By Roman Hayter (Photo by Roman Hayter)
Lieutenant Governor Russell Mirasty and Doyle Vermette, MLA for Cumberland presented the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal to recipients in La Ronge over the weekend. Mirasty gave the medals as part of the late monarch’s commemoration of 70 years on the throne. The Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal is given to people of all ages and different walks of life who have made a positive contribution to society.
The following people received the award: Bruce Fidler, Raeanne Fisher, Miles Ratt, John Nabess, Kalvin McKay, Ron Woytowich, Weldon McCallum, Darcy Ahenakew, Bella Sanderson, Lindsay Blair, Devin Bernatchez, Shirley Olson, Medrick Thomas, Julie Baschuk, Ed Benonie, Gordon Stomp, Percy Merasty, Jordon McPhail, Sarah Ballantyne, Bella Dumais, Conrad Naytowhow, Kennetch Charlette, Jarret Nelson, Jacob Lavallee, Nora McLeod, Adam O. Charles, Ann Ratt, Christopher Merasty, Myrtle Ballantyne, Jackie Ballentyne, Gideon Cook, Naomi Seib and Becky McKenzie.
Lac La Ronge Indian Band Councilor Devin Bernatchez said that receiving recognition for your actions in the community gives you the boost to continue your work. “I’m very honored, you know, there are days when you’re putting in time in the community and it gets tiring, but when you’re recognized and acknowledged, it gives you that little glow and gives you that jump to keep helping out,” Bernatchez said.
Ron Woytowich, the Executive Director of the Kikinahk Friendship Centre said that he felt emotional seeing friends and colleagues of many years coming together to be recognized for their contributions. “I almost wanted to cry, because we’re getting old, we really are; I’m in my sixties, and it’s nice to be recognized, and even more importantly, what I realized is that it’s very nice to have it in this community and have everybody from all the other communities here that we know that we worked with for 15, 20, and 30 years; we’ve known them all, and then suddenly we all got recognized in this beautiful way,” said Woytowich .
Award recipient Gordon Stomp said that it was an honour to be recognized by others. “It’s an honour to know that people remember and know what you did; you don’t have to remember when you delve a little bit into what’s happened in our little community, you know we started at 100 people and now we’re over 1300, so we’ve done well and we have good infrastructure, and hopefully we have a good council in place now,” Stomp explained.
The award ceremony took place on January 14 at the Jonas Roberts Memorial Community Centre in La Ronge.