THURSDAY
K A M L O O P S
THIS WEEK
FOR
PETE’S
SAKE
BREAKING NEWS: BODY FOUND IN GUERIN CREEK NEIGHBOURHOOD? TURN TO PAGE A5 AND GO ONLINE TO KAMLOOPSTHISWEEK.COM Thursday, December 6, 2012 X Volume 25 No. 97 www.kamloopsthisweek.com X 30 cents at Newsstands
By Dale Bass STAFF REPORTER dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
It was a windy day on Remembrance Day. Really windy. The kind of wind that can knock things over. At Pete Edwards’ cabin out at the far end of Ord Road, the wind was so blustery it knocked over Pete’s chimney. Pipes broke and, before he knew it, there was a fire in the rafters. “I ran outside and got a bucket of water and thought I had it out,” Pete says. He ran to a neighbour’s house to call the fire department — the 85-year-old doesn’t have a phone — “and, when I got back, it was too late. “All that was left was the concrete floor. I swept it today and it’s so clean now we could have a dance.” It wouldn’t be a big dance; Pete’s home for the last 14 years has been a small place, just big
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enough for him and his cats. “The fire scared the kittens,” he says, “so they got outta there quick.” He lives at the site at the request of its owners to make sure there’s someone always there. One of the delights of his day is looking after his chickens. “I just look after things,” Pete says of what he has been doing there all these years “I was told I could live here until I die. Maybe they didn’t realize I was gonna live so long.” Pete is known throughout Kamloops as much for helping others as he is for his years as stage manager with the Kamloops Symphony Orchestra or his job at the Kipp-Mallery Drug Store, where he was a dispenser. Since the fire, he’s been living elsewhere but, now, he wants to go home — and friends are stepping up to ensure he can do that. Micheal Munro, who has known Pete for years, is spearheading a move to get building materials X See MY HEART A21
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PETE EDWARDS (LEFT) AND MICHEAL MUNRO PICK THROUGH THE ASHEN REMNANTS OF PETER’S CABIN. HIS ORD ROAD HOME WAS DESTROYED BY A FIRE ON REMEMBRANCE DAY AND MUNRO IS SPEARHEADING AN EFFORT TO REBUILD HIS FRIEND’S ABODE. DAVE EAGLES/KTW
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