2 - parry sound north star • wednesday, july 15, 2009 the...
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2 - PARRY SOUND NORTH STAR • Wednesday, July 15, 2009
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CorrectionsIn the Canadian Tamils s t i l l demanding
humanitarian aid for Sri Lanka article published July 8, the name of the minister of McKellar-Dunchurch Pastoral Charge, Rev Charles Arasaratnam, was misspelled.
Also, Rev Wanda Winfield is the minister of Parry Sound Rural Pastoral Charge, not St James United Church. The North Star regrets the errors.
Should anyone wish to donate directly to Sri Lanka Relief, they may do so through McKellar-Dunchurch or Parry Sound Rural Pastoral Charges.
***
In the article No skate park, for now, published July 8, an incorrect date of Parry Sound Town council was listed. The next council meeting will be held Tuesday, July 21. The North Star apologizes for the error.
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In the article Up to public to add pool to new school, trustee says, it says Near North District School Board Chair Kathy Hewitt met with the West Parry Sound Recreation Complex Committee when in fact board staff met with the pool committee. The North Star apologizes for the error.
The death of a newspapermanBY ROB LEARNSpecial to the North Star
The man most responsible for shaping the news industry in the Parry Sound District has died.
Morry Barr, long-time owner of the Almaguin News and the Parry Sound North Star died peacefully at home on Sunday. He was 90 years old.
Originally from Port Credit, Ontario, Barr came to the Burk’s Falls area in 1946 after serving in the Second World War and built a life for his family along with the iconic paper of record area readers still enjoy today.
Barr started working at the Almaguin News in 1963 for Andrew MacLean when the paper was the Burk’s Falls Arrow and the Powassan News. In 1966, Barr took action on an idea he had and merged the papers together into the Almaguin News. A year later, Barr received a call from owner Andrew MacLean, who asked him if he wanted to buy the publication he had been running for the past four years.
“I hemmed and hawed a minute and told him I’d like to think about,” Barr once recalled. “He said, ‘You’d better. I already told the printer that you’re the new publisher.’ So that was that. We didn’t have any money, but we ended up buying the newspaper.”
What Barr did have was sound business acumen, vision and a hard work ethic to get things done. Those attributes quickly paid off as he grew the paper to the point he was able to purchase the Parry Sound North Star in 1973 and turn it into the paper readers in this area rely on every week.
“I knew Morry years ago. I used to have lunch with him when he came to Parry Sound back when he owned the North Star,” said Metroland North Media regional general manager Bill Allen. “Morry was a great newspaperman and I had the highest respect for him.”
Barr earned that respect.In his early days with the newspaper he would drive to
an offset printing press in Toronto with the paper laid out in camera-ready flats. He would then sleep in the car before turning around and driving back to Burk’s Falls to start delivering the paper.
As the owner of the newspaper, there wasn’t much Barr didn’t try his hand at.
“He didn’t do the typesetting but he did everything else,” says his son and former-Almaguin News owner Peter Barr. “ – the editing, the selling, the delivering and even the collecting if he had to.”
In those early days his then-wife Phyllis worked as a school secretary and would come in at night and typeset. This meant the couple’s only child Peter would spend a lot of his time at the newspaper during his formative years.
From 1963 until he purchased the North Star, Peter says Barr ran the paper, for the most part, with only three people. And he spent a lot of time on the road sourcing out every possible client he could from Parry Sound to North Bay.
The network he created in that job put him in contact with the Wing family, which owned the North Star.
“He knew they were getting tired with it and he wanted it so he put in an offer and they accepted,” said Barr’s
wife Judy.Using the same tenacity and energy that propelled
the Almaguin News from a four-page publication into a 20 to 40 page publication, Barr poured himself into building up the North Star, often pooling resources of the two newspaper teams.
“He was always aggressive, keeping up with the times and ahead of the trends,” said former North Star general manager Fred Heidman, who moved into a management role under Barr.
“He was a very dedicated newspaperman who contributed to the community newspapers and the newspaper industry.”
The whole time, Barr’s philosophy that his papers needed to be community newspapers never wavered.
