As he took the oath as Frontenac County Warden on December 21, South Frontenac Mayor Ron Vandewal was wearing the watch that was presented to his father after he served as Frontenac County Warden in the 1980’s. At that time there were over 20 members of council and warden elections were contested. In the current era, the warden position is passed around between the mayors of the four townships, and the vote that takes place each year is a mere formality. North Frontenac Mayor Ron Higgins, who will serve as deputy warden in 2017, will take over as warden for the final year of the current mandate in 2018.

Although there was little drama in his election as warden, Vandewal did tear up just a bit as he touched the watch and mentioned that by taking on the warden’s mantle it made his father and him the first father and son to be warden in the 151 year history of the county.

The sentimental moment passed quickly however, as the passage of the 2017 budget was tackled at the beginning of the meeting after being moved up in order to permit Vandewal and his fellow South Frontenac Councilor John McDougall to leave for the wake of long serving South Frontenac Councilor Bill Robinson.
Vandewal voted against the budget, as he had done the previous evening in his own township, and for the same reason.

“We asked staff to bring us a budget with an increase that was no higher than the cost of living increase, plus 0.65% to put towards long term infrastructure. Cost of living is 1.5% so the target was 2.15%, and the budget we have in front of us is 3.15% higher than last year, so I will vote against it,” he said.

Frontenac Islands Mayor Dennis Doyle also voted against the 2017 budget, but did not specify a reason.

Before the budget was put to a vote, Doyle had asked that a $1,000 membership in the Canadian School Alliance be put back in the budget. The membership fee had been removed at a Committee of the Whole meeting about the budget that took place in late November. Doyle was away at the time of that meeting.

The Canadian School Alliance is an organisation devoted to saving rural schools from closure. I’d like to see us remain as members of this organisation, it is only $1,000 out of a levy of over $9 million,” he said, to no avail.

The remaining members of council voted to approve the budget.

By the time Richard Allen was introduced as the new Manager of Economic Development at the December Meeting of Frontenac County Council, the news of his hiring was already out. Members of the county Community Development Advisory Committee (CDAC) had already been informed of the hiring. As well, Allen had made a splash the day before by walking into Kingston City Hall and announcing two years into his mandate as a member of City Council that he was resigning his council seat in order to take on the job for Frontenac County.

He said later that one of the attractions of the job were the regular hours. The job fits the stage of life he has reached, as he has recently become a father for the first time and serving as  a city councilor meant missing most evenings at home during the week.

“With this job I will be home at least some evenings during the week,” he said.

He is not home evenings this week, however.

One of the first decisions that was made at the senior staff level at the county after he was hired was to use much of the 2017 Economic Development travel budget on a single trip. Allan is joining his colleagues from the Kingston (including Mayor Bryan Patterson) and the Ontario Ministry of Food and Agriculture (OMAFRA) on a 10 day trip to China. They are visiting the headquarters of Feihe International Inc, which recently announced plans to build a $225 million processing, research and development facility in Kingston.

Feihe International will be producing baby formula at the new facility, mostly for the Chinese market, and at the start they will be making use of excess skim milk from the existing Ontario dairy industry. In the future, however, Feihe has plans to make formula out of goat's milk, and projects a need for 75 million litres of goat milk per year from Eastern Ontario in the coming years.

While there will be an impact on the job market in Frontenac County from the 200 jobs that will be created when the factory opens, the greater potential impact is on local and regional agriculture.

“For the county to be aware of those opportunities it is important to be involved right from the beginning,” Vandewal said. “With our history in agriculture and proximity to Kingston we are well positioned to be part of the supply chain, for new companies to settle here and existing ones to adjust or expand,” said Frontenac County Warden Ron Vandewal.

Before leaving for China on the ten day trip last Sunday (January 8) Allen pointed out that the scale of  the market in China is beyond anything we are used to in Eastern Ontario.

“There are 35 million babies born each year in China, that's where you see numbers like 72 million litres of annual goat milk production, come from. In terms of agriculture in Eastern Ontario, that would require over a hundred large farms, Allen said. “Then there are other agricultural infrastructure issues, such as shipping and distribution, the entire supply chain. It is a large project.”

The trip runs for ten days, and while Frontenac County is paying for Allen's flight and accommodations, many of the other costs are being covered by Feihe.

Who is Richard Allen
Richard Allen has a short commute to work each day, since he lives in rural Kingston on his family farm that is located across the road from the Frontenac County offices. He also has a family cottage on Bob's Lake on the Central Frontenac side.

