Funeral Monday for former trustee
A funeral will be held Monday for Lorne Corkery, who served as a Catholic school board trustee in Peterborough for 38 years.
Mr. Corkery died Thursday at the Peterborough Regional Health Centre at the age of 87.
He had been a trustee for Peterborough city with the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board, as well as with the board’s earlier predecessors, up until 2014, when he did not seek re-election.
Mr. Corkery was retired after 38 years at Canadian General Electric, where he was a draftsman and drafting supervisor.
He told in a 2010 interview that he found the role of Catholic school board trustee to be “very compelling.”
“There’s areas that need improvementboard-wide,”hesaidintheinterview. “They’re never going to be perfect,butyouhavetoaimforthat,soyou have to constantly keep improving.”
Each new board of trustees is presented with a new set of challenges, Mr. Corkery said.
“When I was first elected to the board there were no special needs kids in the classes,” he said. “Now we have a real percentage of those people, and they present special problems.”
Camille Parent, who served with Mr. Corkery on the board during the 2006 to 2010 term, says he “was always intrigued by how brilliant, thoughtful, informative, respectful compassionate and loving he was.”
“He was so supportive of our special children, never gave up and stood beside me and also pushed me to continue standing up for them, always,” Parent told
“His many years of being a Catholic trustee for PVNC has rolled out many policies and positive change coupled with very strong Christian values which graced so many in the years. He gave himself to the Catholic School system 110%.”
He is survived by five children, eight grandchildren and one greatgrandchild.
A funeral mass will be held Monday at 10 a.m. at Cathedral of St. Peter-In-Chains, with interment at Highland Park Cemetery.
The family is asking that memorial donations be made to the Sister’s of the Precious Blood.