He supported local initiatives in many communities during the 1970s to build arenas, was a consistent booster of Lionism and was always working to make sure every part of Almaguin had a voice in his paper.
In 1980, his wife Phyllis became ill and Barr sold the North Star to spend more time with her. After 37 years of marriage, Phyllis died in 1981.
The couple, high school sweethearts, married on April 22, 1944 while Barr was on a short leave from service overseas during the Second World War.
After the war, he came north to see a property on the eastern shore of Lake Bernard. Judy recalls. “They just paced it off and Morry went down to the township office to get it severed.” The year was 1946.
With the help of his father-in-law, Barr built some small cabins on the property where the Northridge Inn now sits. During the summer months he ran a tourist camp there while adding more cabins. During the winter he worked at Rennie’s Seeds in the Toronto area.
By 1953, the Barrs decided to make a go of it at their northern property and moved up permanently. To make ends meet, Barr worked as head counselor at the boys’ camp where The Ridge Golf Club now sits south of Sundridge. “Often when we were in a mall in Toronto a 50-year-old man would come up to us and start talking with Morry,” said Judy.
He later ran his own boys camp at his tourist site. He also spent a few years working as a pharmacists’ assistant at McVey’s Pharmacy in Burk’s Falls.
Judy says that Barr often told her that his varied careers had prepared him to be a newspaperman, a business he knew little about when he took over the Burk’s Falls Arrow and Powassan News in 1963.
In 1988, after 25 years in the business, Barr retired from the newspaper business, selling his establishment to his son Peter.
Judy says that retirement didn’t slow him down at all, but it did let them travel and Barr to pursue another of his passions – golf.
“He golfed until he was 85 at Deerhurst and played against 45-year-olds and always beat them. He was such a straight shot. It was disgusting,” said Judy.
He also devoted more time to the Burk’s Falls Lions Club and worked to establish the Burk’s Falls and District Food Bank. Retirement didn’t end Barr’s desire to always look his best.
“He was always beautifully groomed and dressed. In the summer he had a bright blue suit, white wing-tip shoes and neat straw hat. He was quite the sight,” said Judy.
She recalls Barr telling her that, during his stint owning the North Star, he often stopped at the same service station during his commute.
“When he pulled up in his big blue Chrysler and get out of the car just dressed to the nines, they always used to say, ‘Oh, here comes the governor,’” said Judy.
That attention to detail was spent on more than just his appearance, though.
Barr always had an open door policy at the paper that remains to this day. Employees were under strict instructions not to block any customer from coming in and talking with him.
“He always used to say, ‘If they can make the effort to walk or drive in to see me, I can at least sit down and listen,’” said Judy.
Barr was married and is survived by his wife of 26 years Judy, his son Peter, four stepchildren and 12 grandchildren.
A m a s s o f t h e r e su r r e c t i o n wa s scheduled for 10 a.m. today, Wednesday, July 15.
Morry Barr
Morry Barr, former North Star owner, 1919-2009
The wrong bus stop: police nab drug traffickerPolice arrested a Markham man on Friday
as he was exiting a bus that had just arrived in Parry Sound.
The West Parry Sound Ontario Provincial Police and members of a Sudbury drug enforcement team received a tip about a possible drug courier bringing crack cocaine into town from Toronto.
They found the Markham man to be in possession of crack cocaine with a street value of almost $4,000 and evidence to support the distribution of the drug, according to a West Parry Sound OPP media release.
Charged with possession of cocaine for
the purpose of trafficking and possession of property obtained by crime is 22-year-old Dane Charles-Roberts of Markham.
He was being held in custody until a bail hearing scheduled for Monday.
***
On Saturday, police spotted a car on Church street and conducted a motor vehicle stop.
Charged with impaired driving and driving with more than 80 mg of alcohol per 100 litres of blood is 41-year-old John Nicolaou from Parry Sound. He is scheduled to appear in the Parry Sound Courthouse on Aug. 6.
While patrolling James Street the same day, police saw a car drifting.
Charged with driving with more than 80 mg alcohol per 100 litres of blood is 28-year-old Andrew Greenwood of Hunter Drive in Seguin. He is scheduled to appear in court Aug. 6.