After graduating from High School in Kingston he went to Concordia University where he did a degree in Fine Arts,  and  he eventually worked for Katimavik, which was a national program for youth and young adults. He was a Director at KEDCO (Kingston Economic Development Corporation) and worked in the Community Solutions Lab at the Queen’s University Smith School of business. He was elected to council from Countryside Ward in 2014.

“I’m a big fan of doing work that benefits the community, and the direction the county seems to be going is working with the communities to grow existing businesses, and to complement them with new businesses, rather than the smoke stack chasing economic development in more urban locations. We are looking for companies that compliment what we have,” he said.

He said that his work is set out in the economic development charter that Frontenac County adopted a couple of years ago and in the new branding initiative that was developed last year.

“I am familiar with much of the county, aside from Frontenac Islands, where I will be visiting when I get back from China,” he said, “but taking this job is not a stepping stone to something else for me. It is a continuation of my commitment to rural community development where I live.”

One of the tasks that dominated the agenda for Allan’s predecessor, Anne Marie Young, will not be as much a part of his responsibilities. The purchase of lands or easements for the Tichborne to Sharbot Lake section of the K&P Trail, and the final build out of the trail, will be handled by County Chief Administrative Officer Kelly Pender.

“The management of the trail and marketing, signage, etc will be part of the responsibilities of our department, but the trail will not be as central to my job as it was before,” he said.

As we start a new year there are changes afoot with the News and across Frontenac County as well.
First, readers of this paper will likely already have noticed a byline that is familiar to many but not in the pages of the Frontenac News.

I have spent years sitting at the small press table at council meetings up and down the county trying to figure out how to coax Craig Bakay into a rant while we were working for different papers. It wasn’t that hard, as he is a pretty opinionated guy and he is not shy about sharing his opinion, especially on some of his pet topics (ie peeves), of which there are many.

He also has a well earned understanding of the way politics are done in Frontenac County, and has a feel for what I like to call local colour, the interesting and quirky personalities that make up the community we are a part of.  We rarely agree about anything, which makes things interesting sometimes, but we have now been friends long enough to have seen each other through some of life’s challenges, which brings less bite to political differences.

In any event when I learned that Craig had decided to stop working as a freelancer for the Frontenac Gazette and other publications, it was at the same time that I was facing the loss of Jule Koch, my work partner and managing editor of the Frontenac News.

Needing to concentrate on the operational aspects of the paper, I asked Craig to come on as a reporter, at least on an interim basis, and luckily he agreed. He will be covering Central Frontenac Council, and working with Wilma Kenny on South Frontenac Council, with Jonas Bonnetta on North Frontenac Council, and myself on Addington Highlands Council. He will also be doing general coverage each week, and photo work. I will continue to do editorial writing and feature writing, in addition to my role as publisher and supervising editor.

Our commitment to our readers and our advertisers is to continue to provide comprehensive coverage of life in Frontenac County, Addington Highlands and western Lanark County and indeed to enhance that coverage.
We also learned in recent weeks of changes in staffing, both at Frontenac County and in North and Central Frontenac. As reported elsewhere in this issue, Jeremy Neven will be resigning as Chief Building Official for North and Central Frontenac in May, and it was also announced last month that Marian VanBruinessen will be retiring from her position as Treasurer for Frontenac County in the late spring. Marian has been in her position since municipal amalgamation in 1998 and perhaps before that, and she is the longest serving member of the senior staff at the county level by a long shot. The budget that was approved by Council in December was at least the 19th she has prepared for the Frontenac Management Board or Frontenac County.

Finally, North Frontenac Mayor Ron Higgins announced in late December that he will be running for re-election in 2018. Although it is way too soon for some of us to think about an election that is still 22 months away, Higgins said that he was committed to providing notice of his intentions at the halfway point of his mandate. Of course, he added that circumstances might change, but that with continued support from his wife Wendy, and continued good health, he is ready to commit to 6 more years working for the residents of North Frontenac. He also said the next municipal election will be the final one in his political career, win or lose.

Finally, Canada 150 is upon us, and after the kickoff levee in Arden, there are events being planned throughout the region all year. We will provide complete coverage in the coming weeks and months.

Central and North Frontenac Chief Building Official Jeremy Neven tendered his resignation (effective May 26) at Central Frontenac Council’s regular meeting this week in Sharbot Lake.

