Ed was the Principal of K.S.S. in 1971-72 when I was the President of the student council. But for me, he was so much more than that. High schools, I believe, are fundamentally important in the development of young minds. And in my life, there were two people who had a great impact on how I think and what I believe to be important. One was Bob Cleghorn, who could not possibly understand how significant he was in the way I would subsequently come to interpret the world. And the other, was Ed Tait, who I have thought of over the years as one of the most profoundly decent individuals with whom I have ever had contact with.

When one is seventeen years old (with an attitude appropriate to that age), one does not come that often in to contact with an individual who understands, at that time, what you are all about. For me, Ed Tait was that and more.

Ed was just a great guy who I liked a lot then and, as years go by, I like him even more. One of my great regrets is that I never found the opportunity to directly tell him how much he meant to me. I don't think I could do what I do now if someone like him had not come in to my life when he did.

And permit me to say a word or two about Heather Tait. Heather and my mother were great friends then and they remain great friends now. So, Heather, this part is for you: any good things I do (I hope there have been some and I hope there will be more), are in part attributable to time I spent in Ed's office talking about what citizenship means. I actually, despite what people might have thought at the time, loved Ed Tait. And thirty-two years later, I still do. The way I see it (if you're lucky), you might come across five or six people in your life that can have a profound impact on what you become as a person. I think I'm up to three, but I started with Ed Tait.

I have never been to a high school reunion. There were people there who touched me more deeply than they know. And I hope that, at some point, I might see one or two of them again. I'm here tonight with my daughters, Andraya Avison, who graduated from high school in 2004 and Kirsten who graduates two years from now. I think I do understand how much their friends mean to them. This has helped me to appreciate how much Paul Wright, Mario Comazzetto, Doug Malanchuk, Mel Cassidy, Richard Christianson, Rajinder Singh (even though he was a North Kam guy), and Melvin Lowenberger meant to me. And Bill Dansey too - a person I never had a chance to tell how much I liked him. These are the people I loved in high school (okay, there was Vicki Burris and Sandy Steeple too), but Ed Tait was one of those people as well. You see, Ed was actually one of us. Not an easy trick for a principal of a high school. I deeply regret I never found the chance to tell him these things directly. I believe he always thought of us as "his kids." I'm very proud to be one of them.