It’s only fitting an elementary school would be named for a man who was so gentle he could make a friend with what most people consider a nuisance.
The Okotoks community celebrated the renovations to Ecole Percy Pegler School on Nov. 18 and its namesake, Percy Pegler, who was committed to children and education.
According to his great-granddaughter Kathy Coutts Pegler was a gentle soul.
“Some of my best memories is of him and his magpie,” Coutts said. “He had trained this magpie to talk and kept him in his cage. He treated it very well.
“It was great fun going to visit him. He was just a kind gentle man.”
Pegler came to the Okotoks area in 1911 at approximately 20 years of age. He worked in a brick plant near Okotoks until it went out of business.
However, seeing a wise investment when he saw one, Pegler purchased the land on which the brick plant was located in the mid 1920s and began his farming career.
He planted roots in the community as well as crops.
Although his schooling was limited, Pegler made a commitment to education.
“He was a school trustee before schools were amalgamated into a school division — small schools would each have their own boards in those days,” Coutts said.
He was a trustee for the one-room school Panima School in the Okotoks area. Coutts said she believed it was in the 1930s.
When the school division was formed, Pegler was no longer a trustee, but his voice was heard.
“He still went to school board meetings and spoke his mind,” Coutts said. “He wanted to know how decisions that were made would impact the children.
“Even when he wasn’t a school trustee, he was still a thorn in the side of the school board to make sure that kids came first.”
Former Foothills School Division teacher Doug Andrews, who was a neigbhour of Pegler, wrote in a eulogy to Pegler in 1973 of Pegler’s commitment to education.
“Many public meetings were enlivened by Mr. Pegler’s pertinent questions,” Andrews wrote. “Born into the English tradition of the importance of the dissenting voice, he made his experience and concern felt and in matters of controversy and spoke out for basic democratic rights.”
He was also a person willing to tackle any school mess.
Pegler became a custodian at an Okotoks Lower School when his farming career began to wind down. “Like most farmers when he retired and then moved into town he said: ‘What the heck am I going to do now,’” Coutts said. “He needed something to do and he loved children and education. So he became a custodian.”
He was also the school’s soccer coach.
Pegler passed away in 1973.
When a new school opened in 1976, the community selected the name Percy Pegler School in honour of the former trustee and custodian.
Former Highwood MLA George Wolstenholme as well as author and ex-Alberta MLA, the Honourable Dr. Grant MacEwan, attended the opening ceremonies.
MacEwan called Pegler a hero of the community.
“Percy Pegler was an inspiration to children and kids need heroes like they need porridge,” MacEwan said, in an excerpt from a 1976 edition of the High River Times. “Percy Pegler was a hero, children admired him. He unselfishly served at the local level and he had a passion for helping kids and helping everyone.”
MacEwan praised the community “for having the good sense to perpetuate the memory of a fellow of Percy Pegler’s calibre by naming the school after him.”
Pegler was definitely a hero to his youngest daughter, Fran Tillotson.
“He was a humble man; he would be pleased that his values are being carried on by the younger generation,” the 89-year-old Tillotson said on Sunday.
"He was deeply interested in education, the environment, conservation and he believed in an honest day's pay for an honest day's work,” she added. “These old values are as alive today as they were in his day.”
Pegler passed away on Aug. 5, 1973 at 82 years of age.