Neven told Council he was taking a similar position with Auckland, in New Zealand, for two years. Neven said he wanted to give the Township time to find a new CBO as well as finish up some bylaw changes he’s been working on.

“I have nothing bad to say about anybody and I’ve really enjoyed my time here,” he said. “It’s important to me that things go smoothly and I want to leave the department in good shape.”

He said his family is really looking forward to the opportunity to live in a foreign country for awhile but “the first place I’ll be looking for work upon my return will be Central Frontenac.”

The first time Mayor Frances Smith called the vote to accept Neven’s resignation, no hands went up. “We really don’t want to accept this resignation,” Smith said. “But we’ll have to accept it with regret.”

Record building year - Still with Neven, the CBO reported that 2016 was one of the best years the Township has ever had in terms of building. Central Frontenac finished the year with $,658,259 in construction value (up from $7,055,805 in 2015) and $125,131 in permit fees on 121 permits ($100,127 on 116 permits in 2015)

“I haven’t really gone back to check all the files but if 2016 wasn’t the best year, it’s pretty close to it,” he said.

The numbers were even more impressive when compared with 2014, when total construction values were just over $5 million, and permit fees totaled less than $70,000

New name for school committee
After considerable discussion about the name, Central Frontenac Council decided to call the committee looking into what to do with the former Hinchinbrooke Public School the “Hinchinbrooke District Community Centre Committee”. Councilors Brent Cameron and Phillip Smith will join the committee as it applies for an Ontario Trillium Foundation Seed Grant to help with the preparation of a business plan.

New Deputy Mayor
Councilor Brent Cameron of District 4 (Hinchinbrooke) was acclaimed as Deputy Mayor of Central Frontenac Township.

His appointment almost didn’t happen though as current Dep. Mayor Bill MacDonald jokingly announced: “I’m not stepping down.”

New equipment for fire department
Council approved $258,336 plus HST for the replacement of 32 self contained breathing apparatus’s plus a spare bottle for each pack. Fire Chief Bill Young said the equipment the department has been using is 20 years old, and at the end of its dependable life span.

Another expensive culvert - Council approved $182,000 to replace the culvert/ bridge on 4th Depot Lake Road. Interim Public Works Manager Mike Richardson said the road would likely be closed for 4-7 days but it could be up to two weeks depending on how the replacement is handled.

He said residents on the road affected would get written notification as well as the school board because busing will be affected.

“You might get a bill from the school board,” he said.

OP amendment
Council approved an amendment to its Official Plan that removes a restriction on building within 300 metres of waterfront in lands zoned rural. Rules affecting setbacks, minimum lot size and lot creation are unaffected by the change.

Jack’s Jam is celebrating its 10th birthday Jan. 21 and as such, they’re planning a few extra features when the music begins again at 1 p.m. in Plevna’s Clar-Mill Hall.

“Weather permitting, it’s going to be a special day,” said Karen Hermer, emcee and one of the organizers. “It will be in honour of Jack and Lois.”

Jack’s Jam was the creation of Ardoch pickers Jack and Lois Weber, who started out inviting friends to their basement. Their inspiration was the musical evenings that used to happen at Ed’s Place, a local restaurant owned by Ed Schlievert.

But the Webers’ basement soon filled up and the next thing they knew, they were at the hall, coming close to filling that up on many occasions and attracting musicians and audience members from as far away as Tweed.

Eventually, the Webers turned operations over to the Clar-Mill volunteers, with Hermer and her husband Roger ensuring that the event would continue. The Hermers have been organizing things for the past five years.

The Jam happens once a month excluding December, June, July and August.

The Jams also featured a regular house band, The Over the Hill Gang (Hugh MacDonald, Vietta McInnes, Bob Deschamps, Roger Hermer and the late John Fraser) who will reunite and perform Jan. 21.

There will also be a performance from the Land O’Lakes Country Cloggers as well as the current House Band (Lionel Grimard, Roger Hermer, Bill White, Vern Martyn, Bruce Pennington as well as Murray and Don White).
“It will be a bit different but the format will still be the same,” Hermer said. “We’ll fit everybody who wants to play in but be sure to sign up early.

“And of course we welcome dancers. It’s just like Dave Deacon says on his photograph - good music, good friends, good food.”

And speaking of food, there will be the customary pot-luck dinner beginning at 5:30 pm.

