A whole bunch gathered Friday for Ron ‘Buck Shot’ Barge’s funeral, remembering a decades-long lifetime of entertaining younger audiences on TV
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Ron (Buck Shot) Barge’s household bid a last farewell to the Calgary kids’s TV legend’s on Friday.
The Calgary icon graced tv screens via 4 a long time as a youngsters’ TV persona, turning into one thing of a well-known public determine southern Albertans fondly bear in mind to today. It was on show at Friday’s service as rows of household, buddies and admirers gathered on the memorial service in northeast Calgary.
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Barge died Aug. 17, solely 10 days shy of his 88th birthday.
Nicely over 100 folks confirmed as much as Centre Avenue Church sporting Calgary Flames jerseys, on the request of the household. A number of of these jerseys donned the No. 13 worn by Johnny Gaudreau, one other Calgary hero who just lately died on the age of 31 and whom Barge, a passionate lifelong Flames fan, undoubtedly marvelled at throughout the younger star’s time in Cowtown.
The service was full of people that would’ve watched Buck Shot and Benny of their youth wherever from 1967 to 1997; a number of of the folks within the crowd even appeared on his present in some unspecified time in the future over these 30 years.
“What you noticed on TV was what we noticed at dwelling,” Barge’s son, Ken, stated earlier than Friday’s service.
On the stage sat an accordion, a guitar, Benny the Bear, a Flames jersey and a basic western outfit. A display displayed images of Barge on TV, in embellished, undersized hat and with Benny the Bear.
For a lot of youngsters of their youth, Barge was an unforgettable mainstay for native kids’s tv, a program with skits, tune and puppets. His program would change into the longest-running kids’s TV present in Canadian historical past by the point it ended within the late ’90s.
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For his 4 kids, though he was the oft-recognized face on Calgary streets and well-known — not less than by Canadian requirements — he was recognized to them as daddy, a passionate man who cherished his spouse, household, buddies and music.
Barge was somebody who cherished and expressed it, even in his final months, household and buddies stated Friday.
“A number of days earlier than he handed, and I’m washing the home windows at my mother’s home, I’m cleansing the home windows, and he says, ‘Brenda.’ ‘What, Dad?’ ‘You’re so stunning,’ ” his daughter, Brenda Barge, stated, standing beside her brother, Ken, the 2 holding palms earlier than heading into the service.
It was a singular upbringing having a father who didn’t put on a swimsuit and tie to work, and as an alternative performed songs and carried round a puppet for a residing, Brenda stated.
“Typically it was like, you’re a young person and also you simply wish to be not particular, you wish to be simply in with the group, however I used to be all the time actually happy with my dad.”
However that ingredient of play that was so intrinsic to Barge’s TV presence was no totally different at dwelling, stated Ken Barge, Ron’s lone son together with three sisters. “All he did was play. He had a ardour for doing stuff and making folks joyful, and that’s what he did,” Ken stated.
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Friday’s service included eulogies from a longtime buddy and musician, TV broadcasters Linda Olsen and Jimmy Hughes, his brother Myron and niece Vicky, and his 4 kids, Ken, Angie, Brenda and Cindy.
Barge was remembered as a jokester with a singular sense of humour — the sort of one who used his wit, seemingly a product of years of improv, to his benefit.
“That is his humour: What’s the definition of an ideal pitch? Definition of an ideal pitch is while you throw the accordion within the dumpster and it hits a set of bagpipes,” stated Lloyd Kunkle, an previous buddy and fellow musician. They, with a gaggle of different musicians, travelled and performed music collectively throughout Alberta for a number of a long time. “That’s his.”
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Amongst his most memorable traits was his love for his spouse, Shirley. Kunkle described a Barge who solely referred to his spouse as “my Shirley.”
Friday’s service was emblematic of Barge’s life: music, household, buddies, humour, tales and the Calgary Flames. The procession of relations was soundtracked by Buck Shot & Benny the Bear, and had a mid-service efficiency of Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water.
“He’d love this,” Ken Barge stated.
“I believe in our coronary heart of hearts, if we didn’t have to do that for him, it wouldn’t be this huge. However he was a showman. He was an entertainer. You simply need him to have this pleasure in his final hurrah.”
mscace@postmedia.com
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