased because her cuteness melted detractors into pools of forgiveness. To her, being SA president was like being the star of a student government photography set. The extras on the set- the other execs and the division reps- had to be charmed or yelled at. I had been charmed. People who couldn't be charmed, like Anna Jenson, were yelled at. Anna was having none of it. She had spine.

Shortly after the "press conference" we heard a hint of some real news. A non-confidence motion against Joy would be introduced at the next student council meeting. I dropped into the SA office to ask about it, but no one was talking to me or anyone from the Endeavor.

What was impossible to miss, though, was our newly-elected divisional reps had a sudden air of importance about them. They each looked professionally busy and profound. They were being included in constant mini-conferences that caused their young faces to seriously weigh secret facts of mysterious gravity.

A few hours before the SA meeting I was trying to talk to a closed-mouthed Dana outside his office when Craig joined us to say Joy was calling the press to cover the SA meeting. He meant, of course, the professional press, not we student amateurs who weren't getting anything from them anyway.

"What does she think she's doing?" Craig asked. "Why doesn't she just step aside?

Craig was opposed to her? Et tu Brute? So perhaps the young faces had major parts to play at this meeting.

I'd covered a lot of SA meetings, but I could feel in my bones this meeting was going to be different with the potential to be a news blockbuster. I decided to videotape the meeting. I set up the video camera in the SA boardroom shortly before the meeting started. Students began coming in early to get a seat. This was different in itself. Usually the lone Endeavor reporter was the only guest observer of SA regular meetings which could last up to three boring hours. But long before this meeting started, every visitor's seat in the little SA boardroom was taken. Still more students came in, standing wherever they could to watch.

Chapter 18

"Order! Order! Order! Order!"

Chris Clapton

The meeting's first order of business was to introduce twenty-fivish Sandy Lawson, who I'd first seen at the non-news press conference. Lawson, friendly, short, heavy set, wore a shirt sleeveless to the shoulder, long hair to the middle of his back. Sandy gave off friendly vibes but with an oozing political slickness. He was the vice-president of externals at the University of Lethbridge, the other post-secondary school. Across town the U of L was built like a cement bunker into a hill overlooking the Oldman River.

Lawson had been scheduled to address the student council and show a short video. One speaker on the video was Joy Nicholson, attractive, model-perfect, contrasting sharply with the sullen, t-shirted skinny black lady in the president's chair at the head of a long crowded board room table.

The student's council ignored the video. As it finished, Lawson made a short address, but council wasn't interested in him or what he had to say. He felt it, too, and tried to smile through the chill, but no one smiled back. They ignored him. He asked for questions. No one had any. Joy thanked him and Lawson left the room with a wave, also ignored. The council sat stone silent until he was gone, then immediately moved item 8.1 to top spot on the agenda. Item 8.1 was the motion of non-confidence.

Joy said as she was the subject of the non-confidence motion she would turn the chairmanship over to someone else. She chose an exec named Erin Graham (the spelling of her first name I have is "Aaron," but I'm betting that can't be right. With the possibility of error, I'm going with "Erin"), seated to Joy's right, late teens, short, chubby, soft-spoken. Anna and a rep named Alan Helm told Joy, no, both pointing to Chris Clapton, seated next to Erin. As if on cue, someone seated behind Clapton produced the long-missing kidnapped gavel and handed it to him to use.

Chairman chosen, Anna Jenson stood, some papers in her hand.

"Would the media like to know everybody's name and then have them stand up and introduce themselves?" Anna asked.

She seemed pleased for the press attention at the meeting. Dan Gyulai was there, assigned the story by Mary. Our other senior editor, Sandy Hartwick was there. From CLCC, the campus radio station, a red-haired male student sat, tape recorder and microphone on his lap. Next to him sat radio student and later news anchor, Cathy Christianson. Dan Grant, also in radio, was photographed interviewing Joy with a microphone after the hearing.

Anna's suggestion for introductions seemed agreeable.

Joy went first.

"I'm Joy," she said, simply.

To her left, a big, mid-thirties man in bib jean overalls and baseball cap, said from his chair, "I'm Dana Merkl."

Someone asked Dana his position.

"Sitting."

Gleeful laughter.

He rose. "I'm vice-president."

To Dana's left, a tall and footballer-large, young, dark-haired man stood to a half bow. He had a quiet, soft voice:

"Fraser Elliot, Business Admin rep."

A chubby young man with Elvis curls bounced to his feet and he continued to bounce like an Elvis impersonator as he said, proudly, almost musically: "I'm Scott Groves. I'm the Natural and Social Sciences rep."

He dropped down as quickly as he'd shot up.

Anna stood.

"I'm Anna Jenson, financial coordinator."

To her left, a young man, nineteen, perhaps, and blonde.

"I'm Alan Helm, Natural and Social Sciences rep."

A young man wearing a baseball cap. Dark hair. Serious, world-weary face.

"I'm Jay German, Community Arts rep."

To his left, a young man who looked a lot like Helm. Blonde, about nineteen.

"Corrie Safar, Tech and Trades rep."

At the long table's other end, directly opposite Nicholson, a large, thirtyish man, the only student in the room to wear a suit and tie. He took his time rising, aware of his importance.

"I'm Craig Knutson. I'm the Board of Governor's rep. I sit ex-officio at these meetings."

Which meant, as I interpreted it, he didn't have a constituency of students to worry about.

A dignified looking young black man in thin gold glasses stood. He wore a nicely cut grey sports jacket. No tie. His confident, assured voice matched his look.

"I'm Alex Hamilton. I'm a Natural and Social Sciences rep."

A young woman rose, politely, quickly. Long blonde hair. Eighteen or so. Soft spoken. Princess pretty. Shy looking.

"I'm Nycole Penny, I'm the ISP rep." The letters might be different, but that's what it sounded like. She was a Natural and Social Sciences rep.

"I'm Jack Peterson, Natural and Social Sciences rep."

Peterson was thirty plus, silver glasses. He sat down.

When the next speaker rose and started, "Hi, I'm Colin-" he was interrupted by Peterson, who said in regret, tilting his head back until he was looking at the ceiling: "Applied Arts, I'm sorry."

Laughter. Colin patted Peterson on the back sympathetically.

"Hi. I'm Colin Gaydos, Business and Applies Arts rep." Colin was a Com Arts student.

"Chris Clapton. Special Events Coordinator."

Clapton was blonde, early twenties, jut-jawed handsome, athletic looking.

"Erin Graham, public relations coordinator."

The two permanent staff of the Student's Association were next.

"Jacquie Marchand, administrative assistant."

Marchand, thin, smiling, stood briefly, hands together, gripping a pencil tightly.

Next, a slightly taller woman, very shapely, long blonde hair, friendly face. "Tracey Norlin."

Tracey moved the pencil in her right hand, drawing a circle in the air that included all the SA members assembled.

"Secretary," she said.

More laughter. She laughed with them and sat down.

Tracey was a former vice-president of the SA. Jacquie had also attended college here.

Anna had sat for introductions. She stood again, reading from a paper in her hands.

"I move that we, the LCCSA, deal with the motion of non-confidence presently against Miss Nicholson, president of the LCCSA as outlined in bylaw 15."

Bylaw 15 dealt with removing executives from office.

Anna continued: "Be it resolved that Joy Nicholson does not have the confidence of the student's council of the Student's Association of the Lethbridge Community College and that Joy Nicholson be removed as president of the Student Association for the following reasons:

"That she submitted to the Student Association travel receipt documents which are not complete and failed to disclose that association funds paid to the Westin Hotel in Edmonton for accommodation were in part used for unauthorized expenses that were in part refunded to her personally."

The Westin was a grand hotel, a premier hotel in Edmonton. The SA members weren't travelling cheap on that trip, obviously.

"The association also issued a cheque payable to her for $144 as a travel events claim voucher for meals. This was the maximum meal allowance allowed under the bylaw. Only actual meal expenses are allowed by bylaw 16.

"When the conference was over, she submitted to the association a receipt to the Westin Hotel indicating the hotel had received $529.65. The student association discovered she did not stay at the hotel five nights. The hotel has faxed a copy of the particulars of the hotel bill which show payment of the $529.65 being the association cheque. She only stayed at the hotel for three nights at $99 per night plus tax."

Anna, the numbers person for the SA, continued with the details.

"Charges for the room for food and mini-bar of $90.76, a movie for $8.32, long distance telephone calls for $19.58.

"A refund was paid by the hotel for $78.24. The Westin advised that this refund was paid in cash.

"The actual hotel bill was not submitted to the Student's Association and she did not advise the Student Association that she did not stay at the hotel all five nights, that the $529 credit was also used to pay for food, min-bar service, movie and long distance telephone calls or that she received a refund from the hotel.

"She provided meal receipts totalling $51.98 which were credited against the meal advance claim of $144. The difference of $92.02 was deducted from her honourarium.

One of these receipts was for $39.11 from the Westin Hotel which was found also charged to her room and paid for from the $529 credit. Charges to the hotel was from $44.11 being the $39.11 bill plus a $5 tip. This bill has therefore been paid by the student's association twice.

"Three of the meal bills obtained from the Westin show meals for two people. She went to the conference alone.

"A written reminder was sent to her to hand in her receipts by August 15. She has never paid the Student Association for the charges over and above the room charges and has never advised the association of the refund or paid the refund which she has received from the hotel. Copies of the following documents are attached to this notice. The cheque to the Westin Hotel for $529.65, a cheque to Joy Nicholson for $144. Receipts handed in by Joy Nicholson received from the Westin Hotel and five meal receipts. Documents obtained from the Westin Hotel, five pages and verification of the refund paid in cash."

The motion of non-confidence was put forward by Anna Jenson and seconded by Dana Merkl.

Joy stood.

"There's nothing that I've done wrong and there is nothing that I have to hide," she said.

No one spoke.

"There are major inaccuracies and flaws in this document."

No one spoke.

Joy unravelled.

"It doesn't hold water. I will file a lawsuit against the people who brought this in."

No one moved, no one spoke.

She waved her hand at Anna.

"She's a foyer away from me. No one came and asked me anything."

Anna called out: "There was a chance. I wrote a memorandum and it's attached to the back."

Council members flipped through their stapled pages and waited for Anna to read it.

"Dated August 12. This is the final reminder that all receipts and reimbursements for past travel result in a deduction from your August honourarium. I will be calling Tracey August 18 and informing her of the August payroll amounts."

Anna looked at Joy and continued, her voice hard.

"If you are saying there are things that should be added to this, I never received them. I never received the Westin Hotel bill. Alright? I was given a cash receipt and that's what I took to be of face value."

Joy protested.

"If there was a problem I could have been approached. When I was asked in August why I received a deduction from my honourarium of $92.02, I asked for a breakdown. I never received a breakdown. To this day. Obviously it was from here. Now if this was something you knew about, this should have been discussed with me. Even when I was presented this motion of non-confidence, I said can I explain this to you and discuss it. At no time did I benefit from this. At no time did I receive extra funds from this. I was never given the opportunity-"

Joy was interrupted by Craig Knutson who'd left his seat and walked the length of the table to her chair. He asked if he could see a letter she held. Joy handed it to him and Craig walked the length of the table back to his seat.

Dana spoke.

"Regardless of what you say that nobody told you, by reading through this, my own mind was made up. I feel that you knew what you were doing. As I read through the books- and none of us are lawyers here- none of us profess to be lawyers- we thought we came up with a document that kind of covered where we were at. It says right in our bylaws and everything else that it's your duty when you take money that it has to be accounted for, to let us know. Our job isn't to search it out. Explanations are due when you bring the receipts back. I have a problem with the part that we got no explanations. It was asked for."

Joy went to speak but Chris, the chairman, spoke instead.

"Order. Order. Anna."

Anna spoke directly to Joy: "As for your saying you never had a chance to defend yourself, you were presented with this more than thirty-six hours before this meeting. You were given the opportunity to resign and given the opportunity to defend yourself. I never once received an offer of explanation."

Joy: "Yes, you did. I asked to speak to you. Craig and I were going to Edmonton to the conference. Craig called me that night and said that his brother or something was coming into town. So, that's fine. I'll take the bus. He picked me up at eight o'clock in the morning and drove me to the bus, because he was supposed to give me a ride and then he had this other thing."

Joy looked across the long length of the table to a relaxed Craig.

"Was that your brother?"

"My brother-in-law," Craig said.

Joy continued: "I got to Calgary and talked some business and called Craig and gave him my number and said when you get to Calgary, give me a call, this is the number I'm at, 'cause I need a ride. I was at my mother's house. So push comes to shove, I-"

Chris: "Point of order. We need relevant information."

"Joy: "This is all relevant. This is me getting to ACTISEC. This is what happened on the trip."

Chris seemed unsure of what to do and looked away from Joy to Anna. For the first time during the meeting- the only time, as well- Anna also sounded unsure.

Finally, Anna told Joy: "That sort of defense isn't for this committee. That sort of defense is for a judicial review."

As soon as this was said, Dawn Ly, a former SA exec and the Chief Returning Officer the previous semester, rushed up from her visitor's seat to kneel beside Anna's chair for a whispered conference.

By "judicial review" I learned later Anna meant the Judicial Review Committee, the college appeal committee for students. If Joy lost here, that would be the body Joy would have to appeal to. Judicial review also had another meaning. It referred to review by a civil court of a decision taken by another body, usually a corporation. In that case a judicial review could range from the dismissal of an employee to bigger issues, such as the court reviewing constitutional legitimacy over some matter. At our college Judicial Review was just the name of our student appeal body.

Craig spoke up.

"Perhaps I might shed some light on this matter? We planned to leave in the morning. My brother-in-law came into town. I told her then, we're not going to leave in the morning. She told me she wanted to go to Calgary, so I came in the morning, put her bags in my car, and drove her to the bus depot.

"She called me. Gave me an address to pick her up in Calgary. I arrived there, she wasn't there, but a friend said that she was going to take the bus to Edmonton. I arrived there, she didn't come until the following day. That's how she got to Edmonton."

The chairman called on Scott Groves.

Groves leaned back comfortably in his chair, his left hand playing with the curly hair that fell over his forehead. He looked intently and quizzically at the papers in his right hand.

"Okay, just a couple of things here. According to a documentation that I see, this bill is for two people, and claimed twice, and I don't understand that," Scott said, his tone expressing great puzzlement.

Joy. Frustrated.

"The bill is charged to my room. I bought the meal for a colleague. And then the next night, when I ate, they picked up the tab. That is a normal practice with colleagues. If that's not within my daily budget, then I would pay for it. That meal was not claimed twice. It was a receipt for a meal and it was also on my room bill. That's why I was deducted $94 from my honourarium."

"Well, to me this meal was claimed twice."

"Well, it wasn't."

"Yes, it was-"

Chairman Clapton spoke: "We should move on-"

Scott looked up. "I have another question."

"Oh," said Clapton.

"Ah- the bus. There are no receipts saying you were on the bus. Now I imagine those receipts would be fairly important."

"It never came up. You see, I was given a certain amount of money to make a trip. I took that trip within that allotted amount. Circumstances changed. I did not have transportation funds. I was given a cheque for $529.65 made out to the Westin Hotel. I was given a cheque made out to me- for food- which I cashed. With that $144 I took the bus because he-" she waved at Knutson "-wasn't leaving on time. So I used my food money for buses and taxis. I'm sorry I didn't realize there was going to be such a problem because you have no receipts from me taking buses and taxis. You understand? If there is a problem with this, a problem with the receipts, there is no problem paying for it."

Joy paused to catch her breath.

