The Order of British Columbia: 1993 Recipients

Gordon Antoine, who has been Chief of the Coldwater Indian Band for the past 17 years, has devoted much of his adult life to creating a better life for Aboriginal people throughout B.C.

Knowing that First Nations people needed education to take their rightful place in Canada, as highly productive and highly regarded individuals, he started the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology. With an initial enrollment of only 10 students, the institute has grown to accommodate more than 300 students and now offers distance education courses to others as far away as Yukon and the Maritimes. More than 80 per cent of the student body graduate directly into waiting jobs. No other institution in North America can boast of such a success rate.

Aware as well that First Nations people could not achieve self determination without economic independence, Gordon Antoine passed on his knowledge of business and industry through membership and leadership in such agencies as the Western Indian Agricultural Corporation, and the Nicola Valley Indian Development Corporation.

Though taken from his Nlaka'pamux culture at a young age and placed in a residential school, where he was forbidden to speak his language or practice his customs and traditions, Gordon Antoine has today adopted concepts such as the medicine wheel to show all cultures how to overcome discrimination and racism, to heal the wounds of the past and reach towards a brighter future.

The face of British Columbia has gone through many changes during the last 60 years. Unity Bainbridge has captured those changes in her art.

During the 1930s, Unity Bainbridge travelled alone through the interior of British Columbia, up and down the coast and across to Vancouver Island for the sole purpose of painting the native peoples in their own environment.

Carrying all her painting supplies herself she hiked many miles in the wilderness and paddled rivers and lakes to get to the locations where she worked. Unity Bainbridge was fiercely determined to make a record of what she was seeing.

Her art records places long gone: squatters' shacks, Japanese villages and native villages. She has painted intimate portraits of people, young and old, rich and poor. What made her style so unique was her ability to actually compete her work on location.

In addition to teaching art-appreciation to secondary school students, Unity Bainbridge has produced two illustrated books on the Province and is working on a third.

To paraphrase the late Lauren Harris of the Group of Seven: "Unity Bainbridge has concentrated all her energies on making a Canadian statement in art, in British Columbia terms."

May Brown has been and continues to be the role model for community involvement. Her contributions over the years in teaching, physical education, sports and public service are a matter of record to British Columbia.

Starting in the field of parks and recreation, while raising her family, she worked with young people in training and coaching athletic teams.

In 1972, she won election to the Vancouver Parks and Recreation Board and in 1976 to Vancouver City Council. On that Council, May Brown took the initiative and provided leadership on many, many boards and committees.

Several other organizations benefited from her involvement: she served on the Minister's Sport and Recreation Advisory Council, the U.B.C. Athletic Council, the National Advisory Council on Fitness and Amateur Sport, the Boards of the Vancouver Symphony and of St. Paul's Hospital ...the list goes on.

The Victoria Commonwealth Games Society recognized her talents early on, for May Brown in now vice chair of its Board. Here she has won the respect of her fellow Board members through her no-nonsense attention to central issues and through her ready willingness to find solutions.

As an appropriate postscript, it needs to be added that May Brown became a Member of the Order of Canada in 1986.

Hard of hearing persons are the most invisible of disabled groups, and Marilyn Dahl has probably done more than any individual to contribute to a national identity for these people. She herself has had a progressive hearing loss for most of her life. The skills she used as a registered nurse working in psychiatry have been used to motivate others to work on the issues and problems faced by hard of hearing persons.

She began her work as a volunteer in 1978, when she conducted classes and workshops for hard of hearing adults and youth.

Marilyn Dahl created a local support group called HEAR, which later became the founding branch of the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association. Today, CHHA has become Canada's leading consumer self-help organization formed by and for hard of hearing persons. She has served on the executive of this organization since 1984 and has been president for several years.

Marilyn Dahl was the initiator of the Canadian Deaf and Hard of Hearing Forum. She is also vice president of the International Federation of Hard of Hearing People and is the first person from outside Europe to be elected to the board.

As Canada's foremost advocate for hard of hearing persons, her dedication, organizational skills and example has made a real difference to countless persons.

