Lights, camera … auction!
Up for bids are assorted items collected by yours truly and passed along to the Saskatchewan Roughrider Foundation to assist its many laudable initiatives.
It could also be called the Helen Vanstone Collection.
After Mom died on Dec. 11, 2019, I was tasked with cleaning out her condominium. It was a sad process overall, as you can imagine, but Mom still found ways to make me smile.
I knew she coveted and owned sundry Roughriders-related treasures, but the extent of her collection did not become clear until I began to sift through everything in her spare bedroom, on her shelves and in her filing cabinet.
Mom must have led the world in souvenirs from Roughriders dinners of yesteryear. Over the years, the team’s patrons received clocks, plates, mirrors, etc.
The takeaway from the 25th-anniversary dinner, held in 1977, was a portrait of legendary quarterbacks Ron Lancaster and Glenn Dobbs.
Dobbs, a Roughriders superstar from 1951 to 1953, attended the dinner. According to the Regina Leader-Post, the $200-a-plate football feast generated about $110,000 (roughly $600,000 in today’s dollars) for the community-owned team.
CONFESSION: Mom didn’t actually attend the dinner, but nonetheless had multiple Lancaster/Dobbs portraits in her collection. Where did she acquire them? Garage sales and flea markets, I presume, because she loved the art of the small-scale deal.
Some of the other items were, as advertised, in my collection — mainly because of donations from readers who wanted to help a charitable venture.
All the goodies ended up on the desk of Amanda Delparte — the Foundation’s Events and Development Co-ordinator.
Amanda, Cindy Fuchs (Executive Director), Tyler Lloyd (Director, Development), Marnie Forsberg (Project Administration Co-ordinator), Nathaniel Cruz (Marketing Content Creator), Caleb Blundell (Operations and Events Co-ordinator), Noah Pelletier (Community Program Co-ordinator) and Sandra Berkan (School Presentation Scheduler) work inexhaustibly to help the Foundation benefit the province and its citizens in innumerable ways.
The Foundation’s three pillars are education, health and amateur football.
Along those lines, the Foundation has established programs that promote mental health (Win With Wellness) and literacy (Rider Reading).
Rider Reading would have resonated with Mom and Dad. They ensured that I was a voracious reader.
Growing up, I had an unlimited reading budget. Everything stopped if I wanted to visit a bookstore or the Regina Public Library.
I cannot imagine how much money they spent to ensure I was up to date on football books and magazines.
Naturally, the list of auction items includes an assortment of Roughriders-related books.
My favourite newspaper — the Leader-Post — produced some of the other printed material. Editions of the L-P that document the 1989, 2007 and 2013 Grey Cup victories are available.
And there’s more!
• Four photos signed by George Reed.
• A drawing of Don Narcisse.
• Framed tributes to the 1966, 1989 and 2007 champions.
• Pins, pins, pins.
• An autographed Roughriders football.
• Sweaters honouring the 1989 championship team.
• Programs from the Toronto Blue Jays’ visits to Taylor Field (1989, 1993).
The list goes on — and so does the auction … until it closes Tuesday at 2 p.m.