"I saved you money, if anything, because I could have taken a car and charged 26 cents a kilometre, which I have never done."

Dana Merkl was next given the nod to speak. Usually soft spoken, Dana's voice was cold, disgusted.

"It also says in our bylaws that you're not responsible for buying guests meals- regardless of what the past practice is about buying guests breakfast. And just looking at the times on some of these receipts, I'm just curious if you bought some buck breakfast at four o'clock in the morning."

Great hoots from SA members. Anna Jenson exchanged a wide-eyed look and a large grin with Alan Helm.

"Excuse me," Joy protested. "If I'm allowed to eat, I can have breakfast any time I want. I don't think the time that I eat is relevant. And I have a problem with this- what does this mean?"

Joy pointed to a paper Merkl held.

"Order," Clapton said.

Joy: "I don't understand-"

"Order," Clapton said. "Anna?"

Joy turned to Clapton, looking confused.

Anna Jenson's voice was as equally disgusted as Dana Merkl's had been.

"If under any circumstances you were to travel with Mr. Knutson and it did not happen, there was no agreement for any travel money to be allotted. Also, I think the facts ought to be straightened out on what the real point I'm trying to make here is. I received my receipts saying the whole thing had been used, never told any different, you had $144 for food of which the extra was taken off your honourarium- it is student association money and it has to be accounted for."

Joy: "I haven't done anything wrong. I was trying to do my best."

Anna: "Bylaw 15!"

The student's council flipped through their papers to the relevant page.

Anna: "Bylaw fifteen. All receipts must be submitted to the LCCSA financial coordinator within two weeks of the date. If the receipts are not submitted within this time the amount of the advance less any mileage will be charged to this council member's honourarium." Anna looked down at the paper: "If the receipts are not submitted in this time- I gave you way more than two weeks."

"If there's a problem, do what the policy says and charge it to my honourarium. I don't believe this is the true meaning of why you guys want me off council."

Clapton, very quick: "Point of order."

Joy: "What now? What?"

"You're off topic," said Clapton.

"This is relevant."

"We're not talking about things aside from this issue," Clapton said.

"This is relevant. I think that if there are problems with the receipts, what are there, three meals for two people, I'd like to see the validation that I had three meals with two people. That does not make sense to me. I'd like to see a breakdown."

Merkl flipped through his photocopied pages of stapled papers Anna had distributed to each SA member. His wrist flicked with disdain.

"There's one, there's two, there's three," said Merkl.

"That's me in my room, this is downstairs, but that was just me in my room. When they come up with room service, they just bring the food. That doesn't mean there was three meals in my room for two people. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Order," said Clapton, firmly.

"If there is a problem with the receipts, charge it to my honourarium."

"Joy, you're out of order," Clapton said.

Joy looked at Clapton, her eyes wide.

"Joy. Sorry," said Clapton.

"Well, of course, I'm trying to defend myself."

"C'mon, Joy, no. Um, Erin."

Erin asked about one of the receipts.

"May I ask what those three items are?"

Exasperation fell over Joy's face.

"I don't remember what I ate that day. I don't remember what I ate that day. You can't ask me what I ate that day. I don't know what that has to do with anything."

Corrie Safar raised his hand and was recognized by the chair.

"I've been in touch with UIC Group, which is a cigar store. I checked the bar codes out on one receipt. One of the items was a pack of fifteen smokes and another was a lighter."

"Well, I can pay for that," Joy said.

Laughter.

"Our bylaws, it says in 16:4:2 that we don't pay, yeah, for alcohol or tobacco," said Safar.

"I made a mistake in turning in that receipt," Joy said.

More laughter. Grins and glances exchanged.

"I also remember buying a glass of wine when I had lunch with a colleague. That was $4.95," Joy said. "I'll have to pay for that, too." Her voice was quiet. "What I think should be taken under consideration here, is how I was approached. I would really like to have been approached like everyone else has been in the past. When I turned in the receipts, I didn't say, okay, I took the bus, I-"

The chairman extended his left arm, pointing a pencil at her. "Joy. Point of order."

"What?"

"Joy. Point of order."

"What? I am not finished speaking. I am not finished speaking. Where does it say in Roberts Rules of Order when I have to be finished speaking?"

"Point of order, Joy."

Joy flipped her skinny black arms down as if shaking off something unpleasant. She looked at Chris directly.

"What is the problem?"

"Keep to the question. We're talking about expenses."

"But that is how I got there. I took the bus. This is what you need to know."

"We're talking about the receipts in question. There is a point of order right now and Jay is next in line."

Jay was point-blank, his voice quiet.

"This is student association money. If this money was credited to you, why didn't you immediately return it to the student's association?"

"Because there were expenses that were not counted. I had seven unaccounted expenditures. I had a Lethbridge to Calgary bus, a Calgary to Edmonton bus, four taxi's that I had to pay. That was on student's business. When plans don't work out-"

Anna's voice, disgusted: "Point of order."

"-like his brother-in-law coming to town, different plans kick in. I didn't keep any money from this. I didn't keep any money from this."

Dawn Ly has left her visitor's seat several times for private conferences with Anna. Dawn again kneels next to Anna's chair for another whispered conference.

Chris calls for Dana.

Dana shakes his head. "I'll pass."

"Scott."

Scott continues to look dramatically serious as he considers the papers in front of him. He holds the corner of a paper between his thumb and forefinger and lifts it, peering at the paper beneath. Without looking up, he says:

"Just one point I want to make is that there are receipts that are falsified- claims for meals paid twice, or is there a reason, or some food-"

Joy: "What do you mean, falsified?"

Tracey looks startled, stone faced, and stares at Scott, who continues:

"It's not that-"

"Falsified?" Joy asks, leaning forward on her skinny arms.

Anna quickly leans to Scott sitting next to her. The video camera catches her whisper in Scott's ear: "Can't say falsified, say-"

Together, like a duet, Anna and Scott both say: "Placed in wrong."

While Scott continues speaking, Anna rises from her seat, looking at Chris while pointing to papers she is holding. She nods to him. Chris grants her a nod in return. Anna leaves the board table, the sheaf of papers still in her hand, and goes behind Joy's chair to push the television on its tall wheeled stand out of the room.

Scott: "Misleading. As president, there should be a standard set, claimed properly and done properly, and if you can do this, we can do this, and that is not proper."

Joy begins: "I agree there are mistakes here-"

She stops speaking to look behind her at Anna, trying to push the television stand between her chair and the wall with whiteboard behind her. There's not much room. Joy doesn't move her chair and Anna doesn't ask her to move. Instead, she works the TV stand through the narrow space. Tracey, seated next to Joy, moves her own chair out of Anna's way, then stands and helps Anna steer the TV stand out of the room into the hallway. Dana helps. He gets of his chair, unplugs the TV and also walks behind Joy, following Anna, the electrical cord in his hand.

"But I mean-" Joy tries again. She does several double takes, turning from council to the busy people behind her and back again.

"We have to do something different here. If you are on school business and suddenly have to make twenty dollars in long distance calls on school business, other organizations believe that is proper. That is proper."

Tracey comes back into the room and sits. Dana and Anna come back into the room, walk behind Joy's chair, Dana reseats himself, but Anna doesn't retake her seat. She stands at the whiteboard to one side of Joy's chair and picks up a black marker from the whiteboard ledge. Marker in hand, the other still holding her sheaf of papers, she impatiently waits for Joy to finish speaking.

Joy: "If you believed that there was something not done properly, then you should have let me know."

Clapton: "Anna."

Anna Jenson turns and begins writing on the chalkboard. She writes, "529.65," and below it, "cash receipt".

"Issued was this amount for which I received a cash receipt and nothing else. The cash receipt to me makes me believe J-" Anna turned to the group, looking for another word "-the individual knew what she was doing. She was also given a cheque for $144 for meals."

Anna turns and writes "$144" on the chalkboard.

"And this was also cashed."

Joy gets up from her chair and picks up her own maker from the whiteboard ledge. She draws a long vertical line, creating a narrow space for herself about a foot wide at its far right end, then begins to write her own figures, beginning with "$529.65" before she is interrupted by Clayton.

"Joy. Joy."

"What?"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm writing. She's writing, I'm writing."

"Well, okay, could you let Anna? Could you give her room? Okay? Okay? You wouldn't want anybody to interfere with you. Could you let Anna finish."

"Okay, okay. I'll write my figures after."

Joy sits down.

Anna continues as if the interruption never occurred.

"On this there were two nights that were not- were not- paid for. But not used. If that makes sense to everybody, okay? The two nights comes to $197."

Joy: There were not two nights unpaid for. You can't include-"

Clapton, quickly: "Order! Order! Order! Order!"

Anna Jenson, facing the blackboard, her hand poised holding chalk and about to write something, drops her hand as if she were a teacher just hit by a student's spitball. She turns to face Joy, seated immediately behind her. Undisguised disgust is on Anna Jenson's face. She snaps her sheaf of papers in Joy's face as if she were a badgering police officer just closing a case.

"It's money." Anna's voice is as equally disgusted as her expression. "It's money. Okay?"

Joy looks surprised and cowed. Anna turns and shakes her head demonstratively. She writes on the blackboard again.

"Okay. And after that there were charges of ninety something."

She writes "$90".

"For meals, long distance phone calls and that type of thing. One receipt came to $44.11."

She writes that number down.

"However, that was all taken out of this."

She lifts her chalk and points to the $90 figure.

"So we paid for it twice. We haven't received the money back from this."

Anna faced the council.

"I received a cash receipt, ex-cetera, ex-cetera, no indication, nothing, that any cash had been received. The travel was agreed to in council. I'm sure there are a number of members here who could verify that."

Anna nodded towards Joy, then spoke facing council.

"If you had an emergency and no ticket, that is not our responsibility. That's your responsibility. So in essence, that is what I received, and it indicates to me the individual knew what she was doing, wasn't ever going to tell us. And I also want to make a note- that this is a motion of non-confidence, and it's do we have confidence in this individual to be our leader."

Anna sits down. Joy stands, picks up a piece of chalk and points to the blackboard.

"First of all, I question this, okay? This think about two nights. And we do have a policy on this and there has never been a problem with this in the past. Why is there a problem now? I didn't know at the time this was the way this trip was going to go. When his brother-in-law came into town and the program changed, I found it necessary to take the bus down there. I didn't know what was happening. There are seven expenditures for which I did not pick up receipts. Actual expenses? There are some of these I don't know, I mean, I'd have to call and find out what the bus to Calgary and Edmonton was, 'cause I don't know. But it was $25 from Lethbridge to Calgary."

There is something bothersome about the meeting at this point. I realize what it is: no council member looks at Joy as she speaks. Every council member looks away or down, none of them look at her.

Dawn Ly leaves her visitor's chair, again kneeling beside Anna to hold another whispered council.

Joy, exasperated: "I just wonder why when in the past, and I would like to be treated like everybody else has been treated in the past. If there has been any difficulty with receipts, they've not been served motions of non-confidence, they've been asked to explain the receipts and sit down and work out the numbers. How come I wasn't asked? I wasn't given anything ahead of time except a motion of non-confidence. In the past, no one else. I think this is a lot different. Why are you guys treating me different than anybody-"

"Point of order!" Clapton says, firmly. "Right now we're just talking about your actual expenses you had."

"Okay, okay," Joy says. She nods weirdly over and over to Clapton like an automaton on speed before turning awkwardly to the blackboard. She leaves untouched Anna's large figures that dominate the blackboard and goes to her narrow space at blackboard's edge and begins writing a row of figures, stacked vertically.

She writes "$25" and "$45" and next to it, "Bus," and below that, "7," "5," "8," and "9" and next to that "Taxi."

As she writes, it is my sense, my feel of the atmosphere in the room, that this is a funeral in the making. The room has an awful mix of of stirred contempt and pity.

An odd scene plays out behind Joy at the board table near to her empty chair at the table's head. Jacquie Marchand, leaning forward, fondles her puckered lower face with thumb and forefinger as if trying to decide if her lipstick feels right. Jacquie seems oblivious to the events around her. You wouldn't know anything was going on looking at her, it's as if she is the only one in the room, a matron checking her lipstick in an imaginary mirror.

Dawn Ly again leaves her visitor's seat to kneel beside a seated Anna Jenson for a whispered conference. Anna looks comfortable, sated, her arm slung over the back of her chair. Twenty-seven months later, in another hearing, a woman in a 1960s hair style would briefly remind me of this pose Anna adopts now, at this moment. Anna leans back, not forward, to receive her visitor as Dawn kneels before her.

Clapton: "We need proof, Joy. Do you have proof? Do you have receipts for the bus?"

Joy points to Craig Knutson. "Well, he drove me to the bus stop."

Clapton: "Okay, Joy, are you finished?"

She turns to Clapton. "What?"

"Are you finished now? Are you finished comparing your stuff to Anna's?"

"Am I finished? Well, there is- well, I can do that later." She tosses the marker into the well at the bottom of the whiteboard. She doesn't sit down, but takes a sip of water from a styrofoam cup at her place at the head of the table.

A deep voice booms: "I move we call the question."

It is Alex Hamilton. As she drinks from the cup to her face, Joy's eyes roll.

A pause like a period. Joy places the cup back on the table. She says nothing.

Clapton: "All in favour? All in favour of calling the question?"

Someone says something inaudible and Clapton responds by saying: "This isn't a court."

Anna: "Okay, because the issue is attached and there's no need to read it over and over and over again, um, I move that we, the LCCSA, deal with the motion of non-confidence against Joy Nicholson, president of the LCCSA."

Chris: "All in favour of calling the question."

Hands are raised. Nycole Penny, the young blonde, looks unsure. She looks at Knutson who holds his hand up confidently. Seeing this, she raises her own hand. The vote is now unanimous.

Anna Jenson asks that paper be rips in ballots.

The meeting is now a general hub-bub of private meetings, jokes, and shared comments.

Chris gets up to stretch and shares a joke with a student named Debby Ewing, behind him. Dawn Ly leaves her chair for another conference with Anna Jenson. Craig leaves his chair and joins their discussion.

Chris, standing, holds strips of paper someone has torn up. "Okay, can I have everyone's attention, please? Can I get everyone's attention, please? This is a vote of non-confidence, a secret ballot, I'll have to ask everyone to leave the room, please. And, uh, on the way out you can notice the ballot box is directly behind me here. So everybody leave. Please leave the room."

The ballot box is placed on the table and Scott Groves tells Chris to hold it upside down and shake it.

Dan Gyulai, notebook in hand, book bag over his shoulder, passes by Chris on the way out of the room. I walk up to Chris, still playing with the ballot box. Alex Hamilton asks me about the camera.

I point at Chris.

"I'm just about to ask him."

Chris looks up. I point at the camera.

"Do you want it off?"

"Yeah, please," he says.

The shot of me is erased by a closeup of Alex Hamilton's face as he peers into the camera lens curiously.

My voice: "Let me take care of that" and Alex looks to one side.

"Okay, Lawrence. You get that for me, please."

In the next video shot council members have suddenly jumped into quiet, seated positions. Chris Clapton is still standing.

Sandy Hartwick walks quickly into the room from the hallway and takes a seat.

Chris informs everyone: "The motion has been carried."

Joy, seated: "The motion has been carried and I have business that is on the table. What I am going to do is wait for the next meeting. I don't know if this is out of order or not out of order, because I don't think there is a precedent for this. I will take this to the Judicial Review Committee. I wish I was approached like anyone else about a problem. If anyone needs to talk to me, I'll spend ten or fifteen minutes out here. Okay?"

She points to the hallway.

