Myron Thompson’s legacy in public life is measured in the students’ lives changed because he guided them toward the right path in life, the people of Sundre enriched because as their mayor, he cared for their concerns as a friend should, and as the member of Parliament for the Wild Rose riding because he was deeply convicted that he represented the 45,000 voters who sent him to Ottawa.
“It is way more important to be correct than it is to be politically correct,” he once said in an interview.
I have my share of journalist’s stories about Myron, and his wife Dot, who was constantly at his shoulder caring for him in Sundre and Ottawa when he was careless about his diet and health.
Myron praised her in his first speech in the House of Commons on Jan. 28, 1994 because of her “faith and love” as a political partner.
He tried to persuade Parliament to let him wear his cowboy hat in the House of Commons because Sikh members could wear their turbans.
I teased him because his election campaign office was a VLT machine in the Sundre Hotel.
I took my favourite photo of Myron at 8 a.m. in the Rustler bar in Sundre, where he was selling Reform Party memberships to day-shift workers.
He was, he said, a “Canadian by choice.”
Born in Monte Vista Colo., Myron graduated from nearby Adams State University, and then played semi-pro baseball. In 1955, he tried out as a catcher for the New York Yankees but was unable to supplant Yogi Berra from the team, a story that he retold in later life, laughing at his own expense.
After doing a two-year stint in the United States Army, he started his career as a teacher.
Myron immigrated to Sundre in 1968 and, through teaching, became involved in community life.
He won the trust of his students because he was consistent and fair – although his guidance was sometimes administered with his boot to the backside of the boys.
He was chastened himself by school board chairman, the late Joe Henzie. Myron was drinking, too much, in Joe’s opinion, for a prominent school teacher in a small town.
Joe met with him privately and delivered an ultimatum: quit drinking or find another line of work.
Myron promptly stopped drinking and from that experience, he learned to hate the sin but love the sinner, a commitment that increased the trust and respect his students had for him.
In 1974 he became a Canadian citizen and was promptly elected as mayor in Sundre.
In 1993, Myron was elected as an MP with Preston Manning’s first Reform Party official Opposition caucus in the House of Commons. He stayed with the party through its transition to the Conservative Reform Alliance Party then the Conservative Party, retiring in 2008.
His unbending right-wing stands on government fiscal discipline, victims’ right, child pornography, against same-sex marriage and for tougher prisons, made him lots of enemies in Central Canada, but not in Sundre and West Central Alberta.
Myron returned to town politics after 2008 and served another term as mayor.
But his failing health forced him out of public life.
We are but immeasurably richer for his having being here.
– Frank Dabbs is a veteran political journalist and author.