Elida Peers has been the creative spark for community projects which have made Sooke a more interesting, more colourful and historically-aware place to live or visit.

A lifetime resident of the community, she helped establish the Sooke Regional Museum and became its first curator. A small art exhibition she started in the museum grew over the years to become a major juried art show. Last year, there were over 2,000 entries from which 345 were selected for exhibition.

Elida Peers has also been involved in placing heritage street signs throughout the community to help people find and understand points of interest and in working with the community school to organize heritage tours.

The Sooke Festival Society, of which she was a founder and co-chair, organized the 1990 Bicentennial celebration to commemorate the landing of Spanish explorer Emmanuel Quimper on Vancouver Island. This colourful re-enactment attracted 20,000 visitors including Spain's tall ship Juan Sebastian de Elcano. Although Elida Peers has retired from her position as curator of the museum, she remains active in the community. Her fertile imagination and awesome energy continues to keep her in the forefront of worthwhile community projects.

Composer Barbara Pentland has given Canadian culture a musical legacy of extraordinary depth and artistic wisdom.

Born in Winnipeg in 1912, she began to write music at the age of nine, in spite of opposition from her parents. She studied music in Paris, and at the Julliard Graduate School in New York.

Barbara Pentland moved to Toronto in 1942 and in the following year became an instructor at the Royal Conservatory of Music. Moving to British Columbia in 1949, she joined the music department at U.B.C., where she taught theory and composition until 1963, thus helping and encouraging many young musicians.

Her music is characterized by a distinctive blend of lyricism, sensitivity and economy of expression. It includes chamber works, ballet, opera and symphonies. Her recent and mature works express a rich and abiding fount of creative renewal. For these gifts of music, Barbara Pentland has received the Order of Canada.

With wit and good humour, high standards and unassailable principles, she remains an active and inspirational presence in Canada's music community.

Ross Purse has given unselfish service to others in spite of difficult circumstances. As a prisoner of war for four years during World War II, his character and sense of duty made him stand out among his fellows, along with his energy, hard work and reliability.

When he returned to Canada after the war, with a visual impairment, he went to work for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. In his years with the CNIB, he provided national leadership in the development and implementation of programs for the welfare of the blind and for the prevention of blindness.

His work on the Unmet Needs of Blind Canadians study in 1976 created a different understanding of the CNIB's structure, mandate and service programs.

Internationally, Ross Purse is a life member and past secretary of the American Association of Workers for the Blind, he has served on the executive of the World Council for the Welfare of the Blind, as chairman of its North America-Oceania Region.

He served on the Executive Boards of the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind, the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, and was founding chairman of the Canadian Coordinating Committee for Blindness Prevention, to mention a few.

Since his retirement, Ross Purse has continued as an active member of the Sir Arthur Pearson Association of War Blinded and Rotary International.

The importance and value of a wide range of community recreation facilities is acknowledged by most British Columbians, but it hasn't always been that way. In 1956 when a committee proposed creation of a social and recreation facility for seniors in New Westminster, it was considered an unnecessary extravagance that would not be popular.

Dunc. Russell headed the committee that made that facility a reality.

He brought together more than 60 representatives from amateur sports, service clubs, art and culture, education and civic bodies - a complete cross section of city life - and set out to make community recreation a reality in New Westminster.

In 1964 Dunc. Russell moved to Port Alberni, and after three years of quiet persuasion and dynamic leadership, Echo Centre was built. With its world class indoor swimming pool, arts and crafts rooms, seniors' centre and museum, Echo Centre became the heart of the community and made Port Alberni the envy of many larger, richer communities. The standards set by this facility were copied all over the province.

In 1975 he was lured to Oak Bay by the municipal council. The result was construction of the justly-famous Oak Bay Recreation Centre.

For his work of more than 50 years, Dunc. Russell is often called the "father of Municipal Recreation in B.C."

Dr. Sydney Segal is a Canadian clinician, medical researcher, teacher and humanist whose interests have extended beyond medicine into ethics, social welfare and the administration of justice for children.