"Basically, I wish the student's association all the best. I tried to do my best. I think it is totally personal. I think that business-wise there is no problem here, but it's a totally personal issue- I know it's a personal issue. I don't think this holds water- or that vote."

Chris says something inaudible.

"We'll see about that," says Joy, and she leaves, waving a goodbye. "Good luck," she says.

Dana takes over the meeting from his seat. He tells everyone there is unfinished business.

"Academic council is tomorrow," he says, and runs through a list of items as reminders. The meeting is about to wrap up when Craig reminds everyone:

"You can't leave the Student's Association without a president."

Dana is made acting president without dissent. Motions of adjournment are made. Chris Clapton, apparently still chairman, declares the meeting closed, then says, with a little too much flourish, "Congratulations, boys and girls."

Pam Bennett goes from her seat to Anna and speaks to her. Her back is to the camera and the camera can't pick up what she is saying.

"No, you do what you want," Anna says to Pam. She listens again to Pam. The camera doesn't pick up Pam's voice, only Anna's, who, after listening, says to her, "You do what you want, but that's not the issue here."

Anna pauses again to listen. When she speaks to Pam the third time, she gives advice:

"Okay, but just be careful you don't do anything that sounds like defamation."

It begins to sound like the just-taken vote to remove Nicholson is still not enough for at least Pam.

Anna looks up past Pam at the camera and her eyes widen. Pam turns to look, too. They both grin at the camera and don't continue their conversation.

Clapton calls out congratulations again: "Congratulations, everybody. You kept your wits about you."

Council members and visitors leave their seats. Only Chris and Anna are at the boardroom table now. Alex Hamilton waits by the door.

Chris leans over the table to Anna as she packs up. He points his pencil meaningfully at her.

"Hey. Congratulations. We'll talk to you," he says.

Alex Hamilton, at the door, asks me: "Lawrence, what was your feeling on how the meeting went?"

My voice: "I don't know. I'll have to watch the tape. Very quick and organized."

Anna, looking at me, books now under her arm: "Oh, you think so?"

Alex: "Lawrence means very quick and organized for a student's council meeting."

Everyone grins at this.

"Thank you for your coverage, Lawrence," Alex says in his strong, confident voice as he turns and strolls out of the room.

November 27, 1995

Justice W. V. Hembroff: "...does that mean they can- in Vanek or in this case- that a board could arbitrarily, capriciously, unfairly act to affect the rights of these persons without any cause for concern that the Courts might interfere with such a decision?"

The lawyer for the college: "Yes, I think that is the bottom line."

The lawyer for the college: "We have an application by Mr. Gleason under that particular section of the Rules of Court which deal with judicial review. And the position of the College and Donna Allan, the respondents in this matter, is that the Originating Notice discloses no reasonable cause of action as against either the College's sexual harassment committee which is the subject matter of most of the evidence put forward by Mr. Gleason in his Affidavit, or indeed Dr. Allan. Since the prerogative writ, wish as certiorari, which is essentially is the prerogative writ being sought by the Applicant in this particular case, is not available to quash the decision to ultimately suspend Mr. Gleason, and that's because in our view both the sexual harassment committee and the President are non-statutory tribunals."

The college's lawyer continued: "We turn to page 430 of tab three, the issue that we're dealing with lies in this- in that particular case that is relevant here is found at point (a) on page 30:

"Neither of the committees is a statutory body, and therefore certiorari does not apply"

The college's lawyer then read:

"The committee and their functions were established not as bodies prescribed by statute as a matter of public policy, but rather as a matter of choice in affairs internal, matters of choice in the exercise of a discretion granted by the statute relating to affair internal to the university.

"That's the essence of the Vanek finding, that not withstanding the general powers of the board of the University of Alberta under section 19 and other sections of the University's Act, the fact remains that the actual tenure committee and tenure appeals committee were not established as bodies prescribed by statute. Rather the board maintained a discretion since the legislature had not specifically empowered the board of governors to deal with that particular issue. Notwithstanding-"

The judge: While this- carry on, I'm sorry."

"Notwithstanding the general powers, in fact a little bit more that general powers granted to the board of governors in that particular case, the bottom line remained that the tenure appeals committee itself not being something that was specifically set out in the statute as a power per se, therefore the Court of Appeal found that the establishment of those two committees was essentially a matter of discretion to be left to the University of Alberta in that particular case."

The judge then put it all on the line in plain English:

"But while, and this may impinge upon the second arm of the argument today, does that mean they can- in Vanek or in this case- that a board could arbitrarily, capriciously, unfairly act to affect the rights of these persons without any cause for concern that the Courts might interfere with such a decision?"

The lawyer for the college: "Yes, I think that is the bottom line."

Chapter 19

"...we have now weeded out everyone we didn't want on council."

Alex Hamilton

I was breaking down the video camera when I heard shouting from the SA offices about eight metres away, the kind of uproar that might flare up in a bar- a sudden fight or cat-calling argument. I yanked the camera out of its case, rammed in a battery pack and ran with it to the SA office, but by the time I got there whatever had happened was over. I ran by students standing in clusters in the hall, talking, not yet leaving.

Joy had left. Dan Gyulai was interviewing student council members for the Endeavor. Sandy Hartwick had either gone or was in the hallway interviewing students scattered there. I remember Alex Hamilton standing in a doorway.

Perry Albert, the security chief, was there and had just finished changing the lock on the door to the president's office, but he would only say about it: "It should be secure, just like any office in the college." I'd never seen Perry in the college after hours before.

Interviews over, we left. The SA lights were turned out, doors locked, and Craig Knutson, the student Board of Governors representative, went upstairs to the college suite of executive offices and sat down with the college vice-president of administration, Rick Buis.

When I was informed of the meeting later that week I went right to the SA office to confirm it. I found Craig at a desk in the roomy Rep room. About a half dozen other people were there.

"Did you meet with Rick Buis the night Joy was removed?"

"Yes."

"What time did you meet?"

"About 10:30."

"What did you talk about?"

"Joy said she would be suing the college, and as Buis had some legal responsibilities with the college, I thought he should know."

"How long did you talk?"

"About forty minutes."

I made an appointment with Buis. All his appointments were made by Anne Raslask, the college public relations coordinator. Raslask and I got along well and once or twice I'd gone up to her office just to chat. She and I had gone through this appointment routine a few times before.

Raslask was a Dalhousie grad, short, thirty-fivish, dark hair, ready grin. She was alright. In past chats she'd told me how she came out west, what her husband did, and small talk stuff I've since forgotten. She asked why I wanted to talk to Buis and set up the appointment for me.

Buis was matter-of-fact about the meeting with Knutson. They'd talked as if they'd just met in the hallway, he said. No different. Buis disagreed with Knutson on two things, one minor, one major. One was the time Craig came up. Buis said 10:00. Craig said 10:30. I decided to go with Buis's estimate. The other was whether they had discussed legal issues. Buis said they hadn't. Knutson said they had. I decided to give both quotes.

Buis told me something I didn't know. The college had recently conducted an audit on SA expenditures, he said, adding the college was obligated to conduct the audit under the College's Act.

Buis said he had been made aware of the Nicholson problems with hotel monies as Dana Merkl and Anna Jenson approached him about a week and a half before. That was interesting. Anna said she gave Joy notice of the matter 36 hours before the hearing that was to remove her. It was actually the day before the SA meeting that removed her. Anna had informed her in the morning.

Dan Gyulai's story, 'SA president removed,' would become the lead for the October 7 Endeavor.

Anna Jenson was quoted as saying, "What we presented was money and facts. There was about a $200 error in the expenses reported." From Joy Nicholson: "The trip did not go as planned. I was ignorant of the correct procedure. I did the best I could with the documentation I had. I did make some mistakes."

But a quote from Alex Hamilton was eyebrow raising: "It was time to get on with business. I speak for the students I represent when I say we have now weeded out everyone we didn't want on council."

Nicholson had five days to appeal to the Judicial Review Committee, Dan wrote, also giving this quote from Nicholson: "There are a small group of students who wanted me out. They searched until they found something they thought they could get me with."

The editors placed my story of the post-ouster late meeting between Knutson and Buis on page two of the Thursday, October 7, 1993 Endeavor. I noted the SA hearing that ousted Nicholson ended before 8:30 and quoted Buis saying Craig met with him about 10:00 p.m.

I added the administration's audit of the SA, but realized when I was writing I didn't have the time of the audit. Was that after Merkl and Jenson talked to Buis? I didn't know.

The SA motion of non-confidence against Nicholson arose after an audit was conducted by the LCC administration. Buis said the audit was routine and the college was obligated to conduct the audit under the College's Act.

Buis met with Student Association Financial Coordinator Anna Jenson and Vice-president Dana Merkl "about a week and a half ago."

Buis said Jenson and Merkl "brought to my attention what they had found."

I talked to a popular history instructor, Ron MacDonald, about the issue. MacDonald was a live wire former painter and oil patch worker who went back to college late in life. He seemed to live for political analysis. He had our class study the Meech Lake Accord and the Quebec referendum issue backwards and forwards. He also once phoned Ottawa to ask for the Bloc Quebecois platform, and described the stunned confusion he'd received on the line.

"No one from Western Canada has ever asked us that before," someone told him.

MacDonald said two members of the SA had come to him about two weeks before and asked him about non-confidence motion procedure. He said he told them any information would be found in the SA bylaws. The seemed to already know that, he said.

Were the two Anna Jenson and Dana Merkl?

MacDonald said he couldn't confirm that. He didn't know the two students.

After talking to MacDonald I was feeling a little stunned. It seemed after two weeks of significant preparation into this motion of non-confidence, Joy was informed about it the morning of the previous day to her hearing- and that was to ask for her resignation. It seemed preparations weren't to ensure a fair hearing of the issue, but to ensure nothing went wrong with achieving the objective of removing her from office, even to have Perry Albert there, the college security chief, to lock her door after it was over.

I didn't have any great soft spot for Joy. She had been a royal pain, a prima donna bitch and people were fed up. But that was it, exactly. I was sure the issue didn't have a damn thing to do with money.

Chapter 20

"I may be telling you too much."

Dana Merkl

Joy decided to appeal. The student appeal body, the Judicial Review Committee, or JRC, comprised of five members. Three of those were students, the SA vice-president and two students chosen at random. Two were college employees, Dean Stetson as Dean of Student Services, and one faculty member, also chosen at random.

I ran into Dana Merkl and Jack Peterson in the library and asked them who would be sitting on the appeal body.

Dana answered. Peterson was acting vice-president and would be chairing the committee, Dana said.

"Will the appeal hearings be public?"

"That's up to him."

I looked to Peterson for an answer, but Peterson looked to Dana as if the answer was somehow written on Dana's face. Peterson finally turned to me.

"I don't know," he said.

Obviously, he hadn't thought about it until now. Peterson couldn't be accurately described by me as being of independent mind. He impressed as a hanger-on, someone who did what he was told.

Dana said students chosen to sit on the Judicial Review Committee would come from any college department except Communication Arts, Business or Upgrading. Students from these departments would be "too close to some of the players," Dana said, adding students would also be interviewed by the student's council before being appointed to the JRC.

"What does that mean?"

"That has to be worked out."

"Do you think it fair potential appeal body members would be prescreened by the same body that introduced and passed the motion of non-confidence?"

"I don't know," said Dana. "That all has to be worked out."

"How did he become vice-president?" As I asked I realized I was talking about Peterson as if he wasn't there, let alone standing by Dana's side.

He was chosen by a vote of the student's council during a retreat, Dana said.

I thought it an odd choice. I would have thought it would have been someone politically astute, like Scott Groves or Alan Helm.

Soon after the paper came out Dean Stetson stopped me in the hallway at the Brown Bag to talk about my article on the late meeting between Knutson and Buis.

"If I were Buis, I'd be pissed off," Stetson told me.

Alex Hamilton, looking serious and solemn, came down to the Endeavor to talk to Dan about his story. They sat together at the Endeavor's middle workstation of four oak desks. Everyone gave them room to talk alone. Alex earnestly explained his comments to Dan, who nodded and made notes, asking only the occasional question. After Alex left, Dan stared at his notebook and shook his head.

"This statement is worse than the last one," he said.

Alex wanted Dan to change his statement to read: "Now we've removed almost everyone we wanted to."

Dana was furious with me over another article, in that same October 7 issue, also on page two. I'd never seen him angrier.

A day or two after the ouster he and I had been talking in the Cave over coffee. It was early evening. I began getting nosy about some issues and Dana backed off, saying he didn't want to talk at that time, but gave me some opinions on different things, Joy's possible appeal, for one.

We left the Cave, he to his office and me to the Endeavor. It was late, about 6:00 or 7:00. The SA office was dark and empty and Dana took his keys out, unlocked the door and held the doorknob as we wound it up before he went inside to work or grab his belongings to go home. Dana told me, almost offhandedly, they might have to remove another SA member.

I felt like he'd just thrown cold water in my face.

"Why's that?"

He told me.

"We may buddy her up with someone, but if she doesn't catch on soon, we'll have to do something about it."

"Who are you going to remove?"

He wouldn't tell me.

"How are you going to do it?"

It couldn't be done the same way Joy was removed, Dana said. They had used a specific part of the bylaws for that, Joy going "against the will of council."

"Ignorance is not against the will of council," Dana explained.

We said good night. Dana went into the SA office and I left for the Endeavor where Mary was the last student left, working late.

I tossed it to her. Would this be off the record or on?

Mary was dumbfounded.

"He said that?"

We tossed it back and forth. In the end we decided it was on the record, but I knew if I wrote it up Dana wouldn't give me the time of day after this. It was too good to pass up, though. I wrote it up.

[The article, quoted in full below, was published on page 2 of the Thursday, October 7, 1993 issue of the Endeavor, the Lethbridge Community College student newspaper.]

Another member of the LCCSA may be removed from council in a manner similar to Nicholson's removal, said acting president Dana Merkl, Tuesday.

Nicholson was removed from office in a motion of non-confidence.

Merkl refused to name the other council member, but said she telephoned him Monday night.

Merkl said that she told him she did not understand what happened at Monday's student council meeting.

"We may have to remove her, too," said Merkl. "We may buddy her up with someone, but if she doesn't catch on soon, we'll have to do something about it."

Markl said he did not tell the person she may be removed from council.

"I may be telling you too much," Merkl said.

Merkl said the bylaw used against Nicholson may not be used against the other council member.

"Ignorance is not against the will of council," Merkl said.

The paper was usually distributed about 11:00 a.m. Thursday. The next morning I waited until just before noon before I went down to the Student Association offices.

Dana let me have it with both barrels as soon as I walked up to the SA reception desk. People froze. Tracey's fingers hung like icicles over her typewriter keyboard. A waiting student clutched a magazine to his face as if reading, but his eyes were still.

I'd never seen Dana angry before. I waited through it, unsure of what to do.

When he paused, I asked: "Were you misquoted?"

He wasn't and he knew it. He just thought it was sneaky.

The editorial writer for the week was chosen by rotation. That week it was my turn. I tried to beg off when the class chose Joy's ouster as the editorial subject.

I went to Burke and told him I'd campaigned for Joy. She and I were friends. I had strong opinions on what I perceived to be the lack of fairness at the hearing I'd observed.

I didn't have any pangs of conscience in writing news stories on the matter. But as it was difficult for me to be objective on this issue I thought the editorial should be written by someone different that week. The editorial was the newspaper talking. It was the newspaper's viewpoint. I believed my supporting Joy in her campaigning for the BOG post meant I should be automatically disqualified as the writer of the editorial on her removal from student council. I was too close to the issue and even Mary, as editor, had told me I was too close to it. I shouldn't be writing the editorial.

