Getting Famous in Central Frontenac

Bill Bowick | May 25, 2016

Have you ever wondered about being famous? About people pointing you out as an example for their children or whispering complimentary things as you walked down the street? That would be nice but how could you make that happen? How could you become famous here, in Central Frontenac? Well, you might run a general store for 70 years or so. That’s pretty good. Or you might win the egg toss at Parham Fair or play the children’s lead in a North Frontenac Theatre Company show. Better, you might play the old man’s lead part except there aren’t very many of them. Parts, I mean. There are lots of old men.

You might get drafted by a major league hockey team. But you would probably go away and never come back. Then you would just be a “used to be” famous. You could win an award from some esteemed organization but that would make you famous somewhere else, not here in Central Frontenac. You could raise a family here and send them into the world to do good things and be a source of pride for the community. That would be worthy of fame but hardly unique.

You could be a hippy who came here to escape who knows what and stayed on to build something wonderful. Or maybe a hippy who came with the intention of building something wonderful. There are a few of those. Famous? Who knows? You could come here on a one-year contract and fall in love with the place and stay on forever and ever and ever and . . . . You could be born here and grow up here and stay here to become a great hunter and fisherman and a legend people told visitors about. You know, the kind of person other people brag about knowing. “I know this guy who . . . . “

You could stand as a candidate for a party that is never going to be elected and, in the words of Rudyard Kipling, “lose and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss” . . . and lose and start again . . . and lose and start again . . . That would make you famous – as men of principle usually are. You could be a legendary teacher who established in some student an interest in mathematics or literature that was unknown to that student’s parents or a teacher who guided him through a shop project that became a life-long source of pride.

You could be a true daughter of the community who helped boot-strap her family from the shanty living of a century ago to positions of leadership today. If that didn’t make you famous, it should certainly make you proud.

Or if you really wanted to be famous, you could write Central Frontenac’s winning slogan for the 150th anniversary of confederation. Just think, 50 years from now someone will be saying, “We need a slogan for the bi-centennial program in Central Frontenac.” And someone else will say, “We can’t beat what they used the last time. Let’s use it again.”

And 150 years from now, at the tri-centennial, they’ll be saying, “Who was that girl anyway? Let’s name the town after her.”

Now that’s famous.

The contest close has been extended to June 16. Send your entries to Rosemarie Bowick. Call her at 613 279-3341 or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.