There’s no admission charge but there will also be the customary donations bucket.

As Canada turns 150 this year, Sharbot Lake’s Dianne Lake has come up with her own 150th project — 150 years, 150 women, 150 stories in 150 words.

“I thought I’d get the history down on paper,” she said.

Now, Lake’s not going to write the stories herself. The idea is to get others to write the story of female friends or relatives who’ve passed on.

“We’re limiting it to 150 words,” Lake said. “That way it’s not an overwhelming thing for someone to do and it will allow us to put them on large recipe cards, which is appropriate for stories about women from this area.”

Once the stories are on cards, Lake will have them laminated and they’ll be placed on tables for an afternoon tea (tentatively scheduled for July 29). The idea then is for the cards to be read and passed around. After the tea, they’ll be put in a binder and donated to the local library.

“We hear stories all the time about women who’ve passed on but made a big contribution to the community,” she said. “It’s these neat little stories that make us what we are as a community.”

Lake said she got the idea one day while looking at an old picture of the United Church Women with Pastor Jean Brown.

“Jean would ask ‘who was that woman?’ and I realized each woman in that photo had a story,” Lake said.

Lake wanted to tell those stories, in the words of someone who knew them, before those who could tell the story had themselves passed on.

And, it also seemed like a ‘fun’ thing to do. In fact, that’s what Lake has been telling her contributors to write — ‘fun little stories.’

“It’s not a who’s who,” she said. “It’s things like who their parents were, such as ‘she was the daughter of the station master in Tichborne’ or ‘she made the very best donuts.’”

They don’t have to have been born here (ie they could have been long-time cottagers), as long as they weren’t just “passers-through,” Lake, who’s lived in the community for 47 years, said. And it doesn’t have to be exclusively Sharbot Lake. Stories about residents of Arden, Mountain Grove, Parham, Tichborne, anywhere in the area will be welcome.

So if you have a story about a woman who lived in this community, Lake would love to hear from you at 613-279-2991 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

She said she already has about 40 stories and she’s been numbering them so when that number reaches 150, that’s it.

Last Thursday (December 15) Jule Koch died peacefully in her sleep at St. Mary’s by the Lake hospital in Kingston, two months after her 65th birthday. She took ill in late October with what she thought was Lyme’s disease, but found out on November 2nd that she had Leukemia. Treatments in mid and late November failed to halt the progress of the cancer.  A memorial service for her is set of Friday, December 23 at 3:00 at Sharbot Lake Pentecostal Church. A reception will follow at St. James Major Catholic Church Hall, also in Sharbot Lake.

Many readers of this paper did not even know who Jule was. That was partly because a lot of what goes on at a newspaper and news website happens behind the scenes. Receiving and processing email and phone calls, copy editing, and performing dozens of other tasks takes hours of time and effort each week. Jule’s title at the paper was Managing Editor but she called herself an office rat. Most days of the week she came in after everyone had left and worked into the night. The other reason that reader’s did not know who she was is that she liked it that way. The last thing she would want is an article like this to be written about her, and the tributes that can be found on page 6?

Jule came to Canada from Guyana when she was 12 or 13, and moved to Clarendon Road around 1971. She lived there with her first husband Gerald for almost 20 years, most of that at time with no running water or hydro. She became a master basket-maker and sold her work throughout the region. She believed in simple, sturdy designs, and the willow and dogwood baskets and furniture, even those that are over 30 years old, are as strong and beautiful as they were when she first made them. In 2000, her second husband David purchased the Frontenac News. Shortly after he took over, Jule started helping out at the paper. She realised that the running a paper was more than David thought it would be, and it turned out she had a pretty good instinct for  it. Pretty quickly she became central to the operation of the paper, and stayed in that role until a few weeks ago. When David owned the paper, her own ‘pay’ was a tiny ad called “The promise” a different line of scripture that runs in the paper week. I started working for both of them in January of 2002, and soon after that David became ill. It turned out he had pancreatic cancer, and he died on December 11, 2002, almost exactly 14 years before Jule died.