"You have to," Burke said.

So I wrote it. Reading it now, it's one of my poorest pieces in college. I had backed off, restrained myself. The editorial became a rambling, lecturing, mess. If I had to write the editorial I should have gone for the jugular. I didn't.

In critique class following publication Burke mentioned that "the student" who had written the editorial as assigned had written it after trying to beg off. It was praiseworthy, he said, this concern for ethics.

Mary went down to the SA to interview Anna Jenson, not knowing what to expect. When she came back I was interested in what her impression was.

"I like her," Mary said. "She takes her responsibilities seriously."

We published two letters to the editor with differing views on Joy's ouster. One was written by Sandy Lawson, the U of L vice-president who spoke the night of the non-confidence vote. The other was Chris Clapton, the hearing's chairman.

Lawson wrote he was "concerned for the state of student representation at LCC" and that he witnessed a "witch hunt" and a "gross abuse of power."

"It was purely and simply a mob-rules lynching party with an assertive and capable woman's career and reputation at stake," Lawson wrote.

Chris Clapton's letter to the editor was angry. He thought our reporting was biased toward Joy. He was right. It was. He said we unfairly slammed the student council that removed her. We did slam them, but not unfairly. In fact, we didn't slam hard enough. My editorial appeared to bother him most of all, but he had no idea who wrote it. The name of the writer of each editorial was confidential. Students were advised by Burke to say, if asked, editorials were written by the "editorial board."

"Where the hell do you get off hacking a new Student's Council like this? Professional journalism, not," Clapton wrote.

He also slammed me.

"At the October 4 meeting the vote of non-confidence was brought to the floor. Those in attendance were asked to leave for a moment due to a silent vote. One reporter, filming (videoing) [sic] the meeting, was asked two or three times to leave. When he finally left, his camera was still on. Someone was keen to this and demanded the camera be turned off."

The elected SA members would be starting their own newsletter, Clapton wrote.

"Once the SA newsletter comes out, I am sure it will be unbiased and professional which will set an example for others to follow."

Clapton also wrote that my story had been written up after Dana and I were walking to our cars, two buddies talking, and I wrote it up after this confidential chat. That wasn't true at all, but readers believed Chris' letter. More than one person told me it was wrong to report what Dana had said that night. One instructor told me from what he read in Chris's letter, he'd be careful talking to me casually about any issue.

Chris's letter may have haunted me beyond college, too. When I wrote my first story for my local paper, the editor/publisher, a young healthy guy named Gordon Scott- not entirely healthy, as his sudden death a few short years later put the community of Claresholm into shock- asked me about a quote I'd picked up. The story was about a local park and its use. I'd gathered quotes and Scott wanted to know for certain if the people I gathered quotes from knew they were talking to a reporter. The quote he was most concerned with was really benign so I thought his question odd, but he continued with telling me a story. A daily reporter in Edmonton had missed a meeting with an official and had been pissed over it. The two met later in a bar and when that official made a comment that was potentially explosive, the miffed reporter wrote it up. That didn't impress Scott.

(Over the years I've noticed it is new reporters- or bloggers- who go for the big quote, the exploding cigar. You have to give people a break. The best example I can think of is one long, boring budget meeting when a senior administrator made an error in reading it out to council and apologized. The budget would have been in the tens of millions of dollars, and when an elected councillor pointed out a small error, the administrator- who was in charge of creating the budget- said, "Sorry, I'm not very good with numbers." We all laughed, but the county commissioner leaned forward immediately and told him in very few words to put the brakes on comments like that. The commissioner knew it was funny, but all he needed was some reporter putting that on the front page. No one did. A new reporter, tired after hours of listening to discussions and suddenly awakened with a smile, might have wanted to, but a good editor would have killed it. Most bloggers would have ran with it. That regrettable blurted comment shouldn't take on more importance than the gritty little details of what millions of tax dollars were going to pay for.)

Unknown to all but a few people, I did write Chris, correcting him. The letter was never made public.

Chris Clapton-

You've got a few facts wrong, Chris. It's okay, though.

I'll just point them out.

In your letter to the Endeavor you indicate a student was walking acting president Dana Merkl to his car, and Merkl, causually confiding to his friend, was betrayed when his words were printed in the Endeavor.

Good story, Chris. A few things wrong with it, though.

First, Chris, Dana was not walking to his car. If you're reading this in your office, he was within 10 feet of where you're sitting when he made his statement.

Statement, Chris. Not comment. Statement.

He was opening the SA office with his keys. That's official capacity, Chris. Those words were also spoken by a person of prominence- the most senior active SA member. Those words also indicated possible intolerance for a democratically elected official, Chris, an unnamed individual, who had apparently stated she did not understand what went on during a meeting. Possible intolerance, Chris, because acting president Merkl clearly stated he was seriously considering forcible removal of that individual from council for not understanding what was going on during that meeting.

That statement is significant, Chris, and is able to be reported when on the record and made during official capacity by a person in a position of prominence. It's news, Chris. It's not unfair. Yes, I know Dana sees it differently. That's okay.

During the previous half hour, we talked in the Cave where he twice told me he didn't want to go deeper into a subject because it wasn't ready to be made public. What the subject was doesn't matter. (It wasn't the subject that made the paper, either, Chris.) What does matter is that he acknowledged twice during that half hour he was talking to a reporter by indicating he felt uncomfortable about going any further into a topic because it was not ready to go public. At that stage it's not two buddy's talking openly and casually, Chris. That's an official and a reporter talking casually. It doesn't matter what time in a 24-hour day that happens.

In the last half of the letter, since lost, I told Chris how the video camera was shut off.

I dealt with the errors in his letter by telling him if I had made as many mistakes in a story for the Endeavor, I'd print a retraction. I challenged Chris to examine all the articles I'd written this year or last and find one single mistake. I wrote: Find one mistake, Chris. Find one.

Chapter 21

"What we're talking about here is guilty until proven innocent."

Lance Brown

In our first public relations class after the motion of non-confidence, our slim executive-looking instructor, Lance Brown, who doubled as head of the college fund raising foundation, went over the aftermath of the ouster and our articles on the subject. I audio taped this class:

Lance, questioning us: "If we were in charge, how could we have better conducted things to control the press coverage?"

There is the sound of Lance quickly writing on the chalkboard, smooth hurried sounds as he completed each letter followed by high pitched twacks, the chalk striking the board when starting a new letter.

"This meeting was held open? Was this an open meeting? I don't know if we had the obligation to go public."

Sounds of chalk striking and streaking the chalkboard stopped.

"That way, your statements are what happened. Is this manipulation? I don't know, but it's control, is what I'm talking about, it's damage control, it's crisis control. As a public relations person, it's your job to control the aftermath, the fallout."

In this class we were to think of this issue from the other side- not as reporters but as public relations coordinators.

Lance again: "Now what other things in the articles that I read, that had some sort of liability in them, what about the contact with senior administration at the college? Was that comfortable to be in there, or was that questionable?"

"What do you mean?" This was Mary Bana speaking, one of our two senior editors.

"Well, Rick Buis had met with these people a week before."

"Oh. That's what you mean. I keep thinking from the newspaper side of it. We're liable?" Mary cackled her trademark laugh in mock surprise. I remember her eyes opening wide as she did so. She was seated to my left.

Lance: "Because, you see, what that suggests is some, it's certainly-"

Mary: "That was found out just strictly by hard digging, and you know, good reporting. Good reporting. Good digging."

"About what?" a student called.

"About Buis," said Mary.

"Being involved," Lance added, as the student still must not have understood.

Lance began again: "Because, you know, it's not lost on any of us that there was a big shouting match before this and then the vice-president is meeting with people who were orchestrating the whole thing."

Mary: "The administration was pretty well keeping low key."

Sandy Menard, in response to Lance: "Before the dismissal?"

Lance: "Two weeks before, let's say."

Mary: "Oh, I didn't know about that."

The tape then has Mary and I whispering back and forth. Shouting match? Was this Joy's Cave civil rights performance or something else we weren't aware of? But Lance was talking again.

Lance: "Anyway, what we see here is a sequence or trail of events which as a public relations person you would try to contain the damage of. You don't want such a trail of events. You want to control them."

A female student, in a concerned voice I don't recognize: "They were meeting with Rick Buis and everything, going behind everybody's back. If they had done all this in a closed meeting, you're going to find out about it anyway, you know, and it would look even worse, because it would look like they planned it all, then had a closed meeting so no one could see what they were doing."

Lance: "The jury is part of the closed meeting, though."

Female student: "Yeah."

A male student: "But if it's open, aren't you preserving dignity?"

Lance: "Right. Right. The charges- until she answers them- what we're talking about here is guilty until proven innocent- in this case. She has no chance to respond to those in a closed forum where they can actually withdraw what they've stepped in with. So she tried to refute them. But whether they were valid or not was- it doesn't really matter- because, hey, we're in for hot dogs we're in for ham, sort of thing. We're it. A closed meeting-"

There was sprinkled laughter and Mary interrupted with:

"I've never heard that expression before."

More laughter.

Lance: "The expression is if we're going to hang for hot dogs, we may as well hang for ham."

Mary: "Oh, okay."

Lance: "In a closed meeting you have the opportunity to hear both sides objectively, if you want to do that, and to respect the dignity of the person, who- you give them both the benefit of the doubt. The point you have to make, though, about why we have this closed meeting is that meetings are closed all the time, for different reasons, particularly financial."

Sandy Hartwick, Mary's co-editor, piped up: "I think they wanted it that way. I think they wanted an open meeting. To display it. They had all kinds of SA members there."

Lance: "And the question is, as a public relations person, how do you feel it should have been handled differently, or do you feel it was done properly or improperly?"

Me: "I think there was an attempt, public relations-wise, in the meeting, to appear organized. They were quite organized. But I do agree with statements made after the meeting they should have had as much control- the suggestion that the press scrum shouldn't have been there. As a PR person, that should have been foreseen that would have been a highly emotional thing afterwards."

Lance: "Yeah, or at least the opportunity for that to happen."

Sandy Hartwick: "And they had people- members of the SA just mouthing off. Left and Right. Like that Alex Hamilton. "We're fresh, we're clean."

Someone added, musically, the theme to the movie, 'Jaws': "Duh-duh. Duh-duh."

Laughter.

Lance: "That was fresh."

More laughter.

Sandy Hartwick: "After that shouting match in there, I had people outside decline comment because of the volatility of the situation."

Lance: "We talked about this in the last class and I wanted to go into a little more about it. There are lots of things you'd like to comment on but that doesn't mean necessarily it's the right thing. You know, it doesn't mean it's the best thing to do. Anyway, I don't know if this is over yet. I really don't know if this is over yet."

Me: "It's not over. The appeal procedure to this is the Judicial Review Committee, chaired by the vice-president of the SA and we don't know if the press will be allowed to that or if it will be an open meeting or a closed meeting. If it is closed we don't know if whether if we'll have transcripts of it."

Lance: "If I was Joy's lawyer, let's say, I would prepare a statement, whether it is closed or not, which I would release at the end of it."

A male student, a voice I don't recognize: "That's the whole thing right there. When the accuser becomes your judge?"

Mary: "That's interesting. How can they do that?"

Lance: "Is that a done deal? Is she going for an appeal?"

Me: "That's a done deal. I believe she has already filed. What else was I going to say? Oh. Another unfortunate comment made by these people, on the Judicial Review Committee- maybe we're getting off topic-"

Mary: "Just a little."

Me: "-the people on the Judicial Review Committee will be the Dean of Student Services, one member of faculty, two students chosen at random, and the chairman of the JRC, which was already appointed by Merkl, the vice-president, Jack Peterson-"

Mary: "Acting vice-president."

Me: "The acting vice-president of the SA, Jack Peterson, will be the chair of the Judicial Review Committee. The two students chosen at random the statement went, would be pre-screened- he didn't use the word, "pre-screened," but he said they would undergo a questioning process by the Student's Association- the sitting members of the student's council- to determine their bias. And so, in effect, they would be pre-screened by the same people who passed the vote of non-confidence against Nicholson."

Surprised and disgusted "Ohhs" from the class.

Mary: "Is that legal?"

Karri Green: "I thought they were going to be chosen at random."

Me: "They will be chosen at random, but none of them will come from Com Arts, none of them will come from Business and none of them will come from Upgrading."'

Karri: "Why's that?"

Lance: "So you've got a real life experience here. I don't know. You've got a lot of material over the next few months, I think, if you follow this to the limit. There's a lot of interesting angles on it, but again- as public relations practitioners, one spokesperson, one statement, a moratorium on other things, you say to your board members this is sensitive stuff and we advise and ask you not to comment on it. You are safest in not commenting. Because where does the liability end? The greater the situation becomes the liability risk increases exponentially. I don't want to be indemnified by your actions as a board member, but there is liability risk in taking this position. So when you're in a situation like that, I would always reserve comment, and I would hope that whoever is calling the shots, if you are the coordinator of something like that, you are considering at least some of the steps that we've outlined."

Sandy Hartwick: "Lawrence knows how to get around her, anyway."

Great hoots and laughter.

Sandy again: "I'm sorry, but its true."

I don't know if Sandy means I can get around Joy Nicholson or Donna Allan.

Lance: "I had a university professor once, I think he was from the Philippines, who said, "I pray you pay attention to this because it will be on the exam.""

With that we shut up and the class began in earnest.

November 27, 1995

"...a duty of procedural fairness lying on every public authority...which affects the rights and privileges of an individual.."

Justice W. Hembroff

The Judge: "But when I read the decision of Mr. Justice Le Dain, and in this particular case I'm referring to a case that I just picked off Quick Law this morning, you may or may not have it, it's Volker Stevin Northwest Territories 1992 Limited v. Northwest Territories (Commissioners). It's apparently at [1994], N.W.T.J. no. 7.

"I don't know whether that report is available. I have copied one for each of you and you can- at least I think I did, and I'll provide it to you in a minute, but I'm really quoting from that case because it was there, the decision of Le Dain in- in I guess Indian Head. And that is the

"common law principle, a duty of procedural fairness lying on every public authority making an administrative decision which is not of a legislative nature and which affects the rights and privileges of an individual."

The Judge: "Now-"

The lawyer for the college: "Fine. You'll see-"

The judge: "How do I ignore that?"

"You don't have to ignore it, My Lord. They key phrase in that- what you just quoted to me is the phrase "public authority." And essentially what the cases are saying is that in determining whether a tribunal is a statutory or non-statutory tribunal-"

The judge: "Set up under a public authority of rights and obligations."

"Okay. They're essentially one and the same. So what you have to first find in this case whether you call it a statutory or public tribunal, the law as applied to the Court of Appeal in these cases that I have before you is not inconsistent with that. You still must find, in fact, what it- what the decision making bodies here, the committee and Donna Allan, for that matter, are statutory tribunals, it's the same thing. And you must come to the conclusion in law that those bodies, or at least one of those bodies, is a statutory or public tribunal, otherwise the principle doesn't apply. And what you quoted to me from the case is not, in my view, inconsistent with what the Court of Appeal is saying in these series of cases."

Chapter 22

"Joy wasn't removed over receipts.

She was removed over a lack of receipts."

Craig Knutson

About a month after Joy's ouster student council members discussed removing the requirement for SA executive members to bring back expense receipts. It seemed some SA members believed there was a need, at times, to access emergency funds.

I covered the meeting as the Endeavor reporter, silent in my SA visitor's chair, notebook on my lap. It was treated as just another SA bit of business as the meeting continued, but I really couldn't believe my ears as this discussion took place.

