When he wasn't competing in sports or working on his family farm, Pedersen loved drumming. He took extra lessons to improve his technique and eventually went on the road for a few years as a touring drummer playing mainly country-rock. Pedersen looks back fondly on that time, and still possesses the look that some rock drummers get — svelte, lean and hungry. After touring with hometown bands, the Rangers and Rythmaires, for a few years, Pedersen headed out to B.C. for a four month gig touring with an alt-country band, but it didn't work out as a career.
Blake Pedersen
Sheer determination finds former rocker sitting in the Legislature
By TIM KALINOWSKI
Probably no one can imagine a more unlikely path to political power than the one Medicine Hat MLA Blake Pedersen took to get there. As the newly elected Wildrose Alliance MLA for Medicine Hat, Pedersen can hardly believe it himself. He says he went into the 2012 election not expecting to win, but rather to make himself familiar to voters for a more serious run in 2016.
“It's a huge shock. When my decision was made to go forward with this Ed Stelmach was still premier and he was running one of the biggest majorities in Alberta history. Medicine Hat incumbent Rob Renner was in his 18th year, and running again as far as I knew at the time. The PCs were polling at about 43 per cent popularity and the Wildrose was at 22 per cent.”
When Renner opted not to run, Pedersen suddenly found new wind under his sails, but still lacked the
volunteers and donations for a more extensive campaign. Faced with long odds, but bolstered by the moral support of his partner Angela Kolody, Pedersen did what he always does — put his head down and dug a little deeper.
Pedersen spent 12-hour days knocking on doors and talking to voters. He wore out two pairs of shoes and lost 10 lbs. during the 2012 election. It was a marathon of endurance fueled by sheer will. But, then again, sheer will and endurance were two things Pedersen learned about early on.
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Pedersen grew up near Gull Lake, Sask., where he was a dedicated athlete competing at the provincial level in various sports. He also enjoyed several years of competitive powerlifting even though he was “135 lbs. soaking wet” at the time.
“We had a dungeon gym below the convenience store. It was one of those Guts gyms. It was all free- weights... There's three parts to it: There's the squat, the bench-press and the dead-lift. I was good in two out of three. My bench-press wasn't good — I had bad shoulders — but had good strength in squatting and dead-lifting. Me and a couple of buddies became very dedicated to that. Sometimes you'd go down to the dungeon and do a three-hour workout: Do what you thought was good for you. Looking back the best thing wasn't a three-hour workout,” jokes Pedersen.
“I was trying to break into the country- rock scene; it was back in the day when country-rock was starting to really make a dent in the industry. The timing was right, but I just didn't connect with the right people out there.”
Pedersen eventually returned to Gull Lake and got into the oil and gas supply business.
He moved around a lot following the work, and that brought him to Medicine Hat in 1994. In 1999 he started his own
oilfield supply company, and continued in that capacity until he got involved with politics. He says politics always fascinated him, and he had thought about running for office before.
“I've always been interested in poIitics. I had 27 years in the oil and gas supply industry. So at some point in time you look back at what you've done, and at some point in time you have to decide if you're going to continue in this path, or maybe try to do something else.”
Pedersen made the decision to stand for election because of his disenchantment with the PC government. He had voted Alliance in the 2008 election, and in 2011 was approached by Cypress- Medicine Hat Wildrose candidate Drew Barnes who asked Pedersen to volunteer for his campaign. After attending the Wildrose AGM in early 2012, Pedersen liked what he was hearing and decided to run as a candidate.
“As I went through the process, and was acclaimed as candidate — then you start to work and you start door-knocking. And then you start to realize this is going to be a tough battle because people were actually engaged at the doors. When you start going up to strangers' doors they know it's either politics or religion, and those are two kinds of subjects that are normally hard to broach. There was a mood for discussion. To me that was an indicator to say that, You know what? Most people are actually paying attention to this election.”
Pedersen says the thing which surprised him most was that Medicine Hat voters did not seem to care about big issues, but rather wanted to talk about
OUR COMMUNITIES ■ OUR REGION ■ OUR PEOPLE | 41
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