Sig Sigvaldason - 2012 Bill Draayer Award

(Awarded in 2012, the presentation was not able to take place until May 2016. It was held at the Annual AGM and presentation was made by 2012 President George Brown)

The Bill Draayer Award is presented to a member who has made an outstanding contribution to the progress and development of the Association. You can’t really call tonight’s recipient this year’s recipient though because he was actually supposed to receive the award in 2012. 

So, what can you say about Sig Sigvaldason that he wouldn’t take two or three hours to tell you himself in a hospitality suite?  

Sig is the Wise Old Owl of the AWNA — and not just because he looks like one with those wispy eyebrows.

Sig has been a go-to guy for many AWNA committee chairs over the years. Sig had his own advertising agency back in the day, so with that experience he was a great source of ideas for the AWNA’s ad committee and in the formation of AdWest.

Sig has never been shy about giving his advice to AWNA directors at an AGM or cornered in an elevator.

Sig worked with Mary Readman for many years on the Write On committee, involving school children in our program that promoted literacy through the creation of classified ads, editorials and stories.

The Klingons have a saying: “Only Nixon could go to China.” Well, only Sig could demand that the AWNA board admit his northern newspapers as members and make it sound like he was doing them a favour.

Sig has been honoured by just about every group that would take him as a member. As a pioneering, crusading journalist, he has earned the Canadian Journalism Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the ISWNE Eugene Cervi Award and as you’ve seen this weekend, his papers are consistently among the best in the AWNA, SWNA, and CCNA better newspapers competitions.

Tonight, finally, we add the Bill Draayer Award to that list of achievements.

Please join me in congratulating Sig Sigvaldason as our Bill Draayer Award recipient.