the ballot


some success, which he still enjoys today even if on a smaller scale thanks to his work at City Hall.


In 1997, Clugston met his wife Nita, a native of Denmark, whose own personal journey is an amazing story unto itself. Born to Danish parents later on in life, who had moved back to Denmark after moving to and raising a family in Canada, Nita had never been in this country when she was first brought to B.C.


“Her parents had three daughters in Canada but moved back to Denmark when they retired,” Clugston says. “That’s when they had Nita. So she had three sisters who were Canadian, over here starting their own families.”


Nita’s parents were getting on in years and wanted to get the family back together so they moved Nita to White Rock, B.C. Unfortunately her father passed away soon after they arrived and Nita remained living with her mother in an apartment.


Still unable to even speak the language and certainly unaware of Canada’s cultural and societal norms, Nita was already missing home when a man decided to randomly douse her White Rock condo building in gasoline and set it on fire while she and her mother slept.


“At 2 o’clock in the morning, he decided to disable all the fire alarms, locked the door, went to the roof with a can of gas and went through the entire building, and lit it on fire,” Clugston says. “By the grace of God, my wife was pulled unconscious by the fire department out of the third or fourth floor.”


She and her mother were safe but had literally lost everything. Not wanting to stay there anymore, Nita and her mother got in her car and drove east until they could no longer stay awake.


That was Medicine Hat.


It turned out to be the best possible place to get tired because she found a job, met her husband, and within a few months the two were engaged to be married. The couple was married in 1998 and has since added a pair of sons to their family.


It wasn’t until several years later that Clugston decided to enter into politics, though he had been interested in the landscape for most of his life. One of


the reasons Clugston’s father was so passionate about politics was because he really did care a lot about it.


Politics didn’t bother him so much as the people who get into it.


“We grew up talking politics around the table, we just didn’t have much respect for politicians,” Clugston jokes. “I would not be in politics right now if my dad was still alive.”


But several years ago a business venture-gone-wrong between the City and a relative of Clugston’s stirred up some motivation for him to get involved. In the terms leading up to Clugston running for alderman in 2007, he simply didn’t like what he saw from the City when it came to business, or promoting it within Medicine Hat.


In the six years he sat on council before running for mayor, the City vastly altered how it deals with business owners and he is proud to say it has not had a lawsuit against it from citizens or business owners in that time.


“That’s unheard of,” he says. “It used to be common practise. But when your citizens are suing you, something has gone terribly wrong.”


tedclugston


Clugston’s motivation to lead Medicine Hat comes from his father’s original decision to move here. He saw an advantage to living in the Gas City and his oldest son’s goal as mayor is to keep that advantage going.


He had just two terms as alderman before making the jump to mayor, but his second term — 2010-2013 — saw him take on major responsibilities. He says in that time he learned to listen to what people have to say and to realize he won’t always have all the answers.


His father taught him to be a humble politician, even if he never would have approved of the career to begin with. His wife has taught him if things aren’t right, to do something to change the situation.


And he hopes to teach Hatters that choosing the first sitting alderman as mayor since 1973 is a decision they will never regret. ■


The Clugston family: Ted, Kyle, Aston and Nita our communities ❚ our region ❚ our people 13


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