After David died, Jule became the owner of the paper and I worked for her as editor. She believed in the concept of the Frontenac News that its founders were committed to, service to the local community. She was willing to sit with the paper until late on production night each and every week to make sure that everything was in order. In 2008, Jule sold the paper to me, but we both kept our jobs, me as editor/reporter, and she stayed on as managing editor. While we have worked closely together for 15 years, we rarely agreed on fundamental issues, particularly anything that had to do with religion, as she was a Pentecostal and I am an atheist. Issues such as same-sex marriage and a host of others were a challenge, and she even wrote the occasional letter to the editor against positions that I took in the paper.
Aside from her work at the paper, Jule took care of her mother for years. With help from Tarasick carpentry, she built a log house using logs from an old home, and kept improving the house year after year. Although she stopped making baskets she conducted workshops several times each summer and demonstrated at local festivals. A few years ago she started up a Community Christmas dinner in Sharbot Lake, which is going great guns and will continue to operate into the future. She also looked after many people in the community, sometimes for a short time and sometimes for years. She was planning to retire this week, after working on over 900 issues of the Frontenac News. She did not know what she was going to do, but I have no doubt there would have been new careers in her future. No one loved being productive more than Jule did.

She did not want anyone to say anything nice about her after she was gone. She complained that people always seemed to become saints after they die. Jule was no saint, she was stubborn, resistant to change and strong willed. She was also kind, polite to a fault, and non-judgmental, and she loved to jump full bore into a project.

No matter which one of us owned the paper, we ran it as a partnership for 14 years. Keen and even not to keen, readers have no doubt noticed the number of typos and more serious errors that have crept into the paper since November 2nd, but her role was more fundamental than that. I work hard on the paper, I don’t mind saying that, but no one put more into it than she did. You don’t replace that kind of commitment. She cared about the paper but more than that she cared about the role the paper plays in the community. We will carry on and will work to plug the gap that she has left behind. We knew her retirement was coming and had some plans in place, but no one was ready for what happened, except perhaps Jule herself, because of her faith and because of her attitude toward life.

But she was the heart and soul of this enterprise for 16 years, and a valuable community member for almost 50 years. She leaves family and friends behind, and anyone who is any kind of fan of this newspaper is indebted to her, as am I.

I would like to thank the columnists and other writers for their patience with me over the last month or so. I also want to thank our staff; Kate, Susie, Jesse, Julie, Dale and Wilma, for the extra effort they have made to keep the paper together in recent weeks. I also want to thank my wife Martina for her support, and Chava for coming back early for the holidays to help. A special thank you goes out to Scott Cox for coming through as I knew he would when things were difficult.

As I wrote above we will be back on January 12 and there will be some interesting changes coming to the old ‘North Frontenac’ in the new year.

We do not have office hours as of 5:00 tonight (Thursday, December 22) until Monday, January 9th at 8:30, but will be open by chance or appointment. We will be checking phone messages and email throughout that time.

We wish you all a happy Christmas and a pleasant holiday season.

Sharbot Lake Criminal Court has always had a reputation for informality as compared to the courts in Kingston and Perth, which is something that court officials tend to talk about during the breaks. Court proceedings held in the township hall, where the Festival of Trees has just been cleaned up and the decorations for the New Year’s dance are next to come, do tend to be more informal than the proceedings in 200 year old Victorian era courthouses.

At this month’s court, however, things were more informal than ever, since the lawyer assigned for the role of Duty Counsel did not show up, leaving Judge Griffen to work directly with accused parties to determine if their matters could be resolved on the spot or should be put over to the January date. At one point, the clerk of the court was not even in place, leaving Griffen to fumble through the papers on the clerk’s desk.

“Now, I don’t even have clerk, Griffen said as he leaned over from his desk to the clerk’s desk to find some paperwork.

“I’m here, trying to get a hold of duty counsel,” the clerk said, his head popping out from behind the false wall behind the desks.

After a short break, Griffen returned and said Duty Counsel was not coming.

Still, the wheels of justice did not fall off in Sharbot Lake this week. Two of the five matters before the court were resolved, and the rest are progressing.

Convictions
Donald Kellar, 52, pleaded guilty to a charge of un-authorized possession of a firearm. Kellar was in a truck driving on Westgate Road, near Hwy. 7, west of Arden, on November 17, when the truck was stopped by Constable Lefaivre because the driver of the truck did not have his seat belt fastened correctly. There were a number of rifles in the vehicle as the occupants were hunting. While the rest of the occupants had Possession/Acquisition Licenses (PAL) for their rifles, Mr. Kellar did not have one for the Remington Woodmaster 742 that was located near where he was sitting.

The gun is the property of his son and was in the care of his wife when he took it to go hunting.

Judge Griffen gave him a 12-month probation order, and asked how his wife had reacted.