Executive SA members also discussed whether they should be issued credit cards, and that per diem expense accounts be set up, instead of bringing back receipts to the financial coordinator.

The most outspoken supporter of the move was Chris Clapton. The only one I could see opposed to it was Anna Jenson, the SA financial coordinator.

After that evening SA meeting, I hung back to talk with Dana and Craig in the SA board room before we all left.

"How can you oust a president over receipts and then discuss changing those rules saying you don't need them anymore?"

"Joy wasn't removed over receipts. She was removed over a lack of receipts," Craig said.

I didn't follow the logic, but there it was.

Craig and Dana also made it clear to me the money issued to Joy had been assigned for a hotel room and food, and nothing else, not buses, not taxis, not cigarettes, not wine.

They asked me for a copy of the video tape I'd shot of Joy's hearing, but I didn't think that was necessary. It was useful being the lone keeper of that record.

On November 21 Dana had a problem while attending an ACTISEC meeting. His travel plans went awry. His ACTISEC meeting was in Calgary. A weather report said roads were bad between Calgary and Lethbridge. He decided to fly. The same SA reps that had booted Joy over spending food money on a bus when her travel plans went awry voted to reimburse Dana his $81.32 for the flight.

I asked Joy what she thought of the latest SA discussion accessing emergency funds. She answered me with a question of her own.

"How can they vote me off council for buying a bus ticket with food money if they know they have the same problem?"

She spoke while turning away from me, not waiting for an answer. Resigned described her body language.

Whenever I had articles on the SA published, it was my habit to wait an hour or so for the elected SA members to read them, which they did, then walk down to the SA office for their reaction. They were more inclined to talk when angry. Everybody is. Then I might have another story. It had the drawback of really catching serious flack, if an SA member was really very angry, like Dana had been once.

Only once that I recall did an SA member coming down to the Endeavor immediately after publication. Chris Clapton. It was after publication of my story that SA executives might issue themselves credit cards.

Chris came in, on a mission, but happy, not angry. He even sat down. He told me my article had a mistake in it. He unfolded the freshly printed Endeavor to show me. Proud was a word I'd use to describe his body language. I'd quoted him as saying students at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, or SAIT, had been issued credit cards and it was about time our SA execs were issued credit cards. That was wrong, Chris told me. He had said Mount Royal College students had been issued credit cards and it was about time our council were issued credit cards. He believed he had found a mistake in my work. He was over the moon about it.

There was a federal election going on at this time. On assignment for the paper I attended political speeches of federal political candidates.

I talked to people in the audience after the speeches. I introduced myself to one young fellow. His name was Terry Whitehead. I recognized his name but couldn't place it.

"I was a student union president at the university," he said.

I asked him what he'd heard about the hubbub with the college SA.

"Well, if she did take the money, it's wrong," said Whitehead.

His answer bothered me. If this tall young fellow so familiar to student politics and its issues boiled our college SA issue down to theft, then Joy's name was toast. No one else less plugged in would think anything less. No one else would see anything more about the accusation against her. How could they? Missing money is missing money and it automatically implies dollars ended up in the wrong pocket by intention. He seemed to interpret the issue as someone caught stealing. It meant Joy, an honour student who was voted president of her college student body, might have difficulty getting a job in this city. Any barmaid or store cashier now had a better reputation.

I was losing my shyness about taking photographs by this time. Burke and Kavanagh both taught photography, but we also had an occasional photography advisor when I started, a passionate photographer with a German accent, not Kevin Kooy, who came on a bit later. I recall the older German fellow was active with Habitat for Humanity in off hours. He once escorted me right into a classroom to take a photograph of a sitting student with the instructor's permission. It wasn't for a story. It was a photograph assignment. He chose a female student at a desk about the middle of the room. He asked her permission. She said yes, but you could tell she had mixed feelings about it. I took a single shot.

"Take another." he said.

I took another. I just wanted to get out of there.

On the occasion I spoke to Whitehead my assignment was a forum of federal election candidates. I remember a long-time provincial politician, Ray Speaker, was among the candidates on stage running for Parliament. One of the questions he had was on his pension- he'd been in politics for a long time so his pension could have been a touch on the fat side compared to most Canadians- a question which he handled well enough, but not to the satisfaction of everyone in the audience, I noticed.

My photography assignment was getting shots of the event. I took good shots of the candidates speaking, shooting at the foot of the stage, then shot from stage right then stage left to get them all in, to give everyone a flattering shot, then took more shots with the audience in them, then the thought came to me - shouldn't I need a film change by now? I clicked off the film catch and turned the bitty hand crank. It felt different. It moved far too easily. I opened the camera. I had forgotten film. There went the front page shots for the Endeavor. Some big reporter. Luckily another Endeavor photographer- Sandy Menard- was there and we were covered.

We had a number of photograph assignments, taking a funny shot, a news shot, a feature shot. One I took in the college library. Three girls were studying at a table. Perfect. I asked them to do the speak-no-evil, see-no-evil, hear-no-evil thing. The girl on the left hasn't changed in nearly two decades. Same short hair, same girl-next-door cute look. She became the most famous of us all, Anne-Marie Mediwake, now a national television news anchor with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

I never spoke to Anne-Marie much, we had little to do with each other. I recall only twice speaking to her. She was a first-year television student when I was a second-year print journalism student. First-years and second years rarely mixed. We never had a class together, but Anne-Marie used the Endeavor. She told me in the Endeavor she had applied for radio and the college had mistakenly put her in television. We were standing so it wasn't a long conversation.

"Why don't you complain?" I asked.

"No, it's okay," she said. "I like television."

Like Rob Follis had come in with his wife, and later the two of them came in with their baby, Anne-Marie also came into the Endeavor with someone. Her grandmother. They were both thin and petite, her grandmother walked slowly, carefully- very slowly- they would walk arm in arm, Anne-Marie always linking her right arm to her grandmother's left, her grandmother wearing this long knee-length brown plain cloth coat, the kind you might buy at Eaton's, nice, one colour, but unadorned, plain, one unhugging belt to it, and Anne-Marie, no taller really than her tiny grandmother, was so careful with her, walking slowly into the Endeavor, arm-in-arm, until she sat her grandmother down, always at the far workstation at the advertising end of the Endeavor. They were quiet. Usually, by the time I looked up, Anne-Marie was already inside and escorting her grandmother to the quietest four-desk workstation in the room, always the ad area workstation.

In our television class we had one fellow who was photogenic and we all noticed the camera had a special interest in him. The lens saw him in ways we couldn't see otherwise. Viewing some of his on-camera work in class you couldn't help but notice he shone on screen with an Elvis Presley-like raw sexuality- the idiot carried it further in one shot, grabbing his crotch and clowning for the camera. The footage was rolled in a television critique class causing one student to comment, "I'm too young to watch this." Television really seems to have the ability to bring out otherwise hidden qualities in some people. It certainly did for Anne-Marie.

Just like that fellow, the lens seemed to take a special interest in Anne-Marie. She was petite, always neat, with a noticeable dignity- that was the one word you'd use to describe her- she had dignity. She was cute, but you'd never describe her that way. She was too girl-next-doorish. You had the impression a good boyfriend would take her to church, not a party. She could even be called mousy. But the camera loved her. I saw one video of her much later in the studio, looking for a blank cassette, unexpectedly finding Anne-Marie on one and I watched it and could not stop it, I had to watch it in full. The cameraman had walked around her, 'round and 'round, the scene could have been shot in the courtyard just outside the Endeavor window, the background all brick and pavement as the camera spun around her, and she looked into the screen, turning, always facing the camera, comfortable, in charge, pretty this woman\- that mousiness gone- vanished\- talking about some church thing, if I remember right, in a kind of Rick Mercer street rap much before his time, never missing a beat, never hesitating, it was like listening to radio man Paul Harvey- you could not turn it off- it was pure gold, and all these years later I remember watching that video and remember being simply amazed how much the camera loved this over-looked tiny little mousy thing who cared so much for her grandmother.

When going through boxes of material from college on the way to a final edit of this book, pruning what was no longer needed, I tossed out that big darkroom-created glossy faded photo of Anne-Marie in her speak-no-evil pose with the two other students at a table in the Buchanan Library. Who would keep an old photo of someone now famous? That would be pathetic. Into the garbage it went.

At a Buchanan Library kiosk I plugged in my video tape and watched Joy's removal from office again, this time taking written notes. The first thing that impressed me while watching the tape that Joy seemed to be interrupted a lot while speaking. I began marking in my notebook how many times order was called. At the end of the tape I had nine marks, but noticed Chris had only called Joy to order.

At no time did he call the meeting to order for noise. For all the emotion, the meeting was orderly without interruption from the full gallery, save for Dawn Ly's several kneeled pow-wow's with Anna Jenson. But those were quiet, whispered discussions and Dawn scurried back to her seat each time they were over. All council members were orderly, waiting their turn to speak.

Chris did call order when Scott Groves was speaking, but Scott told Chris he had another question to ask and asked it. Scott had overruled the chairman, if you like, but Joy was certainly unable to. Chris and his pointing pencil had been rather firm with her.

I found I'd missed other events the first time 'round. Perry Albert, head of LCC security, was there earlier than I'd thought. On the tape Dana went to the door mid-meeting to talk to him in the hallway then they went off together in the direction of the SA office. Asking that Perry stay late to be available to secure the SA president's office wasn't something I would have thought about if I were on council.

This was interesting. Who asked Perry Albert to work late? Dana? Anna? Craig? That was doubtful. Perhaps Perry chose his own hours. It would be more convenient and made more sense than having a member of the college administration approve his overtime in advance- if he was hourly. It was more likely as the head of security he'd be on salary. If there was overtime to pay, who would pay it? The SA? How could that have been approved without Joy knowing? Wouldn't it have been simpler to ask a security guard to secure the door? They worked late. I couldn't ever recall seeing Perry at the college after hours before. I never would again.

At the time I didn't think of asking Anne Raslask who to direct my questions to. This had never happened in the SA before- not that I knew of. But changing a lock on a terminated college employee's office door might be routine. Campus security might do that automatically.

Using the Endeavor's little photocopied college telephone directory- covered blue this year- I made several phone calls. I had no luck until one college staffer told me there had been one incident of a college employee being fired a few years before I became a student. The employee's desk had been locked or emptied by uniformed guards and then the guards escorted the just-fired employee right out the door, and that was the end of that person's career at the college. Bang. Just like that.

"Wow. Who arranged the guards?"

"Rick Buis. He's the vice-president of administration. That's his job."

I talked to several people about Joy's ouster.

Dean Stetson, seated in his office, shrugged. He said it was a vote of non-confidence, the same thing could happen to the college president, he said.

I was taken aback. He knew more about it than that, surely.

Georgia, in her office, was concerned about what Joy was going through. She thought Joy was going to "crash and burn" over it. In our short conversation Georgia also said something I thought at the time rather ridiculous, especially for Georgia. For eighteen years I had that quote included in this manuscript. In the final edit of this book I took it out, deciding that one quote was too explosive to report on. It's unfortunate. Sixteen months later would I believe Georgia's comments in this conversation were not ridiculous at all. I would believe they were very accurate, even perceptive. This entire book is likely explaining, in a round-about way, that one quote of Georgia's I have to leave out.

Chapter 23

"Here, read what those bastards are saying about me."

Joy Nicholson

Joy began coming to school less and less until she rarely came at all. Once I saw her come in to pick up an Endeavor. She was holding one side of her face with her hand. Toothache, she said. She hadn't been in school due to a toothache. This was our third semester, we were barely in it and Joy, an honour student, was having trouble. It showed.

Her hair had been straight and was now long and kinky. She looked different with kinky hair. More black. Maybe thats politically incorrect. Anyway, she looked different. She walked to a newspaper rack, said hello to a student who recognized her and flipped him a paper.

"Here, read what those bastards are saying about me," she said.

She took a few issues in her arms and left. No time to talk, she said. Had to go. Her tooth was killing her.

She looked like hell. I walked her to the door and asked her how she was doing. I didn't want this "toothache" shit, I wanted to know.

She told me.

Everything was weighing on her so much she'd thought of suicide. She said the word. I know it's said if someone says it they won't do it, but it alarmed me.

I found Stetson in a hallway and told him about it. Stetson, a trained counsellor, had probably heard everything under the sun. He reacted to this news in a calm professional manner without batting an eye, but it was not the reaction I needed and it didn't reassure me. I went to another counsellor, Lesley Rhodes, I knew a little, enough to say hi. I'd written a short piece on her after I first met her- we'd been sitting alone at neighboring tables in the cafeteria and struck up a conversation. She told me her maiden name- I've since forgotten what it was, but it was a prize millstone, especially for a girl- a name a female would definitely get teased about.

"I've heard all the jokes," she said.

I spoke to her in the student services area. She told me there was a weekly meeting of counsellors and she could bring up my concerns then. Good. I liked this. If Joy came to talk to any college counsellor after this, they would all be red-flagged and immediately know this was serious. I left, satisfied.

Meanwhile Dana and Anna were interviewing to appoint a new SA financial coordinator. They wanted a panel of three people and asked me to be the third. Sure, I said. The reason I was asked, of course, was that I really couldn't write a blistering article on a process I was part of, but I was curious, I'd never sat on a hiring panel before.

I learned. Did I ever learn. I learned that it takes about ten seconds for the interviewer to decide whether you'd be a good fit or not. That's all. Screw the polished resume and the well practiced answers to obvious questions. Yes, you need those, but the first impression is priority. You have ten seconds only.

We sat in the SA meeting room and one by one the applicants came in to talk to us. Anna asked the first applicant a zinger, not an exact quote but near to it: What are the principles of GAP? I didn't know the term meant General Accounting Principles and neither did Dana. I then learned Dana, in spite of what I thought of his treatment of Joy, did have a strong view of fairness. He turned on Anna as soon as the interview was over and the first applicant was out the door.

Dana near shouted: "GAP? GAP? I don't even know what that is! GAP to me is what those coolies have out there!" He waved his arm in the general direction of the deep ravined coolies to the southwest of the school.

I remember a few of the applicants, perhaps not in order. One was a pretty thing who sat with her feet curled up under her in the chair. My thoughts were she was exactly the kind of person who might say, I can't do this, or Do I have to? or I can't get this done on time, and ask for lots of help and get it, all the while looking very, very pretty sitting in a chair. I decided no before she answered the first question.

Another was an older man, not much older than I was, with a lean weathered face and muscled forearms built from hard work. His posture was stiff, formal. He wore jeans and a shirt of a style that would make it a ready work shirt when it was worn out for more every-day use. He wouldn't fit in, I decided. He was an old conservative among more free-thinking youth and would cause more rifts than there were now. The way he answered his questions only confirmed that for me. He never went along with anything. He was polite but contrary. I was happy when the door was closed behind him.

Another I gave high marks for intelligence. Dana didn't like him at all. "We have enough pretty boys here now," Dana said when that interview ended and the door closed. The young fellow was intelligent enough to be able to feel, by osmosis, in less than a minute that somehow the interview wasn't going well. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he knew it, he saw through every polite smile of ours and he knew in less than those first 60 seconds he wasn't getting the job. When that sunk in, his demeanor changed. He soured unpleasantly. He was a fellow used to getting his own way very easily. There was an arrogance there that told me he wouldn't fit in either. But I liked his antennae. He could very quickly read the room and each of us in it.

It is interesting to me, looking back, that an applicant fitting in was more important than whether they could do the job or not. Being capable was secondary to me. That wasn't something I'd decided going in. It seemed instinctive. I eliminated most candidates on that basis.

