An icon loses his battle to survive, but a rich legacy lives on forever
By Jesse Kohl, Staff Reporter

In the end, the family of well-known Armour Township reeve Richard Thomas decided to let the man with the golden voice “die with dignity.”

For nearly two months after Thomas was critically injured in an accident with a transport truck on Hwy 11 in Burk’s Falls, he showed some signs of progress, such as eye contact with family members, nodding and shaking his head. On Sunday, February 19, Thomas choked in the night and suffered a major heart attack and stroke, according to his daughter, Sarah Thomas.

“Weeks of progress had been erased,” said Sarah in an interview at the home of her mother, Jenny, near Burk’s Falls on Tuesday. “That he would have some kind of a life – that’s all we had hoped for.”

Richard Thomas died minutes before midnight on Wednesday, February 22, holding Jenny’s hand in a private room. Although he had been revived after the heart attack and stroke the previous Sunday, he was left with serious brain damage. He would not have been able to live a life that he deserved, according to Sarah. After consulting with doctors, Jenny made the decision to have her husband’s breathing tube removed and other life-support stopped.

The well-known writer and self-described “environmental economist” died at the age of 74. Thomas was attempting to make a left-hand turn into Burk’s Falls from Hwy 11 when the pickup truck he was driving was struck by a tractor trailer at about 9:15 a.m. on December 27, 2005. He was not wearing a seatbelt, and his body was thrown from the pickup truck. The accident left Thomas with detached vertebrae in his neck, two spinal fractures, a shattered pelvis, a dislocated hip, a broken femur in his right leg and four broken ribs. He also suffered a head concussion.

He underwent four major surgeries, all of which “went well,” according to Sarah. “As the weeks passed, it started to look like dad was surviving... He got the best possible care that the province has to offer... But in a sense, it was the transport that killed him.”

The family has decided not to hold a public funeral. Instead, a memorial service will be scheduled for early April.

“We chose not to have a funeral because our family is not religious, and we know that’s not what dad would have wanted,” said Sarah, who will return from her home in Singapore for three weeks in April.

News of Thomas’ death spread quickly throughout the community of Burk’s Falls and the surrounding area.

“I heard it on the street before it was confirmed,” said Armour deputy reeve Marty Corcoran, who will replace Thomas as the head of council for the remainder of this term. “Pretty near every day, somebody was asking how he was doing. For the last little while, we didn’t get very many details.”

Armour councillors were informed of Thomas’ death at a meeting last Thursday night. The flag at the Township offices was flying at half-mast.

“I saw the OPP flag at full mast, and I saw ours at half mast, and that’s when I knew something was up,” said councillor Bob MacPhail. “It’s a big loss to the community, but we will move forward.”

Municipal representatives from across the area, gathered in Burk’s Falls for a steering committee meeting last Thursday night, held a minute of silence in honour of Thomas upon hearing the news.

“Richard is going to be greatly missed by those of us who served with him,” said Jack Miners, a Ryerson Township councillor and chair of the steering committee.

As a young man, Thomas travelled across North America and eventually worked his way through the radio industry. His unique baritone garnered him work doing voice-overs for many television commercials. He was known on this continent and overseas for his broadcast work.

In the 1970s, Thomas gained much attention for converting a Volvo to run on ‘moonshine’ alcohol, which he produced using his own crops. The operation made national news when the RCMP busted him for bootlegging. The charges were eventually dropped by the federal government, which recognized the need for alternative energy sources.

Thomas also took his revolutionary ideas into the realm of politics. Having served as a Perry Township councillor in the 1970s, Thomas set his sights on provincial politics. Running under the Liberal banner in the 1981 provincial election, Thomas came within six votes of winning the Parry Sound riding from Ernie Eves. That election stuck the ‘Landslide Ernie’ nickname on the man who would later become Ontario Premier.

Richard McGuire was a reporter working in Parry Sound who covered Thomas’ battle against the bootlegging charges and his famous near-victory in running against Eves.