“I have six months house arrest, dishes, floor sweeping, you don’t want to know the rest, your honour,” he said.

Judge Griffen did not impose a prohibition on owning firearms on Mr. Kellar, although he said the conviction might make it difficult for him to get one.

Brandon Gill, 27, was unlikely to receive legal aide and pleaded guilty on his first appearance on a charge of assault. The details of the case are covered by a publication ban. He received a 12-month probation order.

First Appearance
Nicholas Holmes, 41, is facing six charges related to impaired driving and driving without permits and while disqualified. He is seeking legal aide and will return on January 16th.

Ongoing
Wayne Kimberly, 61, is charged with failing to comply with probation, failure or refusal to provide a breath sample, operating a vehicle while impaired by alcohol, and public mischief. He has paid part of a retainer to a lawyer from Kingston, and received an adjournment until February 13 to pay the rest of the retainer and will then appear with counsel to plead to the charges or set a date for trial.

Alison Potter, 39, charged with production of marijuana with intent to sell, possession of an illegal substance, an un-authorized possession of a firearm. She was not in court, and a warrant with discretion was issued. She will need to appear in court on January 16th to avoid arrest.

Sarah Hale
One of my best memories of Jule is at the February Blues Craft Show in Elphin -- hours of listening to blues music and talking about God.  I will miss her honesty and compassion -- her willingness to tackle the hard questions -- her friendship over the years.

Ankaret Dean
When Jeff asked me to write a line about my dear friend Jule and her love for basketry, I realized it was like sadly losing a member of my family.
I think I met Jule back in the 1980s, I had become interested in finding basket makers in Canada who could show me how to make baskets. It was a dying art and I could only find a very few older men from Europe.
Somehow, through the grapevine, I heard there was a young woman who sold willow baskets in the Kingston market. I wish I could remember when we first met, we shared a passion for willow and natural materials.
At that time I was living in Oakville, and we invited Jule to come to Toronto to be part of a basket show at the Museum for Textiles and also to come to our basketry conferences at Harbourfront.
In the early 90s I moved up to McDonald's Corners, we were almost neighbours!
While demonstrating basketry at a fair, an elderly man had stopped and watched her for quite a while. Finally he struck up a conversation and said he had been a basketmaker in England for years and was visiting his daughter in Canada. During his annual visits, Eric Thornton and Jule became great friends and he would teach classes at Jule's house and he would sing and tell stories while everybody was weaving.
Jule grew her own willow, as well as collecting from the roadsides. She made a great variety of baskets, all of them useful for shopping or gathering. She also made very attractive tabletops and furniture using the little pieces of willow like a mosaic.
She wrote several articles for the magazine 'The Basketry Express' which I published until the year 2000, when she took it over for a few years with the help of another basket maker.
One of my wonderful memories of working with Jule was making willow coracles and then sailing them in a regatta on Dalhousie Lake.
It was wonderful to have a friend with similar interests. She was very enthusiastic about my starting a basketry museum and gave me great encouragement. I will miss her gentle smile and passion for willow.

Debbie Lingen
Jule, it is hard to believe that you will no longer be at the other end of my e-mails. Every week we shared messages when I e-mailed my weekly columns to you. You were always there with encouragement and advice for the column. Then we would rant together about the weather and share in the joys and antics of our communities. Your messages portrayed your humour, warmth and concern for everyone your life touched. Your loving touch and expertise were in every detail in the Frontenac News. We would meet in person when you devoted your time and energy at the Verona Cattail Festival to show the children how to make cattail boats and crafts. Verona is a stronger community because you cared. I feel a great loss in losing you as a friend. I will miss you terribly.

Jean Brown
How I enjoyed writing with and for Jule Koch at “the News”. She would take the time to call on the phone for clarification, or send an e-mail of gentle corrections, and of course expressed her interest in all the reporters by hosting a pot-luck luncheon from time to time. Jule safely navigated our news: offering corrections and suggestions that all too often really saved our skin from writers pit-falls of excess wordage, sensitive issues that needed to be abandoned, excess emphasis on our own pet-peeves. I know that Jule was opposed to physician assisted death and spent her final days working on that issue as she herself was dying and in palliative care. A strong Christian woman, Jule will be welcomed into God’s everlasting embrace and into heavenly eternity with loved ones. Let us carry on her hopes and dreams for us and make her proud.