The one we went with was a fellow with a family who worked nights at a restaurant. He was a business student. He was polite, earnest, but he looked capable. He looked like he could get up out of his chair that moment and go into the financial coordinator's office and do the job right now. He looked like he would get things done without being asked, get them done on time, and do a good job. The question and answer session we had only confirmed my first impressions.

Though I'm sure my editors, Mary and Sandy, didn't like me being on that SA hiring panel at all, I was glad I did it. It was a learning experience. I learned in a job interview you have ten seconds only to win them over. In ten seconds you win it or you sink.

The fellow we hired was Darryl Kretchmer. He would be very capable and very much his own man. I also had a personal rule formulated after one story on him. I called it the Kretchmer Rule- never make fun of someone unnecessarily. It became a personal rule I still carry.

In a much later SA meeting, time dragging on and nothing much of a story anywhere, Darryl suggested to his fellow SA members that a microwave be put set up in the SA office. It would be handy for people working late, he said. I and a few other Endeavor writers could certainly relate to working late. Someone reminded Darryl there was a microwave in the Brown Bag not that far away. Oh, yes, Darryl said, and the meeting continued with other matters.

But I wrote it up. It was an exploding cigar. I made fun of Darryl. It was too good to resist. I filled the short article with puns and wordplays, ending with, "zap went the proposal, done in seconds." But it ended up merged with another piece of mine from that meeting and someone in the class, younger and much wiser, toned it down substantially. Everything was edited down to 200 words or so.

Still, my mention of that very brief microwave discussion had its impact. It offered a lesson.

Darryl ran for SA coordinator at the end of the term he was appointed to. He should have won. He would have been good for the SA. He had been good for the SA. He also had a family to support as a student and that monthly $450 was needed money.

I was in a class when Darryl came in to address us, running for the job he was already experienced in, standing before the class for a minute, in suit and tie, looking very earnest, telling us a bit about himself, asking for people to vote, something he was doing for every class in the college I assumed, and only one question was asked at the end of his short, polite address.

"What about the microwaves?" some male student asked.

Darryl, on his heels, answered that one as best he could, but you could tell by the feeling in the room they weren't with him. That moment is not a pleasant memory. I realized then the impression I had given some students with that one fun short article I had written when bored weeks or months before, was that Darryl was pompous and lazy, two characteristics he had none of, his traits were exactly opposite. I believed at that moment I had badly hurt a good man's chances of his winning his own job back. Darryl Kretchmer did lose that election. I'm sure that one very short article of mine was a factor in his loss. It was a lesson I never forgot. The Kretchmer Rule became a personal principle. If you're going to be hard nosed, be hard nosed. Just don't make fun of people in print. People don't deserve that. The printed word makes an impression for a long time.

Chapter 24

"That's right. I'm a lawyer. But that's all I'm going to say to you, okay?"

Ken Torry

When the five-member Judicial Review Committee was finally put together to hear Joy's appeal, Scott Groves was named chairman.

The Dean of Student Services, Dean Stetson, took his place on the committee, joined by faculty representative Margaret Falkenberg. I'd never heard of Falkenburg before this occasion and would never hear of her afterward. She turned out to be a thin, prim, forty-something woman who looked like a librarian. I later discovered she was actually a nurse.

The students chosen at random for the committee's last two places were two quiet, chubby, look-alike, twentyish, electronics students, chosen from a list provided by the registrar's office.

Dana Merkl's appointment of Scott Groves as chairman became a joke around the Endeavor. It wasn't missed that Dana had appointed the hard ass of Joy's non-confidence hearing as head of the committee she had to appeal to.

Scott Groves turned out to be just as hard in the chairman's position as he had been during the non-confidence deliberations. He was as secretive as he could be during the appeal process. All meetings were closed. Meeting times and places were not considered public information. I don't recall the appeal committee meeting in the same meeting room twice. Four meeting rooms were used that we knew of, three of which were about as far away from each other as they could get. Maybe he just took whatever first room was available. Who knows. But it looked odd as he could have had the SA board room pretty much whenever he wanted it. The committee did keep minutes, which we never received, but Nicholson did.

Early on, I asked Scott Groves where and when the committee was meeting next. I was told that information would not be disclosed.

We found out about one meeting by chance. Someone from the Endeavor was in the SA office one afternoon and heard a brief exchange about a JRC meeting taking place that day. The student ran to tell us in the Endeavor. Mary and I rushed down to the SA office and confronted Dana Merkl, just leaving his office. Dana hesitated, then saw no harm in telling us the meeting was already underway. They're in the SA boardroom now, he said. But the meeting is closed.

What time did the meeting start?

At three.

Mary and I hurried down an adjacent hallway and stood outside the door to the Student Association board room. We waited twenty-five minutes before something happened. A thin, dark-haired, thirty-fiveish man in a well-fitting business suit exited. He wasn't a college person. He rushed past us. I followed, clicking on my palm tape recorder.

"You're part of the review?"

"No, I'm not."

"You're-"

"Oh- well, I'm really just sort of- in there. You'll have to ask those people."

"But this is- this is news for students- the Student's Association, the Judicial Review Committee."

"Yeah, you'll have to talk to the people who are in there."

"What's your name?"

"Pardon me? Oh, my name is Ken Torry."

"Ken? What's your last name?"

"Torry."

I started to spell it out. "T-o...?"

"-r-r-y."

"And-"

"I really can't say any more."

"You're with the college?"

"I really can't say any more."

"Are you with the college?"

"Yeah, you'll really have to sort of talk to the-"

"Are you with the college?"

"What? Oh, no, I'm not."

I took a guess. "You're a lawyer, or-"

He turned around, but he was still walking, only backward.

Very firmly: "That's right. I'm a lawyer. But that's all I'm going to say to you. Okay?"

I stopped following him. I walked back to Mary, watching the SA board room door.

"Holy shit," Mary whispered as I approached her.

My voice: "What time did he come out? Five to four."

Mary checked her watch- "Yeah." -then looked back up at me. "Who do you figure he is?"

I read the time into the tape recorder. "Three fifty-five. His name is Ken Torry. He's a lawyer in town."

"Did he say he's representing Joy or no?"

"He wouldn't say. He said you'll have to ask these people here."

We waited.

"Maybe they have a lawyer, too," Mary said.

My voice, surprised, as if I hadn't thought of it. "Maybe."

Mary: "Well, there's our first question: Who's Ken Torry?"

Me: "He's none of the two people Joy mentioned as her lawyer."

The committee filed out at 4:00 o'clock, Stetson first, and no one said a word. You could tell they weren't going to say a word. Stetson gave us a glance. Falkenburg didn't even look at us. The two young look-alike electronics students (do they clone these guys, or what?) hadn't the political savvy not to look at us, but they didn't anyway, which meant they had a serious lecture on college business and confidentiality. But from who? Groves wouldn't have given a lecture to make that kind of impact on them. Groves gave us a knowing smile as he moved past us, but there was no use chasing anyone but him. I followed him and when he stopped I held the tape recorder up like a microphone.

"We wanted some statement on the vote in the meeting? Scott?"

"I think it was a good first effort."

"Who is Ken Torry and what's his business at today's meeting?"

"Ken Torry," Groves said, as if searching a distant memory. Then in carefully spaced words: "He is a legal representative and we just had him there to ask for legal information."

"For the Student's Association."

"Yes."

"And his advice to the Student's Association?"

"That's confidential. At the moment."

Mary asked where Joy was. She had sent a memo saying she wouldn't be here, Scott said.

Mary and I went back to the Endeavor where I thumbed through a phone book. Torry was with a Lethbridge law firm called Virtue and Company. We made some calls. We were told Virtue and Company had done some work for the college administration.

I went back to the SA and found Groves sitting behind one of the half-dozen oak desks in the roomy SA Rep Room. I asked him who was paying Torry's lawyer's fee.

"The SA," Groves said.

Who suggested Torry advise the SA and what was his advice?

I can't tell you. That's confidential.

Had his law firm advised the college before? This was the only question to which I already knew the answer.

Apparently they had and they had done a very satisfactory job, Groves said.

Are they advising the administration and the SA at the same time?

That's all the legal advice the committee would require, Groves said.

The interview was over. I was stuck. I went back to the Endeavor.

Typing in the Endeavor the next day or the day after, Joy came in, looking for me. She was livid. She held out a sheaf of papers for me to take. They were a copy of the minutes of the meeting she'd missed and Torry had attended. She wanted me to read them. She said the committee had considered a question she had asked Groves prior to the meeting. Joy had hired a lawyer and wanted him with her at the hearing. The committee put it to a vote and decided lawyers would not be allowed. The minutes said the vote was unanimous.

I had to read it again. I must have read it wrong. But I hadn't. There it was.

It didn't make sense.

A Student Association appeal committee had unanimously voted to deny a student having a lawyer present. I'd thought that a basic civil rights privilege. How could they deny it? Plus, if the vote was unanimous, it meant Dean Stetson had voted against it after the committee itself sought a lawyer's advice at the same meeting.

This didn't make sense to me at all. Joy fumed, I was silent.

Where would this come from, anyway?

Not from the students. I was as sure of that as day follows night. Groves wouldn't have been so bold as to put his foot down, saying Joy could not have a lawyer present. Nor would he have initiated the hiring of a lawyer whose firm had done work for the college administration so he could ask for advice on the matter. Ditto the electronic's students. That was a given. They had never been anywhere near the SA before this. Falkenburg was as noticeable as a ghost. She didn't impress me as anybody who would put forward a legal point with such gravity that the committee would be swayed to follow her. But Stetson was different. Stetson dealt with college legal issues all the time, committee's, recommendations, the Board of Governors, senior executive members of the college, the College's Act, internal regulations. Interpreting all of that for others was his job.

But why would anyone give a damn if Joy had a lawyer attending her appeal hearing with her? What was the big deal? It seemed a bigger deal to vote against it than to simply allow it.

Quite obviously we were missing something.

But what?

November 27, 1995

"...a general right of procedural fairness can operate independently in the absence of any statutory obligation."

Judge Hembroff

Judge Hembroff read from another law reference: "And it says:

"a general right of procedural fairness can operate independently in the absence of any statutory obligation.

"Again you say that I can ignore that because of the sort of strict fence that you want to put around this particular body and the nature of this particular body as not being a-"

The lawyer for the college: "I'm not, My Lord, with respect, trying to put a fence around the actions. What we're saying is, is whether the bottom line is the Court, in order to intervene, in order to look at the merits in a case like this, must, in fact, find that the tribunal in question is, in the words of that particular judge, a public tribunal, or in the words of-"

The judge: "Public authority is the word used."

The college's lawyer: "Public authority, or in the words of those judges, a statutory tribunal or authority. and that's the question you've got to decide on. Based on what you've read to me there, I don't see anything inconsistent."

The judge: "But how do I decide that How do I measure that-"

The college's lawyer: "Well I'm going to take you through that. That's what I'm trying to go through the cases for and then we'll take you to this situation here."

Chapter 25

"If she doesn't appeal, people will think she's guilty."

Ron MacDonald

About this time my passing through the cafeteria seemed to spark a discussion between two seated female students I didn't recognize.

"Why does he write all that stuff about her?" one asked as I passed.

"She used to be his girlfriend," said the other.

"That's awful!"

Boy meets girl. That's what a lot boils down to in college. Here I was writing about the apparent absence of student civil rights protections and a hair of possibility that in some mysterious way the college administration itself had some unknown agenda in it all, and all of it, every single bit, had gone right over their heads. But those two weren't the only students who didn't get it. In fact, they seemed to be in the majority. As time went on there was a noticeable negative attitude toward the Endeavor. Students didn't understand we were trying to unravel something, but didn't know what yet. Instead students were becoming upset with their college newspaper for constantly bashing the SA.

The local television news became interested in the story. Local news reporter and sometime anchor Michele McDougall telephoned and I took her call from the Endeavor ad area phone.

McDougall asked standard questions, which I answered for a minute or two, then she unexpectedly cut to the chase and asked about Joy.

"Okay, what's really going on? What does she want?"

I liked the way McDougall asked. Instead of chipping away to get the story asking question after question she just aimed straight at the heart of the thing, in a sort of hey-it's-just-you-and-me talking, let's cut out the bullshit and get to it, if there's a story here, tell me what it is.

I liked this method and would adopt it in future. It was an honest method. It saved time. It also developed instant rapport.

I told her frankly Joy didn't want anything except to clear her name. She was driven into the ground by people who didn't like her. Money had nothing to do with it. It was personal, all of it.

A day or days later I learned, again from a student who happened to be at the right place at the right time, that the Judicial Review Committee was meeting again. This time they would sit in a meeting room at the far end of an upstairs series of offices. I didn't know the area, I hadn't been there before. They were about to meet in that room very soon.

I went upstairs and walked the hallway past student finance and turned left to a very long narrow hallway. After a bit of walking I passed a reception desk I hadn't known existed for this area. I found the meeting room at the very end of the hallway. I tested the door. It was unlocked. I went in.

The room, very small, about the size of a large bathroom, wasn't empty. A female student was at the only table in the room, books open in front of her, listening to someone talk on an intercom or speaker telephone. She was listening intently and didn't look up.

If I backed out now I'd never get back in. I walked past her busily, without looking at her, acting as if I knew what I was doing, and walked to a door behind her chair and to her left and tested that doorknob, which was also was unlocked. I opened it as if that room was exactly where I needed to be, and walked into a small storage closet.

I closed the door behind me. The storage closet, filled with miscellaneous office stuff, including a couple of chairs and a four-drawer filing cabinet, was so crowded it was tough to move, but unusually, this storage closet had another door to it. It opened, but was locked from the outside. That was good. Outside that door was a flight of stairs. I knew where I was now. I was above the walkway to the Cousins Building or, to the right of the stairs, I could walk around a corner to the very hallway I'd just walked down to get here. That was good, too. I could get out and back to the Endeavor without walking by student finance again. That too, was good.

I put the second entrance door ajar and walked back to the Endeavor to get my notebook and tape recorder, and on the way back stopped to relieve myself. I had no idea how long the meeting would last. Back in the storage room I pushed the filing cabinet against the door I'd entered the first time. I didn't want anyone opening the door to surprise me.

Then I waited, leaning on the filing cabinet.

After a long time the meeting I was waiting for began. But I was afraid to turn on the tape recorder because it would make noise. I was also too afraid to use my notebook as the pen over the paper would make noise. Plus, I couldn't turn a page. That, too, would make noise. I had to listen only.

In spite of being so close, I couldn't hear the voices well. I could sort of peg who was who and judge the tone, but that was about all. The electronics students said nothing. That wasn't a surprise.

Then a voice I didn't expect. It was familiar, but I couldn't place it for a few minutes. It was Tracey Norlin. She was testifying before the committee. Was anyone else waiting to testify? I gathered my notebook and tape recorder and left the room by the door near the stairs, making sure it was ajar so I could get back in. No one else was at the hallway door waiting to testify. Then I saw Joy coming down the hallway.

Joy looked like hell. We talked for a bit. She was carrying a tape recorder herself, a large black cassette machine. She played a telephone message from someone she said was her lawyer. He gave his opinion of her being denied legal representation at the college. He said her issue came under the area of administrative law and the laws of natural justice.

"There may be an onus on you to show why you need counsel, but I am of the view you are entitled to it, and unless it is specifically prohibited, I think you are in the position to tell those who think otherwise they are dead wrong," he said. His voice was powerful, like the Voice of Doom, someone used to making pronouncements, being listened to.

Joy snapped off the tape recorder.

