Casey Brouwer threw his hat into the ring last week to run in a by-election to replace school trustee June Harrington. Penny Duperron filed her papers previously and John Redenbach filed just before nominations closed. (Richard McGuire photo)
A by-election to fill a vacant school trustee position for Osoyoos will go ahead in November with three candidates running.
Casey Brouwer filed nomination papers Sept. 27, three days before the end of the nomination period on Friday.
Penny Duperon, another candidate, filed her papers the previous week.
Nomination papers for John Redenbach were also received just before the deadline.
The by-election will fill a vacancy resulting from long-time trustee June Harrington’s decision to step down.
It will take place Nov. 5, with voting in the library of Osoyoos Elementary School. There is also an advance vote on Oct. 26 in the same location.
Brouwer, a Town of Osoyoos employee, said in an interview Monday that he’s always been a community oriented person and he’s established that record in the 12 years he’s lived in Osoyoos.
Duperron was interviewed for the Sept. 21 edition of the Osoyoos Times. Redenbach’s nomination was announced too late for an interview this week.
Brouwer said he is in his eighth year of coaching basketball and fifth year of coaching the Osoyoos Secondary School (OSS) Senior Boys Rattlers.
His goal was not just to do the job, but to see it develop, he said.
“I want to create something and we’ve done that with the senior boys,” he said. “Our goal was to go to the provincials and in three years we did that. We repeated provincials again and so we’re continuing with that.”
The single father of two high-school-age boys, says one son goes to OSS and the other goes to Southern Okanagan Secondary School (SOSS) in Oliver.
“So I’ve got a kid in both,” he said. “I can see how you want to have the best education possible for the child and not just biased opinion just for Osoyoos or just for Oliver, depending on where you live.”
Brouwer said he sat back and didn’t get heavily involved in the “whole ordeal” surrounding the threatened closure of OSS.
“Obviously I’m very passionate for Osoyoos because of being a coach there,” he said, adding he would have been saddened if the team he had developed came to an end. “Inside my heart, I kind of knew that the school would still be here, so I wasn’t too worried about it.”
Brouwer said he didn’t think about running until about a month ago when somebody mentioned in passing that he would be a good candidate. The idea then kept coming back into his head as he saw reminders about the trustee election.
He said he would approach the trustee position as an advocate, helping the school board to be a voice in the community.
“I’m not going in there with how I want things done,” he said. “I’m going in with an open mind. A lot of this, to be completely honest, is new to me. So I’m not going in with preconceived ideas. It’s going to be an open page and I want to hear from the people and present it.”
Brouwer said he was involved with the parent advisory council a little bit when his oldest son first went to high school, but otherwise his involvement with the school system has been through his children.
He has, however, been involved extensively with young people, including with the Okanagan Boys and Girls Club, the YMCA and as a youth pastor.
“I’ve done counselling for youth, I’ve done adolescent development so I’ve always been around the younger generation, involved with them whether it’s sports, programs at the rec centre, camps, after school programs, mentoring. That kind of stuff,” he said.
“I’ve always thought if I was to go back to school, I’d be a teacher,” he said. “I enjoy being around people, that interaction.”
Brouwer was born in Grimsby, Ontario on the Niagara Peninsula. His parents were pastors, so he did a lot of moving as a young child, ending up in B.C. when he was 10.
He has lived in such places as Kelowna, Fort Langley and Armstrong, before finally coming to Osoyoos 12 years ago at the age of 26.
He was hired by the town soon after he arrived, working at the Sonora Community Centre. Currently he works for the town in operational services (public works).
He describes his life as a single father as “a journey,” but not a “struggle.”
One of his philosophies, that he uses with his basketball team and has applied to his life, “is that we have wins and we have lessons. We don’t have wins and losses.”
When his team loses the game on the score clock, he asks them in the dressing room what lessons they learned.
“I’ve learned a lot of lessons,” he said, adding that he hopes to use those, as well as his wins, to help the community.
“I love Osoyoos,” he said. “I love our area that we’re in. If I can make a difference, I want to be able to do that.”
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
