Gerry Peppler was a mainstay on CTV Yorkton’s Shamrock Station for 32 years, but her years of volunteering have had a lasting effect on the community for decades.
Starting in January 1960 at Yorkton Television, he hosted the morning show on the Shamrock airwaves for 27 years. Peppler was also in charge of the station’s programming from 1971 until she retired in 1992.
Peppler had a good name in Yorkton because of how close she was to the community and how much she cared about it. For people like the current mayor, Mitch Hippsley, who was a young photographer when he was on her show in 1987.
He told CTV News on Thursday, “You’re nervous as hell, but she had the ability to make you feel at ease right away.”
She said that someone like Randy Goulden, who has been a Yorkton city councillor for a long time and is very involved in the community, would know more about your community event than the person who put it on.
She also helped Goulden when she started doing volunteer work in the community.
“She was a great role model because she was a woman ahead of her time. She was, for sure. She was a program manager at a time when program managers in Canada and the rest of North America were all men. She was also a wife, a farm wife, and a mother, and she still managed to do all of this, Goulden said.
One of the many awards she got for volunteering in the community was the YWCA Woman of Distinction award for her work in a rural community. In 2000, she also got the Saskatchewan Volunteer medal.
She also just got the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee medal for all the good things she has done for her community. Instead of getting the award at a ceremony like many other winners this year, Yorkton MLA Greg Ottenbreit gave it to Peppler at her bedside while she was fighting cancer.
“It was fantastic. She was still so involved, so interested, and so excited. “It was great to see her, even in the shape she was in,” he said.
Peppler worked for a long time with a few local groups that were important to her. This included 25 years with the Yorkton Housing Authority, 15 years on the Credit Union Board, Sherwin House, and Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers.
She also volunteered with Sunrise Health Region for 25 years and was on the board of the Health Foundation of East Central Saskatchewan.
Peppler died last Saturday after a short fight against cancer. She had lived for 89 years.
The obituary for Peppler said, “We would like everyone to take a page from Gerry’s life story and think about how they can make a difference in their community.”