"They're out to screw me," she said.

Tracey left the room. Shortly after, she came back with Jacquie Marchand, the other SA secretary. Joy left. I went back to my storage closet.

I discovered Jacquie was the reason the hearing was held. It appeared she had told Scott Groves, the committee chairman, that Joy had missed a day of work. The committee had concluded their business, but had reconvened only due to this new information.

Jacquie wasn't doing Joy any favours at all. I couldn't hear well, but it didn't sound good. I strained to get my ear closer to the door over the filing cabinet, but it wasn't good enough. Screw it. I'd heard everything interesting I was going to hear. I had to get out of that room before someone walked in. At least I knew what direction my questions should follow. I left, careful to ensure my note pad and tape recorder was with me. Then I closed the door behind me, ensuring it was locked.

The story I filed included the new legal angles, the legal advice the JRC wanted, Joy being denied a lawyer being present at any hearing, and the taped message from Joy's lawyer. But by now I was sure it was beginning to look like we were missing something. It was now becoming apparent, and not just to me, that the college administration was taking an overly large interest in whether Joy had a lawyer with her or not. But I couldn't fathom why they would care about it at all. It still didn't make sense.

The last meeting room the Judicial Review Committee used was in the upstairs executive office suite area.

Three of us waited outside the room, Cheryl Bullee and her boyfriend, someone she called, "Sailor," and I sat in the darkened waiting room's tiny blue chairs. This was the same waiting area as when I'd first met Donna Allan. We watched the committee in the lighted meeting room behind the wall of rippled glass about five metres away.

It was like watching fully clothed people behind a shower glass. It was possible to pick up what was going on even to the mannerisms of committee members, but we couldn't hear a thing.

Cheryl and I were bored- it had been a long day and it seemed we had been putting in a lot of long days lately- but this was a new adventure to Sailor who kept suggesting I put my palm tape recorder against the tall door of the board room. I shook my head at him. No.

The rippled figures at their rippled table continued their deliberations. At one point a ripply Stetson rose to go to a wrinkled whiteboard. He wrote some figures on it in black grease pen, three or four in a column, but impossible for us to decipher. He lectured on them, pointing in turn to with a ripply hand to each of the thin black smudges. The ripply committee members seemed to be listening very closely to him. Then he sat down. That was about as interesting as it got.

At the next meeting of student's council, JRC chairman Scott Groves announced Joy Nicholson had won her appeal. He then introduced five recommended changes to the SA appeal body. One of the recommendations was to change the name of the Judicial Review Committee to the Internal Review Committee.

We had no idea at the time, but this was it, this was the something I thought was there. Within that change of a single word was the core to the whole mystery I had been looking for. But I wasn't clever enough to catch on. It went right over my head. That mystery would be unsolved for more than a year more until a telephone call with a college source explained it clearly. It would be vital information. By then I was in court preparations over sexual harassment allegations from five students we really had nothing to do with so far in college. Deidre had dropped out for a year. The other four were first-years who didn't yet use the Endeavor. Their future claim would be they were sexually harassed by me from starting the month they first arrived at the college, months before this time. But we had no idea who any of the first-years were. We had no interest in them. We were busy.

Joy won her appeal on separate points. Broken down, her pay had been deducted. You'd think that was a minor issue. She won that because the bylaws said executives would have their honourariums deducted if they missed more than two days work in one month. Joy had missed one day over a dentist's appointment and could have been late one day.

The JRC decided it didn't matter if Joy had missed two days. By regulation she had to miss more than two days to be deducted.

A circus.

She'd worked 60 hours in September, three times what was required. Execs were required to put in five hours a week. To add to the bizarreness of the whole matter, Anna introduced a motion that passed without problems bumping her pay to $900 for extra work one month that summer, as she felt she'd covered for other positions.

My strongest recollection of the day we published the stories of Joy's appeal day is a snapshot of memory. A simple memory. All it is is two people walking down the hallway, one of them cheerfully waving to me. But it bothered me immensely. I thought about it a lot. I'll return to that in a minute.

With the first appeal won, Joy filed her second appeal, on the hotel money business and the vote of non-confidence.

Dana again named Groves appeal body chairman. Hearing the news, I banged out this piece. By this time I'd obviously changed my very early view about what ethics were in writing editorials, that editorials had to try be fair to both sides. This piece went unpublished. Perhaps Mary and Sandy, the editors, thought it too much for the Endeavor:

A second opinion is not asking someone twice. It doesn't work that way in medicine, law, or student affairs. A medical second opinion is asking a different doctor from the first one. In law, you appeal to a higher court. In student affairs you don't appeal to your accuser.

The following is a transcript taken of an open meeting of the Student Council. Scott Groves is asking questions about travel expense receipts:

"Just one point I want to make is that there are receipts that are falsified- claims for meals paid twice, or is there a reason, or some food-"

Joy: "What do you mean, falsified?"

Scott: "Misleading. As president, there should be a standard set, claimed properly and done properly, and if you can do this, we can do this, and that is not proper."

Okay. We'll shut off the VCR. Let's talk.

Tomorrow Joy Nicholson appeals her removal from office and Scott Groves is the chairman of the appeal committee. Read that sentence again. Does that make sense the second time?

The Judicial Review Committee is a sham. It is every bit the kangaroo court that removed Nicholson from office.

Scott Groves was appointed appeal committee chairman by Dana Merkl. Get this. Merkl seconded the motion that removed Nicholson. The accusers have loaded the appeal body.

Nicholson has won one appeal through the JRC, anyway. The Endeavor believes she won't win this time.

Nicholson, who hired a lawyer to appeal, has been told by Grove's Judicial Review Committee, that she will not be allowed to have a lawyer represent her.

The decision was taken in a unanimous vote by the JRC. That should be frightening enough, but there's still more.

The Dean of Student Services, Dean Stetson, is a member of that committee.

The Dean of Student Services voted to deny a student a legal representative for an appeal on a legal matter concerning the bylaws of the student's association.

Nicholson, an honour roll student with a 3.76 GPA before this episode, dropped all but three classes last semester. The former honour student has since failed two classes out of those three.

The videotape of the SA meeting that removed Nicholson shows Nicholson did not have the opportunity to be heard, not allowed her dignity while explaining.

The meeting was called to order nine times. Every time the meeting was called to order, Nicholson was speaking, defending herself.

The meeting would have been called to order ten times, but Groves overruled the chairman by telling him he had a question left to ask.

This is not students having fun and learning democracy at the ol' SA. This is hardball politics, big league style, and it plays with people's lives and reputation.

It is the opinion of many that Joy Nicholson is a thoroughly unpleasant person. She's been described as rude, loud, abrasive, ambitious, insensitive, and a bitch.

In no interview with SA members this year or last did Nicholson receive accolades for personality. Joy Nicholson will never be Miss Congeniality.

Nicholson was held to minute scrutiny by those who wanted her gone.

The first comments after her removal had little to do with 'facts'. Merkl said that the SA would be a pleasanter place to work. Representative Alex Hamilton said SA elected members had removed everyone it wanted to.

To watch the tape of Nicholson's last ninety minutes as president is to watch a too-proud woman, absolutely without dignity and without friends, flounder helplessly in a frothy shark pool.

And it's not over. Once again Scott Groves will sit on judgement on this issue, only this time things will be different.

He won't have to overrule the chair.

He will be the chair.

Joy told Dana flat out she wouldn't appear before the committee if Groves chaired her appeal committee for the second time. Whether Dana saw the point or had already planned to replace him, that's what he did. He replaced Groves with Liz Van Scothhorst, who would become vice-president in the next SA administration. We had so far never spoken to each other. I didn't know a thing about her except that Liz was exceptionally attractive. I had no idea what department she was from.

Anmarie Bailey was also appointed to the SA "cabinet" for lack of a better term. Anmarie became the public relations coordinator, the voice of the SA to the media. For some odd reason I never once used her for that. I find that odd now, thinking about it. I never went to Anmarie a single time, not once, though she was a classmate and we knew each other. It would have been so much easier if I had. But I just preferred finding my own sources.

It was a big deal for our class to be published a lot in one issue because there were so many in the class that had to be published. But I was being published a lot and not just on the Nicholson matter.

In the November 23 Endeavor I had four stories in the first three pages, six stories in all. Four on serious government cutbacks to the college about to come. One feature. Two on Joy Nicholson's case. That's not a lot for a professional writer- some might do that in a morning. But for us that was pretty heavy production for the entire week.

Anne Raslask, the college public relations spokesperson, saw me in the cafeteria and gushed, "Wow!" If Raslask was impressed, I must be doing okay.

I told her I was unhappy how one story was edited.

"They cut it to shit," I said.

Raslask beamed me a huge smile.

"Spoken like a true reporter!" she said.

Joy seemed to get her act together after winning that first appeal, just before our last Christmas break. She began looking good again. One of the last times I saw her at the college she was in the on-air booth at CLCC, the college radio station, spinning a record, dancing, grooving while it played over the airwaves.

But Joy never appealed her ouster. I don't think she recovered completely from the first appeal experience. She seemed to need support from people for this second appeal, including from me, but graduation was nearing. We were beginning to think about ourselves individually and less as classmates.

Once in the Endeavor I asked her when she was appealing.

"Why bother?" she answered.

Ron MacDonald, a highly respected history instructor at the college, stopped me in the hallway in front of the Endeavor to query me on what was happening with Joy's next appeal. He'd heard through the grapevine there might not be one.

"Why doesn't she appeal?" MacDonald asked. "If she doesn't appeal, people will think she's guilty."

For a short while Joy was planning an appeal.

She had invited me over soon after the first one. She wasn't living with her boyfriend any more, it was an apartment. We sat on her bed, her wearing her too-short Chinese-style house coat for comfort, and we went over plans for her next appeal. She told me she had talked to a CBC radio reporter who was in Lethbridge for a while and lived in the same building. She wanted me to talk to him.

She wanted to go out. I left my truck at her apartment and we took her car. She drove and she talked as she drove. Relatives or friends in New York she'd recently visited had told her she had mellowed so much, she said. It seemed she wanted to impress me with this- that she had mellowed, she had changed.

I was being buttered up very nicely and knew Joy enough to see she wanted something. And she did. She wanted me to write something for her and she wanted me to send the stories I had written to the CBC radio reporter. I didn't like this. She could have just asked. I realized I was in for an evening of being buttered up and charmed as only Joy could do. She was a convincing charmer when she wanted to be and I always seemed to give in to that. We stopped at a mall so she could use the bank machine before we ate. While she was in the mall I got out of her car and walked the twenty blocks or so back to her apartment. By the time I got back she was back, her car parked in its spot. I didn't go in to talk to her. I got in my truck and drove home.

I didn't like her obvious effort to butter me up to have me alongside. Buttering me up wasn't necessary. I believed an appeal was the right thing. Maybe she felt she had to do it- she didn't have many people alongside at that time, if anyone. Maybe her trust was down. Maybe she needed to count on someone and didn't know any other way. But I didn't like it.

The next day on campus she spotted me reading a newspaper at a table in the Cave and sat down.

"What happened with you last night?"

"I didn't like what was going on."

"Going on?"

"You didn't want to talk, Joy, you wanted a date."

Well, that wasn't really true at all, thinking about it now. If she wanted a date we would never have got off the bed. It was just where we had talked, friends talking, going over stuff. She had just wanted to schmooze me, get me onside. It was her way. She was a charmer.

I ignored her and read the paper.

Silence. This was rare, Joy being silent.

"How could you do that? How could you do that to me?"

"You pissed me off," I said. Joy was pissing everyone off it seemed. It must have been confusing for her, she once couldn't do a thing wrong.

Joy didn't leave. She stayed at the table, watching me read.

"No one's ever done that to me before."

I could see her shaking her head at the edge of my vision.

"I just can't believe it. You walked out on me. Where did you go?"

"Home," I said.

Joy became unrecognizable. Already skinny, she lost weight. Her face, once her living as a model, looked terrible. If she was without hair she'd have resembled a death's skull. Her cheekbones stuck out. Her eyes became hollow.

She wanted support from people, including me, but the most difficult thing for her was realizing although she was going through torment, everyone else had moved on, even those who had initiated the motion of non-confidence.

We didn't mean to be cruel, but her issue was history. We had moved on. Joy's issue was dead to us, really. On a personal level she was collateral damage. She was yesterday. We were college students. We were moving on to tomorrow. Everyone had left that episode and moved a long way from it. She could not. She'd been traumatized. People who are traumatized never move on. A part of them is always held back, trapped in time. They, or that part of them, become lepers. People avoid them as if contagious.

I couldn't give her the support she wanted. I'd already had people shaking their heads about me thanks to Clapton's letter I didn't publicly respond to. Joy couldn't seem to get it through her head that I couldn't be involved any closer than I was. It had to be that way. I'm the reporter. I ask questions, I write down answers.

Karri Green once held an Endeavor telephone for me. Joy was on the line. I refused to take her call. Karri thought I was mean for not taking it and silently pleaded, an anguished look on her face, cradling the phone in her two hands, then holding it on her shoulder like a baby. Joy was very upset and needed a shoulder to lean on. The appeal thing was getting to her. But I wouldn't take Joy's call. Karri had to tell her before wishing her well and hanging up.

I can't recall when it was that one day I went to school and realized Joy wasn't there anymore. She wasn't that far from graduation, but she just left. Months later, someone told me they thought they saw her in Calgary.

Joy Nicholson was treated very badly at Lethbridge Community College. Her great potential was all squeezed out of her- sure, you couldn't blame some people for not liking her- she could be a royal pain in the ass and I knew that as well as anyone. But she was publicly crucified and humiliated and it went far beyond student politics. What was done to her was life changing, character destroying.

Now that memory.

My strongest recollection of this time- the day the Endeavor came out with the story of Joy's success in her first appeal- was Dean Stetson and Donna Allan, the college president, walking down the hallway together. That's all it was. A simple memory. It was something that should have been nothing, but there was something bothersome about it, like a loose thread hanging. It was like someone at your garage sale buying a cheap painting at price, way too eagerly and with way too much friendliness, and you immediately wonder if they are walking away from your yard with a lost Picasso.

It was simply this: Dean Stetson and Donna Allan were walking down the hallway together and Stetson waved to me, calling out congratulations on my locking up the first three pages of the Endeavor. He was happy and very pleased. It was almost as if Stetson was showing off for Allan with that wave and calling out. I remember that moment like a snapshot. Stetson and Allan. Stetson's wave. His face. His tone.

I missed something, I thought.

In that moment I knew we missed something. I also knew it was important. I had no idea what we had missed, but from that moment I wondered what victory Stetson seemed to have won. It was almost as if with that wave he were showing off for Donna, so whatever it was, it could even be big.

I had no idea it would take another hearing, in many ways similar to this one, also first notifying the accused the day before the hearing, to face accusers well prepared, well armed, and bent on removing another. A member of this administration would chair that hearing and chair it so efficiently as to deny basic civil rights to the accused and there would be no appeal permitted. Five women, with great malice, every word unchecked, unverified, would, behind closed doors, their identities secret, express scandalous claims while vitriolic, so full of hatred, all while dressed in the purest white, shoulders to socks. The resulting sex scandal would rock this college and the community and undoing it would be the undoing of the college in Court of Queen's Bench and also this secret I did not yet see: Post-secondary schools in Alberta, colleges and universities both, in internal disciplinary hearings, could veto civil rights with impunity and the accused had no recourse to the courts to enforce those civil rights. But none of us saw that.

At this moment all that future was unseen. There was only puzzlement as I acknowledged Stetson's wave and overly pleased congratulations.

