How a ‘Beach brat’ who moved west came to play a key volunteer role with the Calgary Stampede
By DAVID REYNOLDS
It is a long distance to travel from the Beaches of Toronto to the Calgary Stampede in Calgary. It has been 58 years since I made that journey.
I would like share with you how a confirmed Beach brat became immersed in and working on the complexities and challenges of organizing and executing one small but significant part of the Calgary Stampede, the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth.
The story begins when I was just an ordinary Beaches pre-teen and teenager living the life of Riley like so many neighbourhood teens at the foot of Glen Manor Drive. At the time, the Beach District (as we called it) was just a quiet and close-knit community bounded by Woodbine on the west, Kingston Road on the north, Victoria Park on the east and the lake on the south. Queen Street East was the main drag.
It was an area that did not seem to be a hotbed of crime. Only the exploits of people like athlete Bruce Kidd and the fire at the Balmy Beach Club made the news. OK, the opening of the Summerville pool also made the news. I got my news from my dad who was a CBC news editor/reporter. Of course, there were plenty of “things” happening to which I was oblivious.
I attended Williamson Road Public School and Malvern Collegiate Institute (MCI). I finally graduated from MCI in 1966. I must admit my days at school were not the greatest period of my life. I struggled at school and barely made it through. Ironically, I now have earned four university degrees, one of which is a Ph.D.
The Beach District was a great community to be raised in. All the kids my age in the neighbourhood and at school were early Boomer kids. I spent many of my days working part-time at the former Nova Fish store making and delivering fish and chips on Friday’s and pumping gas and fixing tires at the BP gas station at Wineva Avenue and Queen Street East after school and on weekends.
I also spent three summers working at a kid’s summer camp near Ottawa and one summer as a Junior Forest Ranger near White River. I aspired to become a commercial or RCAF pilot and was an Air Cadet throughout my teen years. Eventually I earned a private pilot’s licence, but I did not become a commercial pilot.
But as so often happens in real life, fate interceded. My family decided to pack up and head west during the summer of 1966 to settle in Calgary. The family’s move west was well timed. When we arrived in Calgary, the Calgary Stampede was in full swing. I was immediately amazed by the magnitude and impressiveness of the Stampede Parade (I had never seen a parade before) and by all the major events held at Stampede Park and the number of well-attended pancake breakfasts held around the city.
I was simply hooked by everything that was happening. The city turned itself into a western cowboy town overnight. Everyone, well most people, were wearing cowboy boots, cowboy hats and jeans and colourful shirts and yelling Ya Hoo! I felt a bit out of place wearing just shorts and a T-shirt. I wanted to be a part of the action! Calgary and the Stampede were so different from my experience living in the Beaches. The CNE and the carnival at the old Woodbine Racetrack parking lot could not hold a candle to what the Stampede offered for entertainment and excitement! It was a massive party! It still is and even more so today.
Time passed on and I entered the University of Calgary to study environmental sciences. I put myself through university by working as a part-time radio and news announcer to pay for my university tuition. I soon married my sweetheart and classmate, and we started a family a couple of years later. I graduated university with a Bachelor and Master of Science degrees and started pursuing my first job in Kootenay and Yoho National Parks as a Park Warden. Throughout all that time I never forgot my experiences with the annual Stampede. I attend it every year.
Over the following years, I held different environmental-related jobs in Alberta, British Columbia, and Yukon, including working for 16 years at the City of Calgary as a Park Master Planner and as its first Environmental Coordinator. I also taught at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, Memorial University of Newfoundland and lecturer while pursuing an MBA and Ph. D degree at University of Calgary.
It was 26 years before I ever returned to visit the old Beach neighbourhood. I did not recognize it! It had changed dramatically in that time. However, The Goof was still there.
As my children entered junior high school, they became involved in the school’s band program. That was the start of my wife and I becoming “band” parents in both the school bands and the community marching bands. The community marching bands participated each year in local parades, the Calgary Stampede Parade and at Stampede-park performances throughout the 10 days of Stampede. My wife and I were frequently chaperones and several times accompanied the bands on tours. We were committed band parents, and the Stampede’s band events was our focus.
When our children were of an age and able to travel on their own to band practices and to Stampede events, my wife and I decided to volunteer with the Band Management Committee, one of 23 committees of the Stampede. We were just two of the Stampede’s 2,300 volunteers (now over 3,000). The committee was responsible for coordinating the activities of the local and visiting bands that participated in the parade and special community events like pancake breakfasts.
The Band Management Committee’s volunteers recruited bands from around the world, marched in the parade with the bands (I marched in 12 parades) and did other things like arranged busing, accommodations and special performances for between 12 and 25 marching bands from across Canada, the United States, and internationally. It was a year-round time commitment. Over a period of 25-years my wife and I volunteered with other Stampede committees. In early 2024 we volunteered at the Stampede’s new Sam Centre, which is a new year-round museum showcasing all-things related to the Stampede.
In 2022, following COVID-19, we volunteered again with the new Guest Bands Committee and took on year-around duties to coordinate what would become known as Stampede Fanfare, an experimental event that became a major musical arts showcase of performing and marching showbands during the 2024 Calgary Stampede. It is a big music festival!
The Stampede Showband, the host band at the 2024 Stampede Fanfare competition, performs at the Calgary Stampede. The Stampede Fanfare welcomes marching bands from around the world. Photo submitted by David Reynolds.
Bands from the 2024 Stampede parade were invited to compete in Fanfare on the first Sunday of Stampede. Thirteen bands or band units were entered into the inaugural Fanfare competition. That Sunday was a wonderful day; the kind of day you hope for to host an outdoor event. It was sunny, hot and, surprisingly, dry. There were bands from Alberta, the local Calgary area, and a high school band from Taiwan. About 800 band members participated.
The event was free to the public and the audience was estimated at about 700 people: small but enthusiastic. It was by all measures a remarkably successful event and the committee plans to repeat it again next year. Next year we hope to have more bands and a larger audience to enjoy Fanfare.
The 2024 Stampede Fanfare event was the highlight of my years volunteering with the Calgary Stampede. I anticipate coordinating with my committee and staff colleagues next years Fanfare competition. My experience volunteering with community bands and hosting bands from around the world aided in planning and executing Fanfare. It was an incredibly complex undertaking requiring the involvement of not only Stampede staff but also 25 keen volunteers and the support of sponsors, band directors and parents.
As much as I enjoyed and bragged about growing up in the Toronto Beaches, and considered myself to be a Beach brat, I am now a dyed-in-the-wool Calgarian who has wholeheartedly embraced volunteering at the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth — the Calgary Stampede.
And that is how a young Beach brat got to have a significant role in influencing the Calgary Stampede.