Wanda Harrison
Jule was passionate about her job and strived for perfection with every week’s edition.  When I asked her a question about anything, she dug until she could find the appropriate answer and never let anything stand in her way until she was satisfied.  Then, on the other end, could be full of compassion when it was necessary.  Kind to the end, I will never forget her and miss her terribly.

Pearl Killingbeck
All the communities are so shocked and saddened to hear of the loss of Jule Koch.  Sympathy to her family and to her newspaper family.  She will be very missed.

Chrisine Teal
Sincere condolences to the family of Jule Koch - she was the pillar of the News and will be missed dearly.  We enjoyed working with her in our years as correspondent for Parham/Tichborne as she was so supportive of us when we went through issues a couple of years ago. She was always checking in with us to make sure we were ok and to keep us on the straight and narrow and was a stickler for deadlines. She was driven by the intricate details - times, places and ensuring that we had names spelled correctly.
Rest in Peace dear friend.

Linda Rush
I met Jule many years ago at a craft show, where she was selling these very amazing little dolls she had made. Later, after the death of her first husband, I knew her as a basket maker – one of my very favourite rocking chairs was given decades more life when Jule re-caned it for me. I still sit in it every day. And I remember Jule saying she would NEVER take on such a picky, exacting job again. She was the most gentle, kind and sincere soul, and so very capable at whatever she turned her hand to. I would never have guessed that what she would turn that capable hand to would be as a business manager, but after the death of her second beloved husband, and my friend, Dave Brison, that is just what she did. She became a rock of stability and good sense at the Frontenac News, which had been owned by Dave and then became a wonderful partnership between Jule and Jeff Green. It was in this role that I knew her best, as I volunteered in the office of the News, and then as a correspondent. Always calm, steady, helpful, tolerant and able to quickly problem solve the host of weird and various issues that arise continuously in such an enterprise. I can barely imagine the News without her. My heart goes out to her children and family, and especially to Jeff and his family who will miss her dreadfully. I, too, feel very sad that the earth is no longer a home for her very special spirit.

Marily Seitz
I met Jule often out and about in the community however most of my interaction with her came through the Ompah column. She was amazing. How she was able to keep straight all the dates and events in all of the villages I do not know. I do know that she caught my errors when I wrote a hurried column. She would checked with me quickly and never lost her patience. We are feeling a hole in our hearts with the news of her death. She was our main Frontenac News contact and we shall miss her quiet capable ways. Blessings to her family.

Martina Field
The first time I met Jule, was at a craft show in the early 90's when we first moved to the area. Jule was weaving baskets at that time, beautiful baskets from willow and dogwood.  She worked at it during the entire show, as we all talked with each other and customers throughout the weekend, Jule worked away. At the end of the show, Jule had completed more than one basket and had enjoined in the visiting to boot. Jule never wasted any time. She always had a project, or many, on the go. And she was so eager to share her excitement about whatever it was that she was now up to. Whether it was gathering some native plant to cook up, running a newspaper or re-building an old log house to make her home, Jule went ahead and bravely took on whatever she needed to do. She often would teach herself how do these things by trial and error. And she accomplished so much. Just this past summer, she built a gazebo and a boat shelter and was planning to put up a zip line for her grandchildren.  Jule went about all of this very humbly and quietly, not wishing to attract attention or accolades.  She just did stuff, lots of stuff, had fun doing it and loved sharing her delight in it all. Jule was also one of the most down to earth people I know, wishing for nothing but to live simply and to enjoy the love of her family. And yet, she had such an interest in others that she made us feel that she loved so many of us as if we too were her family.  I will miss the comfort and ease of her love for all of us, her infectious interest in everything, and I can only wish that I might learn through her example

Chava Field-Green
My first memory of Jule is one my first memories. I was 4 or 5, and was helping my Mum and Jule fold Craft Inroads Studio Tour flyers. I remember how strong her basket-making hands were, she could fold 8 or 9 flyers at a time and they would be symmetrical. I could barely do two at a time, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone had to redo my helpful contributions. When I think back on this memory I think about how I must have subconsciously been learning about the power of community and also the power of women’s strength. That many hands made light work, especially with Jule’s hands among that many.
I’ve learned a lot from Jule over my lifetime, she helped teach me the ropes at the Frontenac News, and we spent countless hours driving to and from Toronto talking about life. We never really discussed our different political values, only the ones that we had in common such as our mutual love of re-using materials. When I moved home for a few months last year I worked at the newspaper. Jule had been undergoing Chemotherapy for her breast cancer and she had lost a lot of the strength in her hands. Yet she still managed to build a slide at her house. She had been collecting plastic strapping that hold the flyers to the pallets they arrive on and she really wanted to make something out of them. One afternoon she taught me how to make a basket out of this seemingly one time use material. She guided me with the enthusiasm and love that she bestowed on so many of us as we collaborated at the newspaper and in the community.
My basket is by no means as beautiful as her willow creations, but I’m so thankful to have a memory of our time together. A memory that will help to inspire me to create, to serve and work in my communities, to treat everyone I meet with respect no matter who they are or what they believe. Thank you Jule, for being such a solid human being and role model, you will be missed.

