Former Private Eye looked inward to change her life by Brandon Walker
After graduating from college, Sarah ValiquetteThompson spent six years as a private investigator in Barrie. It was a thrilling, and sometimes scary, job. Although she enjoyed it and met amazing people on stakeouts, the idea of attending university constantly lingered in the back of her mind. “Truthfully…I was always intimidated by university. I don’t know why,” says Sarah, a Ward 1 Councillor for the City of Orillia. “I was really nervous that I couldn’t measure up. I didn’t think I was good enough for university.” In 2010 she was in her van doing surveillance when she started looking into universities on the internet to pass the time. “Lakehead was just opening a campus in Orillia and that sounded less intimidating than going down to Toronto for school.”
p Sarah and her family fell in love with Orillia’s outdoor lifestyle.
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She decided to visit Lakehead’s new campus and the rest, as they say, is history. “I toured the school and loved it.” Sarah registered for the Bachelor of Arts program and realized she had nothing to worry about.
“Because for me it was so beyond the piece of paper. I wanted to be the first in my family to attend college and then university, to put in 110 per cent and get the best marks and experience that I possibly could,” she says.
“The classes are small, professors are patient, and it’s so positive and hands on. I felt like an equal.” “In movies there’s always big university classrooms with all these people in rows of seats attending a lecture.” Lakehead was completely the opposite. “The classes are small, professors are patient, and it’s so positive and hands on. I felt like an equal.” She and her husband Ian are originally from Bolton. While studying at Lakehead, a job opened up and she convinced him that they should move to Orillia. “Then I got a job at a restaurant and slowly started making connections,” she says. She used to laugh at friends going to school in Toronto. “They’re battling subways and buses and traffic to get to class and here I am rollerblading along the trail every day to Lakehead. It’s a whole different experience. I fell in love with Orillia, the downtown is so much fun – there’s kayaking, fishing, swimming. I convinced my husband to stay forever. Lakehead truly brought me up to this area.” Her goal when registering was simple: to earn a degree and graduate.
And that Lakehead University experience changed her life. She went from quiet and timid to someone comfortable speaking her mind. “When I started building my confidence at Lakehead and reflecting more about who I was as a person, I began analyzing the world around me. That was tough. It got me thinking about things I’d never thought of before.” Sarah says her university education gave her the confidence to open Era 67, the restaurant she and Ian owned and managed until selling it in 2016. Her education also helped her run a successful campaign to become a councillor for the City of Orillia – Lakehead political science student Mason Ainsworth was also elected to council – and to own and manage the R’ Cottage restaurant in Washago, which Sarah and Ian purchased three years ago. “I was a completely different person before going to university. When I found my voice at Lakehead it was like ‘hear me roar, I can do this,’ ” she says.