There was something there. I knew it now. But I had no idea what it could be.

What was the secret?

Thank you for reading

Pushing Over the Apple Cart

Book One:

Joy

I hope you enjoyed Book One, provided free.

You are invited to continue to read the series with:

Pushing Over the Apple Cart

Book Two:

The Endeavor

The third and final book of this true trilogy

is due to be published October 1, 2013.

I hope you will enjoy:

Pushing Over the Apple Cart

Book Three:

Secret and Scandal,

Trial and Tribulation

Thank you again for reading.

The Index of Names follows.

INDEX of NAMES

Ady, Jack Book One 60, 61

Albert, Perry Book One 58, 97, 99, 115 Book Two 169

Albrecht, Craig Book Two 12

Allan, Donna Book One 3, 43, 48-50, 52, 66, 68, 69, 116, 133, 134 Book Two 3, 4, 42, 67, 137, 180

Anderson, Annette Book One 2, 72 Book Two 4, 57, 58, 79, 108, 109, 111, 123, 143, 146, 149, 151, 156, 157, 161, 168, 174, 175,

177-180, 185, 186

Anderson, Ryan Book One 22, 33

Ann Book One 9

Astle, Marilyn Book Two 47, 62

Babiy, Amber Book One 27

Baczuk,Robin Book One 2 Book Two 4, 15-17, 24, 36, 41, 81, 82, 101, 108, 109, 120, 145-149, 156, 158, 160, 168, 175, 177, 180,

185, 186

Bahler, Randy Book One 47

Bailey, Anmarie Book One 50, 130, 131 Book Two 64, 66, 67, 71, 72, 78, 107, 175, 176

Bana, Mary Book One 19, 33, 40, 42, 50, 55, 69, 70, 80, 101, 103, 106-109, 119-122, 129 Book Two 5, 7, 9, 17,

36, 42, 44, 56-58, 70-73, 122, 154

Barnes, Dennis Book Two 81, 102, 111

Bartlett, Ethel Book One 6, 7

Bennett, Pam Book One 50, 55, 61, 66, 93, 94 Book Two 44, 46, 47, 54, 69-72

Bernice Book Two 30-32, 34

Bertrand, Sylvia Book Two 75, 76, 80

Bonnie (secretary) Book Two 95, 96, 98, 100

Bradley, Jana Book One 27

Brewster, Eva Book Two 36-40, 51

Briscoe, Wayne Book Two 130

Broatch, Kirsten Book One 2, 73 Book Two 4, 9-15, 33, 57, 79, 85, 86, 91, 107, 147, 152-154, 157-160, 168, 169, 176, 180, 181,

185, 186

Brown, Lance Book One 106-109

Bullee, Cheryl Book One 20, 22, 127 Book Two 52-54, 64, 91, 175, 180

Buchanan, Jeanie Book One 28, 29

Burke, Richard Book One 17, 35, 36, 42, 70, 102, 103, 112 Book Two 8, 17, 54, 56, 58, 61, 65-67, 71, 89, 90,

92, 93, 95, 96, 99-101, 104, 116, 117, 123-126, 153, 155, 156, 158-160, 170, 171

Buis, Rick Book One 2, 3, 6, 7, 97, 98, 101, 106, 107, 115 Book Two 3, 66, 181, 185, 186

Campbell, Mark Book One 18

Carla and Mike Book One 10

Carol Book Two 19

Carpenter, David Book One 53

Carswell Book Two 74

Carter, Jerry Book Two 74

CBC radio reporter Book One 132 Book Two 11, 12

Celebrity boxer, Book One 39

Christianson, Cathy Book One 19, 27, 80

Claire Book Two 30, 31

Clapton, Chris Book One 80, 82, 84-94, 103-105, 111-115, 133 Book Two 83, 84, 106, 107

Clarke, Debby Book Two 150

College lawyer Book One 3, 5, 6, 7

Cooper, Anita Book Two 185, 186

Dalryremple, Doug Book Two 185, 186

David, Christy Book One 61

Delaney, Mel Book Two 90, 94-97, 99-101, 123-125

Djordjevic, Mike Book One 27

Dorham, publisher Book Two 30

Drezek, John Book Two 133, 134, 162

Dunford, Clint Book Two 7

Ecklund, Janine Book Two 3 Book Two 11-13

Elliot, Fraser Book One 81 Book Two 43

Escort agency owner 144-146

Ewing, Debbie Book Two 86, 87

Falkenberg, Margaret Book One 120, 122, 123

Farrington, John Book Two 30, 32, 33

Female Proctor Book One 32

Field, Scott Book Two 16

Findlay, Dave S/Sgt. Book Two 106

Flickinger, Brad Book Two 21-23

Follis, Rob Book One 21, 22, 33, 113

Fooks, Georgia Book One 8, 16, 17-19, 24-27, 33, 42, 52, 55, 56, 58, 65, 69, 75, 115, 116 Book Two 6, 48, 56,

66, 67, 70-72, 75, 79, 80, 90, 95, 148

Foulds, Bobbi Book Two 177

Fujita, Trent Book Two 50, 98

Furukwa, Rick Book One 35

Gados, Colin Book One 27, 81, 82

George, Alexis Book One 50, 71 Book Two 44-46, 65

German, Jay Book One 81, 88

Gerry Book One 9

Girwood, Margaret Book Two 180, 181, 185, 186

Graham, Denise Book Two 72

Graham, Erin Book One 80, 82, 87

Grant, Dan Book One 40-42, 62, 80

Green, Karri, Book One 8, 20, 21, 27, 109, 133 Book Two 8, 9, 44, 64, 79, 81, 122, 145, 146, 151

Groves, Scott Book One 48, 55, 81, 85, 86, 88, 89, 92, 100, 115, 120, 122, 123, 127-130

Gyulai, Dan Book One 20, 33, 76, 80, 92, 97, 98, 101 Book Two 7, 58, 72

Hamilton, Alex Book One 81, 92-94, 97, 98, 101, 108, 130

Hartwick, Sandy Book One 50, 75, 80, 93, 97, 107-109, 119, 129 Book Two 44, 154

Havinga, Mark Book One 41

Hehr, Karen Book Two 78, 157, 158

Heidi Book One 2, 5, 6, 24

Helen Book One 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 22, 24 Book Two 18-20, 33, 58, 66, 75, 135, 136, 139-142,

154, 155,179

Helen's father Book One 10 Book Two 139-141

Helen's mother Book One 10, Book Two 139-141

Helen's brother Book Two 140, 141

Helm, Alan Book One 80, 81, 100

Herb Book One 57-59

Hereford, J.D. Book Two 132

Hooge, Crystal Book Two 69, 70

Hoover, Linda Book Two 185, 186

Hughes, Jan Book Two 9, 13, 152, 157

Irene Book One 8, 11, 12, 14 Book Two 140

Jason Book One 55, 63, 64

Jenson, Anna Book One 41, 48, 49, 55, 64, 66, 71, 77, 79-94, 98, 99, 103, 111, 115, 117,

118, 128

Jesse Book One 65, 66

Johanson, Sue Book Two 106, 107

Johnson, Marilyn Book One 19, 35, 50 Book Two 60, 72, 73,

Jones, Marshall Book Two 147, 152-154, 158

Josie Book One 2, 4, 5, 6, 24, 61

Judy (secretary) Book Two 178

Justice W. Vaughn Hembroff Book One 7

Kavanagh, D'Arcy Book One 20, 21, 36, 42, 67, 68, 78, 112 Book Two 9, 25, 30-32, 56, 64-66, 71, 78, 123,

131, 132, 148, 152, 153, 156, 157, 165, 170, 177

Klein, Ralph Book One 20 Book Two 1, 18, 88, 102, 104, 109

Knutson, Craig Book One 62-64, 79, 81, 84-86, 92, 93, 97, 98, 111, 115 Book Two 71, 83-86, 111

Kooy, Kevin Book One 113

Koop, Eleanor Book Two 8

Kowch, Michelle Book Two 177, 178

Kretchmer, Darryl Book One 118, 119 Book Two 86

Laferriere, Chuck Book One 27

Larsen, Lori Lynn Book Two 91

Lau, Micheal Book Two 1

Lawrence, Jamee Book One 27

Lawson, Sandy Book One 78, 80, 82, 103

Ly, Dawn Book One 41, 55, 85, 88, 91, 92, 115

MacRae, Doug Book Two 1

MacDonald, Deidre Book One 1, 2, 8, 22, 23, 33-35, 50, 128 Book Two 4, 78, 106, 110, 135-138, 154, 155,

157-160, 162-169, 180, 185, 186

MacDonald, Ron (instructor) Book One 99, 131 Book Two 112, 113, 125

MacDonald, Ron (lawyer) Book Two 92, 115, 116, 125

Mandin, Ian Book One 17, 26-28 Book Two 71, 72

Manzara Jim Book Two 110

Marchand, Jacquie Book One 64, 82, 91, 127 Book Two 43, 133, 180

Matthews, Christine Book Two 129

Maxwell, Gail Book One 55, 60, 61, 66

McDougall, Michele Book One 125 Book Two 18

McKim, Donald Book One 33 Book Two 72

Mediwake, Anne-Marie Book One 8, 113, 114

Melchoir, Jeff Book One 50 Book Two 164, 165

Menard, Sandy Book One 19, 20, 113 Book Two 8, 13, 56, 66, 67

Mengele, Joseph Book Two 38, 39

Merkl, Dana Book One 76, 77, 79, 81, 83, 84, 86-89, 93, 98-102, 104, 105, 108, 111, 112, 115, 117, 118,

120, 129, 130 Book Two 83, 86, 87, 111, 127, 133, 166

Michel, Janie Book One 2 Book Two 4, 17, 51, 86, 87, 101-104, 109, 128, 129, 131, 132, 147, 148, 150, 156,

157, 161, 163, 168, 175, 180, 185, 186

Michna, Paul Book Two 109

Miller, Mike Book Two 79, 143, 146, 157

Mountney, Nikki Book One 22, 50 Book Two 50, 71, 78, 107

Mouse Book One 3

Mowers, Cleo Book Two 29, 32-34, 37

Muendel, Veronica Book One 33, 164, 165

Nelson, Narda Book Two 1

Newhouse, Rene Book Two 157, 158

Nichol, Ken Book Two 7

Nicholson, Joy Book One 27, 36, 39-42, 47-56, 60-64, 66, 68, 69, 71, 76-93, 97-99, 100,

102, 108, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 117, 120, 122, 123, 125-133 Book Two 4, 11, 71, 83, 85, 87, 91, 166, 167, 175, 180

Nolin, Julie Book One 40-42,

Norman, Mike Book Two 134

North, April Book One 27 Book Two 16, 33, 52, 70, 72

North, Philip Book Two 11, 29, 34, 35

Norlin, Tracey Book One 64, 82, 89, 102, 126, 127 Book Two 83, 85

Oliver, Shawn Book One 27, 114

Opelizer, Lynn Book Two 102-105, 147

Orton, Audrey Book Two 80, 122, 125, 133, 147, 148, 150, 179

O'Shea, Sheamus Book Two 11, 13

Oviatt, Dale Book One 50, 76 Book Two 7, 21, 44

Parada, Colin Book One 27

Parizeau, Michel Book Two 148, 149

Pat Book One 64

Penny, Nycole Book One 81, 92

Peterson, Jack Book One 81,100, 108

Petkau, Rob Book Two 1

Photography instructor, German accent Book One 112, 113

Pierson, Nova Book Two 109, 147, 154, 159, 177, 178

Rainault, Andrea Book One 21, 27, 33 Book Two 71, 81, 140, 151, 164, 165, 178

Raslask, Anne Book One 97, 98, 114, 131 Book Two 42

Red Tie, SA president Book One 31-33, 40

Reed, Jason Book One 50 Book Two 44

Rhodes, Lesley Book One 117

Rick Book One 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Riley, Kevin Book One 27, 70

Ripley, Stephen Book Two 57, 79, 85, 86, 106, 109, 146, 147, 151, 154, 155, 159, 168, 178

Ruddick, Cathy Book One 27

Rudolph, Al Book One 54 Book Two 91, 112

Rudolph, Jim Book Two 87, 134, 147, 154

Russel, J Book Two 78, 128, 148

Rusty Book One 16

Ruth Book One 67, 72-76 Book Two 7, 8, 13, 21, 23, 24, 43-49, 52-55, 57-68, 72, 88, 89, 94, 96-101, 105, 112,

112-116, 122-127, 141-143, 145, 149, 163-166, 174, 175

Safar, Corrie Book One 81, 87

Sailor Book One 127 Book Two 175, 180

Sakatch, Scott Book Two 123, 131

Salmond, Tammy Book Two 148-150

Sannes, Shelly Book One 21, 50

Sawatske, Blake Book One 27

Schmidt, Joanne Book One 50, 67, 68, 70-72 Book Two 11, 58

Scotney, Doug Book Two 99, 100, 112, 113, 116, 122, 125-127, 185

Scott, Gordon Book One 104

Security Guard Book One 58

Shelton, Ray Book Two 185, 186

Sherwood, Larry Book One 61

Shikla, Kenton Book One 41

Shirley Book One 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Shmidt, Mary Book One 18

Sicluna, Lisa Book Two 169

Snowdon, Shelly Book Two 7

Speaker, Ray Book One 113

Stetson, Dean Book One 47-50, 52, 53, 68, 100, 101, 108, 115, 117, 120, 122, 123, 128,

130, 133, 134 Book Two 3, 55, 56, 58, 61, 62, 66, 89, 91, 94-97, 100, 106, 107, 113, 125, 126, 178, 180, 185

Sugimoto, Dawn Book Two 12

Sullivan, Kim Book Two 106

Sullivan, Rick Book One 35

Tennant, Howard Book Two 13

Thacker, Blane Book Two 37

Thomson, Sheri Book Two 78, 118-121

Thorpe, Kathy Book Two 9, 10

Todd, Veryl Book One 17 Book Two 3, 8, 24, 48, 49, 55, 56, 58-64, 66-68, 72, 78, 89, 90, 95-97, 99, 104,

112-116, 122, 125, 126, 141, 143, 145, 149, 156, 165, 170, 176

Torry, Ken Book One 120-122

Turk, Tracy Book One 33

Upgrading student, living statue Book One 77

Vanderwalk, Tara Book One 20

Van Scothhorst, Liz Book One 130

Van Waardhuiszen, Jacquie Book Two 65

Vaudevillian spy Book Two 94, 104, 105

Veno, Janet Book Two 176, 177

Vicki Book Two 167, 168

Visser, Melanie Book Two 123, 124

Waboose, Heather Book Two 148

Waldorf, Shauna Book One 26, 27

Walsh, Lana Book Two 112, 133, 134

Webb, Norm Book Two 73

Wesko, Sharon Book Two 91

Weston, Susan Book One 33, 47, 60

Whitehead, Terry Book One 112, 113

Yanosik, Megan Book Two 91, 171, 174, 175, 176

Yau, Joe Book One 57, 58

*Spelling, spelling. There's no way to check spelling of some names from so long ago, but I do have the nagging feeling that Erin Graham, as I have it, may be Aaron Graham, even though it's a girl's name. Lynn Opelizer may be Lynn Opolizer. Out of respect, some last names are left out, and a few names, again out of respect, are not included in the index at all. The index was created on Pages, and may be different when looked at via Word or EPub, and being also dependent on which device you're reading on, may not line up exactly right.

For Book Two: The Endeavor, the index was left as published in Book One: Joy.

The Book Three index page numbers have not been added as they may change slightly before publication.
