“I decided to run for council,” says Friesen, who began her first term in 1989 and, with a couple of breaks in between, has now entered her seventh term. Her first break, after her first term, was actually forced as she was unsuccessful in her second election. But Friesen felt she had more to give and willed herself back into the race six years later.
“I was still really interested in it and I felt that with my immense community background that I had something to offer.”
The city agreed, reelecting her in 1998 and continuing to do so until she ran for mayor in 2010. As a member of Medicine Hat City Council, Friesen has both sat on, and chaired nearly every standing committee there is. She essentially knows council operations inside and out, so running for mayor was no surprise for her.
She very narrowly lost that election to former mayor Norm Boucher but was able to use the added time to concentrate on her work, both volunteer and as a community development officer with Alberta Culture, a position she’s held for the past 15 years.
Aside from not having that council vote on city law, Friesen’s work allowed her to remain quite involved in the community, so it only made sense that she come back to run again in 2013.
Being involved in the community — even if it’s on a completely jam-packed level like she is — isn’t something Friesen says she consciously thinks about. Many say they feel a sense of reward when giving back, and while that exists as well, for Friesen, community involvement is more just what you’re supposed to do.
“My father was always really involved in the community and I guess I was just taught that you live in a community, and that community is good to you, so you do what you can to help it in return. It’s a mutual partnership.
“It’s not that I force myself to do these things, I think I’m naturally interested in too many things, if you want to know the honest truth,” laughs Friesen.
In case anyone hadn’t already figured that out. ■
jamiemcintosh
“I fell in love with the community quickly,” he says. “I remember the first time coming downtown for Midnight Madness, and I was just mesmerized. ‘This is what Christmas is all about,’ I thought. ‘(Edmonton’s) downtown doesn’t have a feel like this.’”
He also loves the size of the community and the fact it has everything one needs from a city but without the big-city proportions and all the hustle and bustle that come with it.
But the downtown core really stuck with him early on, which is why McIntosh became involved in the annual Spectrum Festival, and was among the group to relocate the event back to downtown.
By SCOTT SCHMIDT J
amie McIntosh didn’t really want to come to Medicine Hat in the first place. More than a dozen years later, he couldn’t imagine leaving.
It all started in 2001 when
McIntosh was president of the Edmonton Kinsmen Club. He had grown up in the provincial capital and knew nothing else as a way of life.
However, in May that year a province- wide Kinsmen convention was taking place in the Gas City and as president of his club, McIntosh was essentially obligated to attend.
“I came down here and had never been here before in my life,” he says looking back. “In fact I didn’t even want to come; five-hour drive or whatever, but my cousin convinced me that I had to go.”
It’s funny how decisions that seem irrelevant to the ‘grand scheme’ of things can lead to life-changing moments because less than 24 hours after reluctantly coming to Medicine Hat, McIntosh met his wife Sandy.
The woman who would change McIntosh’s life was a local Kinette and was attending the same convention. He jokes now that unwritten club vows prohibited dating Kinetttes but it seems that was easily cast aside when these two met.
As a teacher in Edmonton, McIntosh had the summers off so after the final bell of the school year he promptly came back to the Hat to be with Sandy.
“I realized fairly quickly that she was someone I wanted to be with,” McIntosh says. “I ended up getting a job at Hat High, took a leave of absence from my job in Edmonton, rented out my house
and was living down here that fall. “My life totally changed.”
The couple never looked back and has been married for the past nine years.
Working as an educator since 1996, McIntosh has now been teaching in the local public school system for 12 years. He taught at Medicine Hat High School for about four years before moving over to Vincent Massey Elementary, where he is currently the science teacher.
McIntosh had stepped out of his comfort zone to teach in the high school system and was glad to get back to elementary schools, working with children just getting into the education system.
“They just provide you with this enthusiasm that I love,” he says. “They bring a pile of energy into the classroom every day; they like school, they like you. They keep me young.
“I have the ability, perhaps, to be really serious in certain areas of my life. When you’re working with kids, you can’t. If people would see me and how I operate with kids versus how I operate in other areas, they would be quite surprised.”
McIntosh loves being a science teacher. He gets to spend a solid four years with each student, teaching them how to explore the wonders of the universe. Getting children interested in the scientific world at a young age is something he takes a lot of pride in and since making Medicine Hat his home has focused that pride on the future of children in this community.
In fact, the city he didn’t want to visit became dear to him in a very short period of time. For some reason, he just felt Medicine Hat had something to offer that he’d been missing.
“I’m a pretty shy guy, not very aggressive,” McIntosh says. “So being involved with Spectrum just allowed me to meet so many people in the community I otherwise wouldn’t have met.
“It helped to create a real love for this community. I love living here.”
So much so that McIntosh eventually felt an urge to try out municipal politics. McIntosh’s father-in-law Jim Hirsch is a former city alderman and had encouraged him for a few years to follow suit.
He admits to being “terrified” to do it at first, terrified to speak on forum stages and answer questions, a fear that at least somewhat remained during the 2013 election campaign.
“All summer I was still sort of talking myself into it even though I had told people I was going to run. I had to remind myself that this is a good thing and that it was going to be OK.”
It turned out better than OK, because McIntosh won a spot on the 2013 Medicine Hat city council, regardless of being a first-time candidate, and has since been named to some of the city’s most talked-about committees and boards. Not only will McIntosh sit on the energy and audit committees, but he’s also the council representative with Medalta and, his original city passion, the City Centre Development Agency.
He wasn’t overly confident that he’d get in on the first try but now that he has, he knows he made the right call and is extremely excited to take on the responsibility. Sort of like the time he wasn’t sure about going to Medicine Hat, right before it became the best thing that
ever happened to him. ■ our communities ❚ our region ❚ our people 19
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