Bob Edwards Award Gala honours Jann Arden
The Bob Edwards Award Gala is the signature fundraising event for the Calgary Public Library Foundation. A Calgary tradition, the Bob Edwards Award recognizes provocative individuals who are not afraid to speak their minds. The award’s namesake — Edwards — was the editor of a newspaper in the early 1900s called The Eye Opener and he was considered witty, pugnacious and irascible. And shock of shocks, Edwards even dealt in juicy gossip. Ah, how one misses the good old days.
“Provocative” individuals who have received the award over the years include: Conrad Black; Catherine Ford; Ian Tyson; Matthew Good; Pierre Berton; Preston Manning; Mary Walsh; W. Brett Wilson; Bret (Hitman) Hart; and the award’s first honouree, Grant MacEwan in 1977.
This year’s gala, held Nov. 2 at the Fairmont Palliser, saw the prestigious award presented to the fabulous Jann Arden. Arden’s accomplishments are impressive indeed, including: eight Juno Awards, including Female Artist of the Year and Songwriter of the Year; being a recipient of a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame; inducted into the Canadian Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame and receiving the Vantage Women of Originality Award. In 2012, she was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal and, in 2013, was inducted into the western Canadian Music Alliance Hall of Fame. Arden has written three books — If I Knew, Don’t You Think I’d Tell You; I’ll Tell You One Damn Thing, That’s All I Know; and her bestselling, self-penned memoir, Falling Backwards. Her fourth book, Feeding My Mother: Comfort and Laughter in the Kitchen as My Mom Lives with Memory Loss, will be published Nov. 21.
That she is hysterically funny is but one of her many charms. Who can forget Arden’s infamous quip on the Rick Mercer Report? “I have (a tattoo) of Canada on my bum and every time I fart, Quebec separates.” Ba boom.
Scores of library supporters and Arden fans attended this year’s gala that was emceed by 2015 award recipient W. Brett Wilson. Your faithful social scribe had the pleasure of hosting a table again this year as did other colleagues the likes of Louis Hobson, Eugene Stickland and past award recipient Catherine Ford.
Others in attendance included: Calgary Public Library Foundation president and CEO Ellen Humphrey; vice-president Brent Buechler and director of philanthropy, Elizabeth Reade; TD Bank Group’s Derek Koppe, Robert Ghazal, Teri Currie, Marna Oseen, Geraldine Anderson, John Preston and Kari Scarlett; Calgary Public Library board chair Pat Moore and husband Sherrold Moore; CEO Bill Ptacek; director Anthony Giuffre and wife Britt Giuffre; designer Paul Hardy; Prairie Merchant’s Russell Wilson and Dr. Gary Mitchell; invaluable supporters Brenda and Greig Nicholls of the Nicholls Family Library fame; avid supporters John and Mary Lou Halliwell; Debra Ross; and Brien and Peggy Perry.