RICHARD PURSER (1934 - 2011)

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RICHARD PURSER (1934 - 2011) Richard Purser, long-retired aviation columnist for the Calgary Herald, died on December 1, 2011 at Calgary. He was born on December 9, 1934 in Winnipeg but considered himself a Montrealer. His father, Vaughn Purser, came from Kent County in southwestern Ontario and joined the Bank of Montreal after returning from service in the Cyclist Corps in France and Belgium during the First World War. He met Richard's mother, Norma Stoddart, who come from a Calgary family, when he was on assignment there for the bank. After their marriage, he was reassigned by the bank to Winnipeg, where Richard was born. But he was again reassigned, this time to the bank's headquarters in Montreal - where he spend the rest of his career until his retirement - when Richard was only six months old. So Richard never had any early memories of Winnipeg and in fact spend the first 25 years of his life in Montreal, hence his identification with that city rather than the city of his birth. Richard first encountered journalism with the McGill Daily, the student newspaper at McGill University in Montreal, and spring boarded from there to his first paying newspaper job - $45 a week - at the now-defunct Montreal Star. After serving there first as reporter and then as desk editor, he was tapped by a more experienced colleague on the Star's desk for his breakthrough job. That colleague was appointed as managing editor of the Calgary Albertan (now succeeded by the Calgary Sun) - and took Richard with him as a news editor. Thus Richard found himself back in his mother's home town, where he had previously spent many summer vacations with her family. After a couple of years at the Albertan, the paper's owner, FP Publishing Ltd., tapped Richard first as editorial writer at its flagship newspaper, the Winnipeg Free Press - thus inadvertently reconnecting him with the city of his birth - and then for stints as correspondent for the chain in London (early 1960s), Washington (late 1960s, during which Richard spent a term at the University of Toronto as a Southam Fellow) and Quebec City. Richard quit FP for personal reasons early into this last assignment and joined the Southam organization - which brought him once again back to Winnipeg, first as a political reporter for the Winnipeg Tribune and then as a business reporter and editor. When the paper closed down in 1980, Richard transferred to Southam's Calgary Herald - yet another return to his mother's city. He served first as business reporter, with a weekly transportation column focusing on aviation, writing extensively on the controversial competition between Air Canada and Canadian International Airlines and the actions and tactics of their then chief executive officers. Richard took early retirement from the Herald at 57. The next year, 1992, he was tapped by the local owner of a pair of aviation trade magazines, Wings and Helicopters, to assume their editorial functions. He formally became editor early in 1995 and retained that title until the owner, desiring to retire, sold the magazines in late 2001 to a Ontario publisher who moved production and the editorship to Ontario. Via the internet, Richard remained in Calgary yet served under contract as senior associate editor, writing a column, vetting the copy just before they went to press. Deteriorating health caused Richard to terminate his contract early in 2009, thus ending 55 years in journalism. At Richard's request, his remains have been cremated without a memorial or funeral service.

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Dec 16, 2011