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l a n o i g e R VOLUME 13 NUMBER 48
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2015
Disabilities never stopped Blair from bringing light to people’s lives STACEY LAVALLIE WEEKENDER REPORTER If there was one thing above any other that Blair Chapman liked to do, it was hug other people. “I think he got that from his Aunt Mary,� Morgan Chapman, his father, said. “He hugged everybody.� Despite being born with a chromosome malformation, and in spite of doctors believing he’s possibly never walk or talk, Blair walked and talked — and made a huge impact on many lives before he died earlier this month at the age of 40. Blissfully unaware that he qualified as “special needs,� Blair toddled around after his 18-month-younger sister, Janene. “We grew up on a third-generation family farm,� Janene Barnette recalled. “We grew up surrounded by dad’s brothers and sister — a community country block of cousins all the same age. And Blair just came along and was included in everything.� Blair’s parents, Linda and Morgan, and Barnette credit the social interactions during his youth, as well as an intensive and “amazing� school program for creating an independent man who could read, write, do basic math and was able to socialize every day with people not facing the same challenges. “Maybe he watched me, watched the cousins, and decided that’s what he needed to do,� Barnette said. She said that the group of students in Blair’s class were “rather high functioning� and came together really well, which helped them learn and become much
more than what doctors ever could have believed. “He did Special Olympics, he played sports,� Barnette said. “He hung out with hockey players and athletes. He never realized how very different he was.� One day, early in the Stettler Lightning existence, Blair showed up and fell in love with the team. His friends from school were playing on it, and while he couldn’t play, he wanted to be around his friends. He became first the team’s No. 1 fan, then assumed the mantle of equipment manager. Eventually, he became assistant general manager. For 17 years, Blair travelled with the team, took care of equipment, took care of paperwork, and just had fun. With a few bumps along the way. “I remember a player used to squirt him with water from his bottle every time he passed (as a joke),� Lightning President Byron Geddes recalled. “Then one time Blair waited with a bucket of water for the players to come out and emptied it on his (the player’s) head.� The player took it in good stead, pointing out with a laugh that he had deserved it. He stopped squirting his pal. Blair would also sometimes lash out at the referee and linesmen on what he thought were bad calls. One time he even got suspended. For the most part, until two years ago when he retired, the Lightning was a special project and passion that Blair to which dedicated himself. “He’d write down all the goals and assists, he’d keep the stats and be quite
Contributed Photo
Chapman at the door of the Lightning locker room at the Stettler Rec Centre wearing the jacket of his beloved team.
involved,� Barnette recalled. “He’d get the game charts to wherever they had to go. He had to fax them somewhere. And he took that very seriously.� With all of the people he went to school with out of the Lightning, and with work and his health declining, Blair retired from the Lightning two years ago, after 17 years of volunteering with the team. “He was just a great kid,� Doug Smith, former head coach and now general manager of the team, said. “We were lucky to have him with us.� Blair moved out right after graduating from high school, at the age of 20, and lived on his own for the rest of his life. He worked several odd jobs, but the most enduring and favourite of all those jobs was working at Sobeys,
starting there at 2001. At the end of October, Blair went in for minor surgery on his throat. While under anesthesia, he suffered a cardiac arrest, and by the time doctors had his heart beating again, he’d suffered traumatic brain damage. Taken by Air Ambulance to the University of Alberta hospital in Edmonton, Blair spent nine days in a coma when the family made the difficult decision to take him off life support. Blair died Nov. 6, 2015 at the age of 40. “You never expect the overflow (of compassion and friends) that we got,� Morgan Chapman said. “But I was really happy that it happened. It would have meant so much to him, and it meant so much to us.