1976 Fredericton Convocation
Curtis, Kenneth Merwin
Doctor of Laws (LL.D.)
Orator: Condon, Thomas J.
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Image Caption
L to R: Sir Max Aitken, Kenneth Merwin Curtis
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Source: Joe Stone fonds-UA RG340, 1976 (#12555A)
Citation:
CONVOCATION, OCTOBER, 1976
KENNETH MERWIN CURTIS
to be Doctor of Laws
In this year of American bicentennial celebrations, UNB takes pleasure in honoring today a distinguished neighbour from Maine, a former Governor of that great state.
Neighbours frequently know both too much and too little about each other. Governor Curtis undoubtedly knows that the town of Castine, where he attended the Maine Maritime Academy, contributed to the founding of St. Andrews when a number of its Loyalist citizens at the war’s end took down their houses board by board, marked them and floated them across to the Passamaquoddy Bay and reassembled them there by the numbers. Many of us know that one of the rare occasions of unanimity of action between the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in the nineteenth century took place when the Nova Scotia Legislature jubilantly voted funds to support the New Brunswick militia units going to the Maine border in the War of 1812. Yet on both sides of the border we know too little of such problems as poverty, high unemployment rates, limited opportunities for the young that affect us as a poor province in a Confederation of plenty and you as a poor state in a land of abundance, whipsawed as we both are by cycles of inflation and recession. In setting about solutions for our own problems we have much to learn from each other, for some solutions, as you, sir, have so eloquently argued, may require regional arrangements that transcend provincial or state boundaries and even national boundaries.
From a one-room school house in Curtis Corner to the State House in Augusta at age of 36 suggests in broad outline the measure of the man before us. He brought with him to Augusta high ideals of public service and a burning desire to do something for his fellow citizens. While he produced no colossal economic miracle, certainly this gets increasingly impossible in modern times, he did inspire confidence and hope and these in the long run may be more enduring and transforming as young people increasingly choose Maine for their future rather than an escape. In doing this, history may note with interest he was at one with that youthful, enthusiastic and dedicated trio of Maritime Premiers -- Campbell, Hatfield, and Reagan -- with whose views he often found himself in agreement as Governor. It seems likely that we shall hear more from him in the years that lie ahead.
From: Honoris Causa - UA Case 70, Box 2
KENNETH MERWIN CURTIS
to be Doctor of Laws
In this year of American bicentennial celebrations, UNB takes pleasure in honoring today a distinguished neighbour from Maine, a former Governor of that great state.
Neighbours frequently know both too much and too little about each other. Governor Curtis undoubtedly knows that the town of Castine, where he attended the Maine Maritime Academy, contributed to the founding of St. Andrews when a number of its Loyalist citizens at the war’s end took down their houses board by board, marked them and floated them across to the Passamaquoddy Bay and reassembled them there by the numbers. Many of us know that one of the rare occasions of unanimity of action between the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in the nineteenth century took place when the Nova Scotia Legislature jubilantly voted funds to support the New Brunswick militia units going to the Maine border in the War of 1812. Yet on both sides of the border we know too little of such problems as poverty, high unemployment rates, limited opportunities for the young that affect us as a poor province in a Confederation of plenty and you as a poor state in a land of abundance, whipsawed as we both are by cycles of inflation and recession. In setting about solutions for our own problems we have much to learn from each other, for some solutions, as you, sir, have so eloquently argued, may require regional arrangements that transcend provincial or state boundaries and even national boundaries.
From a one-room school house in Curtis Corner to the State House in Augusta at age of 36 suggests in broad outline the measure of the man before us. He brought with him to Augusta high ideals of public service and a burning desire to do something for his fellow citizens. While he produced no colossal economic miracle, certainly this gets increasingly impossible in modern times, he did inspire confidence and hope and these in the long run may be more enduring and transforming as young people increasingly choose Maine for their future rather than an escape. In doing this, history may note with interest he was at one with that youthful, enthusiastic and dedicated trio of Maritime Premiers -- Campbell, Hatfield, and Reagan -- with whose views he often found himself in agreement as Governor. It seems likely that we shall hear more from him in the years that lie ahead.
From: Honoris Causa - UA Case 70, Box 2
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