41139379•03/25/14
beyond the ballot
robertdumanowski By SCOTT SCHMIDT he knows what he wants to do. I
Sitting at his desk in the principal’s office at St. Francis School, Dumanowski can vividly recall a conversation he’d had years earlier in the same room with the then principal and superintendent.
“'Have you ever thought about going into administrative leadership,’ they asked. I had just been elected (2001) and I said, ‘yeah, actually I have.’”
Dumanowski looks back on that moment more than a dozen years ago as a turning point in one major aspect of his life. He actually left that conversation with the impression that he
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t shouldn’t come as much surprise that Robert Dumanowski is entering his fifth term on Medicine Hat’s city council despite being barely 43 years old, since he has never been one to wait around once
would have to teach for several years, decades even, before reaching his goal to be a principal in Medicine Hat’s Catholic School Division.
But the spark was ignited and the newly elected city alderman was not going to let his youth or seeming lack of experience get in his way.
He took the vice principal job at Mother Teresa School less than a year later. One year after that, he was principal of what is now École St. Thomas d’Aquin. He’s never looked back.
As focused as he became in his work, the near life-long Hatter didn’t always want to teach, or lead a school, or even be a politician. Born in 1971 in Oyen, Alta., with an identical twin brother, to a large family, the Dumanowskis moved to the River Flats community in 1972.
“My parents immigrated from Poland with my two older sisters, so I’m a first- generation Canadian,” Dumanowski says, now a father of four himself. “There were eight kids in my family; two were born in Poland, five in Oyen and then one here in Medicine Hat.
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16 2014 REPORT ON SOUTHEAST ALBERTA
lock your front door, you didn’t lock your vehicle, you could stay out late at night.”
A young Dumanowski began school in the Catholic division where he still works today, attending St. Louis School (now CAPE), St. Mary’s junior high and then McCoy High School, not 100 metres from his office at St. Francis.
But when he was in high school all he thought about was getting out of school so he could get a job. Any job. The ‘what’ wasn’t near as important as the resulting paycheque.
“My parents worked really hard and were incredible role models as far as what it meant to work, not only to survive but to raise a family,” he says. “So I just wanted to get a job. But then towards the end of the (senior) semester I realized everyone was getting ready to go to college.”
He simply thought it would be interesting to try as well, so he applied and was accepted into a computer and drafting technology program, which he lasted most of a year into before dropping out.
“I just decided, again, that I was going to get a job.”
But that summer he had what he adamantly refers to as an “epiphany,” where he realized to himself that “I am meant to do something more than this.”
From that moment on Dumanowski has been full speed ahead towards doing just that. He realized early in his teaching career that he wanted to be a principal, so he put his head down and got to where he wanted.
He knew in grade school he was at least a little interested in politics and so when he realized before he hit 30 he could give back to the community through more than just educating children, he went after it the only way he knows how.
Sure he was young and was told he’d
probably need to run once or twice and fail before getting in, but that didn’t stop him from giving it the ol’ Dumanowski try.
“I went in to win it,” he says. “I campaigned hard and I showed people how badly I wanted it.”
The odds were against him beyond his youth, as 36 candidates ran for the eight available spots in council chambers. But, as usual, what would be the harm in trying his best?
“I wanted to do something to give back to the community that has blessed me so much and provided me with every opportunity,” Dumanowski says. “Public service and leadership were calling me and, as weird as it sounds, I had another epiphany.
“That day I knew I had the courage to run and I literally called the media release for the next day.”
He finished third.
Four terms and a fifth successful election later and Dumanowski is a savvy veteran on a very diverse council, including a first-term mayor and a mixture of incumbents, returnees and rookies. Each term has brought more responsibility his way and Mayor Ted Clugston has appointed him chair of some important city committees for the upcoming term.
As always, Dumanowski relishes in the added workload.
“I’m honoured to have been re-elected for another term and I am as excited as ever about being a leader in Medicine Hat. I have a belief system that supports what I’m trying to do here and I have a strong sense of belief in this community.”
And what Dumanowski believes to be possible never seems too long from fruition. ■
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