There was a broad array of hand crafted gifts, late season produce, fresh baking, sweet cider and peroghi’s for the holidays that were Charles Public School last Saturday (December 10).

While many were taken with the fact that a winery, Three Dog Winery from Prince Edward County, was on hand as the result of changes in regulations permitting Ontario beer, cider and wine producers access to farmer’s markets, there was another unusual display. Just off the gym near the north exit, Family and Children’s Services of Frontenac and Lennox and Addington (FACSFLA) – formerly known as the Childran’s Aide Society, had two senior managers on hand to talk about fostering and adopting children.

Angela Woodhouse handles recruitment of foster and adoptive families and Mary Margaret Fuller is the Manager of Resource Services, and her team guides families through the process of fostering and adopting.

“We wanted to participate in the Christmas show here because we know a lot of people come out for it,” said Woodhouse, who lives nearby, “and because we thought Christmas is a time when people think about family and community and the roles each play in people’s lives.”

Mary Margaret Fuller said that the reason FACSFLA wanted to come out to Verona in particular was that there is a need for rural families for certain foster children who are either from the area or are looking to get out of the city to be able to participate in more outdoor activities.

There are currently 25 children, most of them in the middle to older age range of 12 years and up, that FACSLA is looking to place in foster or adoptive homes at the moment.

She also said that FACSFLA has worked very hard in recent years to make sure that before any child is fostered that all avenues for family reconciliation have been explored.

“We work with families and with extended families to keep children in place or with kin, but when that is not possible we look for foster families,” she said.

FACSFLA has produced a somewat tongue in cheek “15 reasons to foster” teens as part of their recruitment campaign, which is aimed at families in the midst of their chld rearing years and also at “empty nesters” who have the time, space and inclination to live with young people again.

The list points out that “no diapers are required” and that “teens sleep through the night” and “will tell you when your old clothes are back in style”. It also offer added bonuses such as “You can teach teens to drive” and “Every kid deserves a family to rebel against” and finally “Goodbye Dora the Explorer and hello Walking Dead!”
Fostering is a serious pursuit, of course, and the process of becoming a foster family takes a year, and requires training.

The process starts when an individual or family contacts FACSLFA to express interest in fostering. This is followed by a meeting with a resource worker who lays out all of the details about how to become a foster parent, what expectations and supports there are.

This is followed by two concurrent courses. On is Parent Resources for Information, Development and Education (PRIDE) a provincial training program delivered locally over 10 three hour sessions. The other is called Structured Analysis Family Evaluation (SAFE), set of tools that are used to determine eligibility, suitability, and readiness. It takes about 10 hours of meetings to complete.

Once the entire process is completed, which can take six months or longer, efforts are made to make the best match between children with families. Heritage elements such as an indigenous background are important factors, and that is one of the reasons why FACSFLA is looking to southern and northern parts of Frontenac County for new foster families.
“Fostering is not the ideal solution for children, but good fostering is vey important to us, for the children and the foster families,” said Angela Woodhouse.

On their website, FACSFLA outlines how fostering fits into the vision that the agency has been developing over the last 4 years.

“On this journey, foster care is a temporary stop along the way. We will try to find a way for them to return home or to live with extended family. If those aren’t options, then we will find them an adoptive family. Our new vision will see foster parents take on the role of adoptive parents if and when a child needs them. This is our vision.  Our goal is to give every child the permanency they deserve.”

FACSLFA has about 200 children in care, a number that has been on a steady decline as the results of efforts to maintain children with their birth families whenever possible.

Of those 79% are over 12 years old. In the near future, however, the numbers could rise substantially as the Ontario government considers upping the age where agencies like FACSLFA have jurisdiction from 16 to 18.