Letter: Ernie Checkeris will be missed

Ernie Checkeris introduced me to one of the most interesting periods of my life when he invited me to fill a vacant trustee position on the Rainbow District School Board.

Ernie was truly a living legend, which was most evident when we attended provincial school board meetings in Toronto, where he was highly regarded and respected as the longest-serving school board trustee in Ontario, if not all of Canada.

We did have our differences of opinion on more than one occasion, but became good friends and shared many of the same views.

Of the several board committees on which we both served, I think the most memorable was the suspension review panel, where we heard from parents who felt their child had been unjustly treated.

When parents complained a suspension was unfair, I would often reply that when I was in school, sometimes the whole row in which the offender sat received the strap. Ernie would add that in his day, the whole class would be punished. Times have indeed changed.

Proud of his heritage and life experiences on land and sea, Ernie was a man of many attributes: A progressive, innovative and fair-minded business person, conservative politically but with a strong social conscience, a lover of the arts and an artist himself.

He will be sadly missed by his relatives and many friends and the community he so well served for so many years.

John Lindsay
Sudbury