Member News: Former publisher of the St. Paul Journal passes away
Lucien (Leo) Henri Drouin
The following ran in the St. Paul Journal
Former St. Paul Journal editor and publisher (Leo) L.H. Drouin died Saturday at the age of 89 years. He purchased the St. Paul Journal in 1949 from the Larue family and for more than 35 years dedicated his life to bringing the news of the community and area to St. Paul Journal readers.
“We always used to say he was a ‘bon vivant’ – he loved life and that described him pretty well,” longtime friend Conrad Richard said. “He worked hard, he played hard and he always had a good time.”
In the early days, like so many community newspaper publishers of his time, Drouin did it all – from selling advertising to writing news stories and taking pictures to setting type. “He really put his heart into it,” Richard said.
Justice Rene Foisy came to know Drouin in the late 1950s when Drouin was volunteering as manager for the St. Paul Hornets hockey team and talked Foisy, a law student in Edmonton, to play for the team for $10 a game. Over the years, the friendship grew and the two shared many a golf game and hunting expedition.
“From a personal point of view, he was a very good friend. We used to say he was a little shrewd but very generous. From a business sense, he had a tremendous love for the town and did the greatest job possible for the newspaper and print shop,” Foisy said. “He was a dedicated servant of the people of St. Paul and area.”
Drouin was one of St. Paul’s greatest promoters. In 1981, he was among a delegation of four local men who travelled to India to meet with Mother Teresa to discuss the St. Paul Mother Teresa House Project, which raised $925,000 in support of her work. The group was rewarded for its efforts when, in June of 1982, Mother Teresa visited St. Paul.
“I’ve always regarded Lucien as a real booster of St. Paul,” said Paul Chamberland, former principal of St. Paul Regional High School, who travelled to India with Drouin. “He had a way of putting things together and he always tried to be positive about the town. He was very supportive of what we did with the Mother Teresa Project and he was also personally very much involved with it. As an individual, Lucien was very dynamic.”
In 1984, Drouin chaired St. Paul’s 75th anniversary committee and led in the re-enactment in Edmonton of the April 10, 1909 filing of homesteads in the St. Paul area.
Vicki Brooker, editor of the Elk Point Review, remembered Drouin for giving her a start in the newspaper business.
“I am proud to have had L.H. as a mentor and forever thankful he gave me, with no newspaper experience beyond a junior high school paper, the opportunity to reach my news writing potential. My favourite memory is of him saying, ‘I’m going to buy you your own paper.’ That was at the end of 1983 and I’ve been with the Elk Point Review as reporter and editor since it became part of the Journal family in 1984.
Over the years, Drouin was actively involved in the newspaper industry at a provincial level, serving as president of the Alberta Weekly Newspaper Association from 1967-1968.
Drouin was remembered at a memorial service Thursday, June 18, at 11 a.m. at Yewchin’s Funeral Chapel.