His pioneering work in the then-emerging field of neonatology is impressive. Among his contributions: he invented the first effective apparatus to substitute mechanical for natural breathing in infants with respiratory failure; he established the first intensive care nursery in Canada; and he was instrumental in the establishment of British Columbia's infant transport system which has been copied world-wide.

Dr. Segal was among the earliest physicians to dedicate themselves to cystic fibrosis and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, establishing local parent support groups. One of his voluntary community activities is his continuing service in the direct counselling of bereaved parents.

His ground-breaking work in the treatment of infants born to drug-dependant mothers provides a great contribution to the welfare of those who enter this world with serious problems, through no fault of their own.

Sydney Segal's dedication and innovations in the field of children's health have been widely recognized with many honours and awards, including the Order of Canada.

When we talk about British Columbia's pioneers we usually refer to people who lived many years ago. People involved in opening lines of transportation and communication, where none existed before.

This is a young province, and we are fortunate to have with us here today a modern-day pioneer, Jim Spilsbury. The radios he built opened communication lifelines all along the B.C. coast. The airline he founded, Queen Charlotte Airlines, became Canada's third largest in 1949.

Jim Spilsbury is also a writer whose best-selling tales of life on the coast have delighted his readers, whose photographs have documented our way of life, and whose paintings have captured the beauty of the B.C. coast.

Any one of these accomplishments would have made Jim Spilsbury a remarkable man. That they are all the work of one individual is truly unique.

Born in England in 1905, he has lived in B.C. since 1907. While selling his primitive crystal radio sets by boat and later by airplane, and while providing air transportation to coastal villages, native communities and logging camps, Jim Spilsbury became a much-welcomed person everywhere along our coast because his work improved its quality of life.

Now semi-retired, Jim Spilsbury continues to pursue his great love of writing, painting and photography.

Takao Tanable is a landscape artist of international reputation and an influential teacher of younger generations of Canadian artists. The son of a commercial fisherman, Tak Tanabe was born in Prince Rupert in 1926. During the second World War, he was interned with other Japanese-Canadians in British Columbia's Interior.

He has painted and studied in Winnipeg, New York, England, Italy, Denmark and Japan. He has served as head of the art department at the Banff School of Fine Arts and has also served on juries and committees at the National Capital Commission and Canada Council.

Tak Tanabe's landscapes are evocative of British Columbia at its finest - the rolling hills and grassy meadows of the Cariboo, the lonely seascapes, intriguing cloud formations and breathtaking dawns and sunsets of the coast, and the winter beauty of snow and ice.

Powerful straight-line horizons dominate his works. His skies can be dark and foreboding or brilliantly coloured, sometimes reflected in the water or shading the land below.

Working now from his studios in Errington, near Parksville, and Vancouver, Tak Tanabe's outstanding achievements in the world of art continue to be recognized and much sought-after by collectors across Canada and around the world.

Lorna Williams is a First Nations woman whose goal has been to help people from all heritages understand each other.

Born in Mount Currie, in the St'at'yemc Nation, Lorna Williams first trained at BCIT to become a nurse, following in the tradition of her mother, who was a health care giver in the community.

Lorna Williams subsequently moved to education, where she has been involved in improving the lot of First Nations children in the public school system. In 1973, after taking local control of the administration of the Mount Currie Community School, she worked to develop a teacher training program to provide First Nations teachers for the school, who could teach in their own language.

Her work as a First Nations specialist with the Vancouver School Board has allowed he to influence educational opportunities for urban native youths in the Vancouver area.

Her education continued with a teaching certificate from Simon Fraser University, followed by a Batchelors of General Studies; a Masters degree in education is next. In 1982 she finished her book Exploring Mount Currie, which became a presecribed text for the Grade 2 Social Studies curriculum in the province.

Lorna Williams has worked to get First Nations involvement in the Canadian consitution, both in Ottawa and in Europe where she was part of a team that met with governments and media to encourage them to include First Nations people in the consitution.