{"id":18247,"date":"2012-09-12T14:51:23","date_gmt":"2012-09-12T19:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=18247"},"modified":"2018-12-20T11:37:51","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T16:37:51","slug":"les-mccurdy-myers-the-toast-of-annual-tribute-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2012\/09\/les-mccurdy-myers-the-toast-of-annual-tribute-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Les McCurdy-Myers the toast of annual Tribute! event"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Les

Les McCurdy-Myers will be toasted and roasted at this year's Tribute! event on Sept. 21. <\/p><\/div>\n

If ever there was anyone who doubted Les McCurdy-Myers would be a success, it would be a younger version of McCurdy-Myers himself.<\/p>\n

For years as McCurdy-Myers, Brock’s manager of personal counselling and leadership development, plugged away at his psychology degree as a part-time student at Brock, he was dogged by this niggling feeling that maybe it wasn’t meant to be.<\/p>\n

After all, as someone who failed Grade 1 and Grade 6, McCurdy-Myers figured he didn’t have what it took to go to university. And he had even less of it to go on to grad school at the University of Toronto.<\/a><\/p>\n

“By the time I got to Grade 7, I thought I wouldn’t go to university. I didn’t think I was smart enough,” McCurdy-Myers said. “It was scary enough thinking I’d get through and get a BA let alone going to grad school. How could someone who wasn’t smart enough to go to university go to grad school?”<\/p>\n

The answer, in hindsight, was simple enough for a guy who was given the moniker Lester the Tester while working in quality control at the Ontario Paper Company in Thorold<\/a> – Les is actually short for Leslie – while getting his bachelor’s degree.<\/p>\n

He worked hard, got good grades, started to take on more at school and had a professor who believed in him, even when McCurdy-Myers didn’t always believe in himself.<\/p>\n

It was David Jordan, who taught McCurdy-Myers in a fourth year psychology course and was director at the Student Development Centre, where McCurdy-Myers worked as a peer counsellor. Jordan told the budding psychologist he thought he had something to bring to the profession.<\/p>\n

The other counsellors at the centre also considered McCurdy-Myers more of a colleague than a student peer counsellor and his thinking began to change.
\n“I’m smart enough to at least try and see what I can do,” McCurdy-Myers recalled thinking about his graduate studies.<\/p>\n

Still, he left his coffee mug behind because he was sure whatever happened he was coming back to Brock.<\/p>\n

He was right. During his graduate studies, he completed three internships at the University. When he finished school, he got a contract job, then worked up to permanent seasonal status before becoming a fixture year-round in the Student Development Centre<\/a> for the next 35 years.<\/p>\n

In that time, McCurdy-Myers helped students through trying times, has coached 36 crews of residence dons to be able to assist those living on campus and serves as a residence liaison, stepping in when crisis calls.<\/p>\n

“I remember 10 years ago thinking I’m not going to make 35 (groups of dons), I’m only going to make 34,” McCurdy-Myers recalled. “Maybe they’ll let me come back and do a small piece so I can say I did 35.”<\/p>\n

Now he’s eyeing Freedom 70, depending how he feels, and having 40 groups of dons trained by the time he calls it a career.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, though, McCurdy-Myers will be toasted – and roasted – at this year’s Tribute! event on Sept. 21<\/a> where he is the guest of honour.<\/p>\n

For a guy whose thesis topic was humour, his mantra is “He took himself seriously but tried not to take himself solemnly.”<\/p>\n

Ask him if he’s OK with being poked fun at in a roast and he’ll answer yes, albeit slowly.<\/p>\n

“It took a little bit to sink in. Then I started to think, what if no one shows up,” McCurdy-Myers said.<\/p>\n

He is convinced, though, that there’s enough fodder for the folks who will be taking shots at him.<\/p>\n

“I’d be lying if I didn’t say on occasion I’ve done some laughable things and that’s fine,” he said.<\/p>\n

The Tribute! event honouring Les McCurdy-Myers happens Friday, Sept. 21 at 6:30 p.m. at Pond Inlet. Tickets are $45, include dinner with wine and parking, and must be purchased in advance.<\/p>\n

To reserve tickets, call 905-688-5550, ext. 4769 or ext. 4636 or email welcomedesk@brocku.ca.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If ever there was anyone who doubted Les McCurdy-Myers would be a success, it would be a younger version of McCurdy-Myers himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":18250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,1],"tags":[176,546,3324,29,67,545],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18247"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18247"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18254,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18247\/revisions\/18254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}