Dave Thomas always one to encourage
Dave Thomas of Kitchener Born: Sept. 20, 1938 in Hamilton Died: May 14, 2020 from multiple illnesses
Moving from the composing room into the newsroom was an unusual trajectory for copy editors but Dave Thomas handled it with ease.
Working in the Waterloo Region Record’s composing room in the 1960s, he would have been laying out the newspaper, a highly skilled job that required a lengthy apprenticeship and was vastly different than editing reporters’ stories. By the 1970s, things were changing.
“We were working in transition in newspapers, it was the early stages of digital,” said retired Record publisher Wayne MacDonald. “We were retraining people because jobs were shifting.”
Three men from composing were offered copy editor positions and Dave was one of them, holding the job from the mid-1970s until his retirement in 1995.
“Dave took to it is as easily and simply as you could imagine,” said Wayne. “He had a very positive attitude toward life.”
Both Wayne and Dave’s wife, Barbara Thomas, recall it was Record publisher Sandy Baird who recognized Dave’s talents and skills that would make him infinitely qualified on the copy desk. In the composing room, when there were errors that had been missed by editors, Dave would find them before the paper went to press.
“He was really well-read, his grammar was impeccable,” said Barbara. “Sandy sought him out.”
Dave also possessed another talent, one that can take editors years to perfect: he knew how to write a witty and elegant headline. He was also a joker and endeared himself to everyone he worked with. Like the time he put Baird’s corrected column on toilet paper for him to proof. Now, this could have gone either way. Sandy had a reputation for being tough, but he roared with laughter at the cheekiness of the prank.
Friend and colleague at the Record Al Anderson remembers “there were some real wits there (at the Record), wise guys.” Dave was often the head wise guy.
“He was just a good guy,” said Al.
Dave was born Sept. 20, 1938, in Hamilton, one of two children. After high school, he completed a five-year apprenticeship in composing at The Hamilton Spectator.
“As soon as you finished your apprenticeship, they let you go,” said Al.
Getting a job in his trade took some doing, said Barbara, and he was thrilled to be hired by the Record in 1962, a year after the couple had married.
Dave fit into his adopted community of Kitchener with ease, particularly in sports. Dave was a charter member of the Doon Tennis Club and a fourth-degree black belt in judo as well as a popular judo instructor.
He did take a break from judo when his kids became involved in gymnastics. Peter Thomas, Dave’s son, remembers when his dad asked if he would be interested in joining his sister Shellie in her gymnastics class.
“I liked to watch superhero cartoons Saturday mornings so that conflicted,” said Peter.
His father, always one to encourage rather than push, presented a winning argument.
“He said ‘you can either watch superheroes or you can look like a superhero,’ ” said Peter. “He was inspirational, an encourager.”
Dave became a certified gymnastics coach. He was the kind of dad who was fully engaged, and he really connected with youth, making them believe anything was possible. “Dave had won a number of tournaments,” said his friend Ken Morely. “When you get older, you start being a teacher.”
That is just what Dave did, training new generations of kids.
“He was always encouraging,” said Ken. “He’d say ‘keep trying.’ ”
Ken recalls a mom bringing her son to Dave, a boy with Down syndrome, and Dave accepted the boy without question and treated him like all the other kids.
Sharing the spirt of judo was important to Dave, who was short, powerful and could get under an opponent for a quick throw.
“He wasn’t interested in achieving degrees,” said Ken, noting his friend had the skills to rise several levels above fourth degree.
The sport also gave him a physical strength that helped Dave live with multiple chronic illnesses including leukemia and Type 1 diabetes. But as he reached his 70s, the illnesses started catching up with him.
When Dave could no longer drive to the judo club, Ken insisted on being his chauffeur. Dave had become the elder statesman of the club and every week he’d wear his uniform, watching the class, guiding when he could.
The man who loved music, convertible cars, who loved a good joke and refused to teach a judo class without sharing at least one relevant or sometimes not-so-relevant story, died May 14, 2020, of multiple health issues.
“We had a charmed life together,” said Barbara. “He always embraced what he could do instead of dwelling on what he couldn’t do.”