“In the election campaign, Eves blandly mouthed Conservative platitudes, while Thomas articulately challenged the status quo with his revolutionary ideas about developing a greener society,” McGuire wrote. “The election was like nothing I’d seen before or since.”

The year after that election, Thomas ran for the leadership of the Ontario Liberals, placing third. From 1990 to 2001, Thomas ran as a candidate for the Green Party in several elections. No Green Party candidate has ever attracted more votes than Thomas in Ontario.

Living at a farm north of Burk’s Falls, Thomas won the seat at the head of Armour council in the 2003 municipal elections. Shortly after that victory, people from across the area knocked on his door with offers of help when the newly-elected reeve’s barn went up in flames, killing his livestock.

“He was a real leader, as far as I’m concerned,” said Corcoran. “He’d take on an issue, take the ball and run with it, and he knew what he was talking about.”

Thomas is survived by his wife, Jane Anne (Jenny); his daughters, Sarah, Nell and Pandora Milgram, his son, Jeremy, and three grandchildren, Eli, Miranda and Bradley. As one of nine children, Thomas is survived by three living siblings, including brothers William and John Thomas, sister Jean Comfort, half-brothers Dean Thomas and Tony Qualls and half sister Mary Wilson.

Viewpoint-
Remembering Richard
By Nancy Barner

Having recently traded a microphone for a typewriter, I was somewhat in awe when Richard Thomas first came into my life. I’d have never left radio if I had possessed anywhere near the dulcet tones he was blessed with!

Because Richard Thomas was known by so many Canadian television viewers and radio audiences, he did not seem a stranger upon our first meeting. What I remember most were his handsome good looks — rather sexy for an ‘older’ man — the flirtatious twinkle in his eye, that luscious voice (something we at work all looked forward to hearing Monday mornings, when Richard walked into the editorial department at the newspaper where I worked for so many years and read his column).

I never tired of that voice, and Richard remained just as handsome, sexy and flirtatious, no matter how much older we all got. He was constant, true to himself, and even when he thought his columns (and broadcasts) were a tad boring or lacked luster, they did not. They were sometimes amusing and anecdotal, were often political and were ALWAYS thought-provoking.

Over the years, the awe vanished — replaced by an ever-growing respect for a man of his convictions. Richard Thomas cared deeply about humanity and this planet we call Earth. He did more in his lifetime for humanitarian and environmental causes than most even think about, let alone act on.

One would certainly not describe Richard as a man of faith, but he was far more spiritual than most Christians I know. He absolutely loved all that Mother Nature provides and took none of it for granted. Rather, he tried to wake us all up to the fragile balance of nature and how humanity is quickly destroying all of what most believe is a creation of God.

Should Richard discover that there is a ‘hereafter’ in his journey, no one will be more amused than he. He’ll get into a great debate at the gates before he’s welcomed in, and then laugh out loud at himself!

The man with the voice — Richard Thomas — had a wonderful sense of humour. I have seen him mad, glad, but NEVER sad. In spite of how discouraged he sometimes was with his fellow man, Richard remained an optimist. He always had hope. It must have been what kept him going for so long, all these weeks since that fateful December 27 accident on Hwy 11. Being confined to a wheelchair, or unable to use his splendid mind, would not have been something any of us could have imagined for Richard, though, no matter how hopeful. It was time to say “goodbye.”

To Jenny and the family, we at the Almaguin Forester extend our deepest, heartfelt sympathy. Your husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, friend is gone in body, but his spirit and memory live on forever. May you find comfort in the knowledge of how many lives he truly touched and inspired, both here and far beyond Almaguin.

When I listen to the tapes he so kindly made for me, I will remember Richard with sincere warmth and the utmost respect. Like Ralph Bice, what Richard Thomas taught me most is that intelligence is not measured by what’s metered out in the classroom. There were no letters behind Richard’s name, but he was brilliant — one of the most intelligent men I ever met.