Town Talk: Heart-attacked former Sun reporter puts honeybees and us in much the same boat – The Kingston Whig-Standard

March 24s thumbs-up photo of former Sun reporter Jeff Lee during heart-attack care reminded Malcolm Parry of recovering from cancer surgery. Malcolm Parry / PNG

HEART AND HIVE: What a welcome article retired reporter Jeff Lee filed for The Vancouver Sun on March 24. Not welcome because hed had a heart attack that, with stroke, kills some 65,000 Canadians yearly compared to cancers 79,000. Rather, it was that his ailment and treatment made a change from newspaper reports on coronavirus. (En passant, Lees thumbs-up pose echoed a recovery-room photo from my 2003 bout with esophageal cancer.) Characteristically, Lees article showed more concern for his and wife Amandas honeybees than for himself. Regarding that much-threatened species, he got hooked when queen-bee pheromones placed beside Amandas neck led thousands of worker bees to settle gently on her face. Writing in 2011 about bee colonies the couple acquired, Lee might have been referring to humans and coronavirus today: The goal is to have them go into winter dormancy healthy enough to survive until spring. Thats no sure thing since there are many natural factors well out of our control.

STRAIGHT GOODS: Myocardial infarction didnt spare Straight Lines Designs founder-principal Judson Beaumont who dedicated his global career to delighting children. The 59-year-old graduate of what is now called Emily Carr University died Feb 17 aboard a flight from Korea. The straightlinedesigns.com website shows whimsical but immaculately crafted furniture (with few straight lines in it) that Beaumont produced in the 1000 Parker Street artist-and-artisan complex. The sites Sketches section shows that more such inventions would follow.

Feted for his Straight Line Design firms whimsical but well-crafted childrens furniture, Judson Beaumont died while flying home from Korea. Malcolm Parry / PNG

Sidestepping opportunities to make his business big and conventional, Beaumont raised a family with wife Kate and focused on what he called my little art school. To staff that ever-inventive workshop, I cant hire people who are too experienced and set in their ways. I get eager, young, enthusiastic people out of art school and teach them to do better than I can. A celebration of Beaumonts life has been delayed.

Seen beside a railcar donated to the West Coast Railway Association, Brandt Louie, with wife Belinda, will receive Simon Fraser Universitys coronavirus-delayed Presidents Distinguished Community Leadership Award. Malcolm Parry / PNG

LOUIES LEAD: Also postponed by coronavirus is Simon Fraser Universitys presentation of its Presidents Distinguished Community Leadership Award to Brandt and Belinda Louie. Brandt, who is president-CEO of 117-year-old H.Y. Louie Co. and chairman of London Drugs, was SFUs 2005-2011 chancellor. Carole Taylor and Anne Giardini succeeded him. Among their familys philanthropies, Brandt and Belinda spent $600,000 renovating a CPR railcar named Alberta to mainline readiness for the Squamish-based West Coast Railway Association. It commemorated Brandts maternal grandfather, Seto Ying-Shek, a.k.a. Seto More, a Canadian Pacific Steamships passenger agent who became a respected Sino-Canadian scholar. He also anticipated SFUs radical 1960s beginnings by co-founding the Sworn Oath Society that endorsed the overthrow of Chinas Qing Dynasty. The society later merged with an organization that actually accomplished it: Sun Yat-sens Tong Men Hui. As Brandt Louie said at Squamish: Theres no such thing as a bad cause.

Irene Chanin is CEO of The Heart and Stroke Foundation BC & Yukon whose website says it is still assessing the feasibility of a May 29 gala. Malcolm Parry / PNG

Mary Jane Devine possibly set a record by chairing 13 consecutive Rockin For Research galas to benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. Malcolm Parry / PNG

VGH and UBC Hospital Foundation president-CEO Angela Chapman saw the Time To Shine gala raise $3 million Feb. 1 before coronavirus. Malcolm Parry / PNG

Teri Nicholas is president-CEO of the B.C. Childrens Hospital Foundation that had its March 7 For Children We Care gala postponed. Malcolm Parry / PNG

ON HOLD: Locally based good causes include the B.C. Childrens Hospital, Heart and Stroke, and VGH and UBC Hospital foundations. Their executive director-CEOs are Teri Nicholas, Irene Chanin and Angela Chapman. The latter foundations Time To Shine gala raised a reported $3 million Feb. 1, before the novel coronavirus struck. The Canucks Autism Networks Reveal gala and the Vancouver Symphony Ball also beat that dire deadline. Now, though, foundations are reviewing or have postponed such fundraisings to directly solicit traditional and prospective donors. Standing down, too, are the mostly women who chair galas that occupy highly decorated downtown-hotel ballrooms, sometimes with themes like Carnival in Venice, Arabian Nights, etc. Among such chairs, Mary Jane Devine fronted a possibly record 13 consecutive runnings of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundations Rockin For Research gala. Postponements have also relieved the committee members who help organize such events, who urge friends and acquaintances to attend them, and solicit businesses to donate scores of products or services for auction. Many volunteers participate in labour-intensive galas.

Former reporter Mike Killen was a frequent gala host when co-anchoring CTV News at Six and continues doing so at CBC Vancouver News. Malcolm Parry / PNG

Sophie Lui is another Global TV news co-anchor who is called on to dash from the TV studio, change into formal wear and host a gala. Malcolm Parry / PNG

Global B.C. news co-anchor Chris Gailus has long been in demand as the ever-tuxedo-clad host-MC of high-dollar charity fundraising galas. Malcolm Parry / PNG

Leo awardee Gloria Macarenkos gala-hosting continued after moving from CBC television news to front the On The Coast program on radio. Malcolm Parry / PNG

Top-tier events compete to raise $5 million and to recruit A-league MCs such as Global BCs Chris Gailus and Sophie Lui and CBCs Mike Killeen and Gloria Macarenko. When the COVID-19 tide ebbs, they and gala-goers will brush off their tuxedoes, acquire fresh gowns and see their charity-related efforts begin anew.

STILL VALID: Albert Camuss 1947 novel, The Plague, addressed a fictional epidemic striking Oran, Algeria, with: Theres no question of heroism the only means of fighting a plague is common decency

The global MDA space-technology firm is back where UBC professor John MacDonald, pictured, and colleague Vern Dettwiler founded it, in B.C. Malcolm Parry / PNG

WELCOME HOME: The recent billion-dollar deal to repatriate space-technology firm MDA formerly MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates completes a corporate journey that began on Point Grey and entailed a 14,000-km loop around Iran. That was when now-late UBC professors John MacDonald and Vern Dettwiler helped design the Canadian component of a telecommunications network that Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi ordered for Persias 2,500th-anniversary celebrations in 1971. The two then combined their names in a firm that literally went into orbit.

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: This column will now go on hiatus and resume when community activities do so, too. Until then, so long.

malcolmparry@shaw.ca 604-929-8456

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Town Talk: Heart-attacked former Sun reporter puts honeybees and us in much the same boat - The Kingston Whig-Standard