It’s been a theory of mine that the only thing in which
you can take an interest is something you are part of.
— Ted Russell, Newfoundland playwright,
teacher, and politician, 1904–77
Springdale was an eclectic, vibrant cluster of humanity when I first showed up there in July 1960 and remains so to this day. Sure, it had some of the trappings and drawbacks of a small town. But it had something else far more edifying—a clear vision of what could be and an undaunted determination to make it happen.
During my first stint there, I dabbled in community affairs, organizing debates and speak-offs, making a few tentative stabs at ecumenism and facilitating the rink projects mentioned earlier.
When I returned to Springdale as principal of Grant Collegiate in 1965, I once again became engaged in the community at large. Green Bay’s then-thriving mining sector and Springdale’s business interests were largely in the hands of a cadre of young progressives, men, and a handful of women, who weren’t intimidated by change. Importantly, they controlled the levers that would mobilize a thorough makeover in educational, social, economic, and transportation infrastructure and services, resulting in significant quality-of-life improvement.
The imperative was to overhaul the town’s inefficient school system, the crying need for better medical and seniors’ care, the provision of recreational facilities, highway improvements, establishing a community newspaper, diversifying the economy, and taking steps to reduce unemployment. It was a formidable to-do list for a modest-sized town. Every item formed part of an urgent community agenda, and the movers and shakers never let up until the job was done.
Springdale became, and remains, the envy of towns its size and larger. Social scientists and community planners flocked to the town, hoping to understand what was happening, scrutinizing the local chemistry to determine its potential for replication elsewhere. One such interloper was Anthony Cohen, a British social anthropologist, who skilfully dissected the town’s decision-making mysteries in his authoritative literary work, entitled The Management of Myths: The Politics of Legitimation in a Newfoundland Community. Dr. Cohen decided that I, still in my twenties, was one of four men who run the town, asserting I was regularly consulted by the mayor, the magistrate, and the leading businessmen, and was the instigator of locally based initiatives. Notwithstanding, Cohen perceived that,
[Simmons] . . . suffered from three disadvantages . . . he was clever, smart (a label which is a liability in Springdale) . . . he was young (and seen as) aggressively ambitious with a pernicious self-interest . . . Third, he could not talk in the local idiom.
It was an exciting, demanding, transformative time. And I was smack in the middle of it all. As a founding member and officer of the local chamber of commerce, I helped make the case (successful) for a paved road link to the island’s highway network.
When a town delegation was dispatched to lobby Premier Smallwood, I was one of the four who made the pitch (successful) for the establishment at Springdale of a vocational school/community college.
When the municipal council tasked a volunteer commission with raising capital for a hockey and curling facility, I was part of that initiative (successful). The need for a swimming pool was identified. I got involved in the effort and had the honour of emceeing the ribbon-cutting to launch the new facility.
The local education district sought provincial funding to enlarge and refurbish the town’s regional high school. Of course, as the school board’s administrator, my fingerprints were all over that undertaking. And yes, success!
When the founding editor of the local newspaper moved away, I bought it, upgraded to commercial typesetting and offset printing, hired a staff, and published the paper for a few months, until I sold out to my employee and former student Francis Hull. The newspaper continues to this day and is now one of thirty-five weeklies and dailies owned by Halifax-based SaltWire Network.
Tackling unemployment
For five years as president of the economic development organization, I helped catalyze a successful drive to bring industry to the town and region after the collapse of the local mining sector, a victim of falling world copper prices. First, though, I had to deal with a more immediate problem. The retired judge who was executive director of the development agency treated the job as a sinecure. The critical times the community was facing needed a proactive go-getter with ideas and energy to burn, someone with a results-oriented drive and a healthy work ethic. And I had just the right person in mind, Maurice Budgell, a teacher colleague.
Maurice took on the job. He and I became an inseparable team as we helped to spearhead the economic revitalization of a community devastated by mine closings. A jewellery manufacturing enterprise based on locally quarried virginite60, an assay lab which services the province’s mining industry, a dramatically expanded farming sector61, and a highway beautification project were among the success stories. Regionally, we helped kick-start several ventures, among them a fish processing plant at Triton and a cottage industry in craft production. A tangible reminder of our efforts survives to this day, nearly a half-century later. Motorists on the Trans-Canada Highway approaching the Springdale area from east or west drive through one of two masonry walls bearing the words Welcome to scenic Green Bay, part of a make-work stonecutting initiative.
Ottawa, 1970. L-R: Maurice Budgell, executive secretary, Green Bay Economic Development Association (GBEDA); Hon. Jean Marchand, minister of Regional Economic Expansion; Hon. Don Jamieson, minister of Transport; Roger Simmons, President of GBEDA. (Author photo)
An inspiring sidebar to the highway beautification project relates to the stonecutter. After combing the province for a qualified candidate, we found the guy with the required skill set right under our nose, living in a community close by. In his late fifties, he had been unemployed for so long that he had given up all hope of ever finding a job. He and his family scraped by on welfare. Local stereotyping pigeonholed him.
“He’s too lazy to drag himself out of bed, let alone do a day’s work.”
We hired him anyway. Not only was he a whiz of a stonecutter, he taught others his trade, and together they quarried and cut stones, built the ornamental walls, and installed a masonry facade on our new office building.
For the stonecutter, it was a new lease on life as he went on to other jobs. For those of us who saw him in action, it was an instructive reality check. Too often, the easy judgment is to conclude that unemployed people are lazy. The truth is that, like the stonecutter, most jobless people will jump at the chance to work again.
I was juggling a lot of balls. The education superintendency, my day job, had its own set of demands and priorities. Extensive travel, mostly over winding dirt roads, was a given. The more isolated communities were a three-hour drive from my Springdale office. Three schools were accessible by boat only. There was always a construction project to monitor, a speech to deliver, a small personnel problem to resolve before it became a big one.
Calculating friend
All told, I lived in Springdale for eleven years. Overall, my time there was immensely rewarding and enjoyable. Notwithstanding, I do recall a couple of incidents where snobbery and prejudice got the upper hand.
My teacher friend and I were headed out of town for Christmas. I decided to make a quick stop at a festive house party to which I had been invited and persuaded him to join me. The host, a prominent businessman, met us at the door. As my friend mingled with the other guests, most of whom he knew as parents of his students, the host took me to task: “Roger, you’re always welcome in our home, but please don’t bring your second-class friends around here.”
A few short years later, the businessman had a change of heart. The fact that my friend had in the meantime become the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador was, undeniably, just a happy coincidence! Even second-class creatures sometimes get a second chance.