Gerry Heath, '43 BSc (Ag), cut the ALES Centennial cake onstage during the opening ceremony to celebrate the faculty's first century in 2015. Heath was the oldest ALES alumnus. He died last month, three days shy of his 99th birthday.
The oldest alumnus in the Faculty of ALES, a person instrumental in getting hundreds of Alberta farms hooked up to electricity, died just three days short of his 99th birthday.
Gerald Heath, '43 BSc (Ag), made his professional mark during a long career with the Alberta government in the Rural Electrification, Cooperatives and Credit Union Branch. Part of his job was to help farmers navigate the regulations and understand their options so they could get power to their properties from the main line. Another part of his job was helping them get the loans to do so.
Very few farms in rural Alberta had electricity in the 1950s, said Heath's friend Jack Francis, the longtime animal technician who is now curator of the ALES Agricultural Museum.
"The agriculture department of the province encouraged farmers to form co-ops of two or more, to cut down on expenses," explained Francis.
With several farmers sharing the bill, they were able to pay for main electrical lines to be strung around multiple farms.
But someone had to explain the ins and outs and so Heath drove the length and breadth of the province, translating government policy into layman's language.
"He was on the go lots of evenings, meeting with farmers, and he'd also be at conventions, sizing up the machinery, knowing a little bit about it in case it came up at meetings," said Francis. "He did a lot of investigations."
Heath was also charged with duties to prevent fraud, such as checking the bags of alfalfa seed being sold to farmers' co-ops so they weren't laced with sand, and closing co-ops that didn't adhere to the rules.
His passionate belief in the philosophy of member-owned co-ops was forged soon after he graduated from the U of A, in the midst of the Second World War.
"He had joined an Officers Training Program but his hay fever prevented him from serving," said his daughter, Sandra. Francis thinks he might also have been exempted, just as numerous sons of farmers were, because he was well-versed in agriculture "and we were feeding Europe."
Heath took a job in Winnipeg at a seed company, where he lived in a co-op house. One of his roommates was John Bowland, an animal science student and future dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry who remained a lifelong friend.
"He believed if you were a group of people you had better negotiating power," said his son, Bob, who added that his father always supported Alberta's Co-Op grocery stores and always banked at a credit union.
Francis said that Heath was also involved in helping establish the only taxi company he ever used, the Edmonton Co-Op Taxi.
As a long-lived alumnus, Heath was an enthusiastic regular at ALES alumni events for decades. He loved attending the annual homecoming weekend and dean's breakfast, and at last year's ALES 100 centennial celebrations, he was the honoured on-stage guest who cut the cake at the opening ceremonies.
"He was always proud of the fact that he'd gone to university," said Sandra.
Heath enrolled in the Faculty of Agriculture at age 23, after a graduating from Alberta College's commercial school. His interest in the field had been piqued much earlier, however.
"He was enticed by the farm that was just outside his front door when he was growing up," said Francis, who explained that the Heaths lived on the eastern edge of the first university farm, situated at 114th Street and 84th Avenue, now the site of the Stollery Children's Hospital.
Heath's romantized notions of being a farmer were dashed early, said Francis, when he and two partners ran an unprofitable turkey operation in Tofield, prior to his taking his job with the government.
But as a side business, he and his wife raised chinchillas in their basement and garage for about a decade. The communication skills he put to good use explaining co-ops also came into play when he convinced managers of Edmonton's brand-new Jubilee Auditorium to welcome scores of the animals into the building for Canada's first national breeders convention in 1958.
Gerald Heath died on June 2, 2016, predeceased by his wife Lorna, '49 BSc (Nursing), three months earlier. He is survived by his children Sandra, '71 BA, Jim and his wife Barb, Bob, '78 BSc, two grandchildren and twin great-grandsons.