An evening at the Mayor’s Gala

Syd and I attended the Mayor’s Gala For The Arts with Al and Leslie Guthro on Saturday night. Nice event — low-brow and casual compared to the other annual galas despite being billed as “elegant.” This one was actually supposed to be the 2009 gala but the mayor had a scheduling conflict last fall.

All the politicians were there. . . .can you imagine Cathy McLeod, Terry Lake, Kevin Krueger, and Peter Milobar (plus councillors Tina Lange, John O’Fee, John DeCicco, Denis Walsh and Pat Wallace) all in the same room and railway ties not being mentioned even once?

Other than the arts, the main topic for the evening was cowboy hats. Right off the bat, emcee Alan Corbishley, who’s still relatively new in these parts, innocently slighted a big part of our local heritage, economy and lifestyle by telling the audience how nice they all looked — and how great it was that nobody was wearing a cowboy hat.

When it came MLA Kevin Krueger’s turn to speak, he gently pointed out Corbishley’s faux pas, informing him that the reason the brims of cowboy hats curl up is so three cowboys can fit in a pickup truck.

Back at the mike, Corbishley desperately tried to attone, falling all over himself apologizing and professing to actually like cowboy hats. If he’d back-peddled any harder he’d have landed in the kitchen. A show of hands indicated at least half the people in the room own a cowboy hat. Corbishley’s apologies were so sincere and comical that he was forgiven; and I’m certain that if he gets a return gig at next year’s gala he’ll be wearing a Stetson.

A little later, there were some groans when he complained about the increasing lack of support from government for the arts. Krueger, of course, is the provincial minister in charge of arts funding. Thus began another apology. It was taken in good fun and, all in all, Corbishley  was the entertainment highlight of the evening.

Receiving the Mayor’s Award For the Arts was educator Rhona Armes; runners up were artist Trish Sellmer and drama teacher Sheda Petersen, who once suggested high school student Milobar should forget drama and focus on shop.

Milobar noted that there’s talk of a brand new theatre within the next seven to 10 years, a notion that is getting some support from the arts community. It would be great if that’s the case, because only a few years ago, when I proposed putting the $2.5 million cost of renovating the Sagebrush toward construction of a new theatre, the late David Ross of Western Canada Theatre, and symphony president Ray Zacharias were adamantly opposed.

But that’s a story for another day, perhaps in the City Hall series.